Mon Mar 3 Puerto Madryn Went to the beach early. Check out time is 10:30 so didn’t have much time at the beach. Checked out and went to the bank so Dale could change some money, then to a locutorio to check email. Got back to the hotel around 1:00 to get our remise, and realized that all the taxis and remises were on strike so walked the 12 blocks to the bus station with our bags. Luckily we had enough time—our bus was at 1:45, but just barely. Took the bus - they played movie after movie, all Hollywood features dubbed in Spanish, so a bit hard to process. It was a long ride, we arrived in Buenos Aires at 6:30 am the next morning. In writing about the trip I found out that Rio ... read more

Friday, Feb 29 After an all night bus ride that included beautiful views of the Andes and a stop in the “Artesanal” town of El Bolsón, http://www.elbolson.com/turismo/index.shtml, we arrived around 7:00 am in Puerto Madryn which is a beautiful little beach town of about 90,000 people. http://www.madryn.gov.ar/turismo/ http://www.patagonia.com.ar/chubut/puertomadryn/infogral.php It’s on the Atlantic coast of Argentina in Chubut province (still part of the Patagonia region), on a gulf to the south of Peninsula Valdez. Puerto Madryn is on a long flat sandy beach with warm water and very mild surf. Peninsula Valdez is very famous for the wildlife - it’s a protected area and a World Heritage Site. But more on that in another blog entry. We dropped off our bags at our hotel, the Gran Madryn, http://www.granmadryn.com/secciones/inicio.php?lang=sp then went to a confi... read more

Wed Feb 27 I woke up with a sore throat and didn’t feel like any more hikes. We worked around the house, getting our stuff organized, then took the bus out to the hotel Llao Llao, apparently the only 5 star hotel in the country if not the continent. The rooms start at $500 US/night. http://www.llaollao.com.ar/ The hotel is 25 km out of town, and we found out that it is *very* exclusive. We were walking onto the property, (past the golf course), and the guard at the gate asked us if we were meeting someone or had a reservation. We said no, but we’d like to have a cup of tea or something. He called in to the restaurant and checked if it was ok, then sent us in, meanwhile alerting the people at the ... read more

Mon, Feb 25 Dale left his debit card in an automatic teller and didn’t realize it for a couple days. When he went back to the bank to try to retrieve his card, they had destroyed it. We tried to get cash with a credit card but we couldn’t without a pin number. So now we have no way to get cash! This seems to be the trip for challenges. I’m trying to get my bank to send a debit card to me when I get back to Buenos Aires. Otherwise, I’m not sure what we’ll do! I also spent nearly two hours on the phone with my credit card company and never did get to speak to anyone who could help me. I’m still trying to resolve the charges that were fraudulently made with my ... read more

Sat Feb 23 We got up early and met Carol and Bill at the travel agency for an excursion to Isla Victoria and the Arrayanes Forest. It was a wonderful day trip. We took a bus the 25 km to Puerto Pañuelo and then took a catamaran out to see the forest. This website describes the catamaran “CauCau” that we rode in as well as the parks. http://www.islavictoriayarrayanes.com/ The Arrayanes forest is located inside of Lago Nahuel Huapi national park but it is also a second national park in its own right. It is a forest of very old trees that have grown much larger than they grow anywhere else in the world. These trees are also called Chilean Myrtle and they remind me a lot of the Madrona (Arbutus) trees that we have in Seattle. ... read more