Patagonia: The Wildlife and the Welsh

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Day 153: I am not longer a fan of Argentinian Politics. Even if they do paint their Government Buildings Pink.

When everyone started stirring again on the bus, the atmosphere was thankfully a little more (dare I say it) jovial than it had been the night before. And after coffee and alfajores (which I normally avoid like the plague, since they contain dulce de leche, but given that food was limited, and we couldn't be sure how long we'd be stuck there, I decided to take what I can get), moods lifted a little more, as everyone left the bus for a walk around in the crisp fresh air of the Argentian countryside, which had now been divided by scores of lorries, blocking both lanes of the carriageway. Even the drivers seemed to be in relatively good spirits, and once I had my camera out, they insisted that I took a photo of them in the queue of traffic

Back on board the bus, we watched another film, and at ten o'clock, excitement spread through the bus, as it was rumoured that the lorries ahead were starting to move. It took another hour before we finally started to inch forwards, but by midday, it felt like we were finally making progress, and soon after, we were out on the highways once more. Hurrah! The rest of the journey continued, slowly and painfully. In keeping with a national obsession, lunch again consisted of the delightful combination of a ham and cheese roll and a ham and cheese sandwich (luckily I still had two croissants). With bingo off the cards, the day was spent watching three very random and not so cheery films, two about war, one about an assassin. I also managed to make some headway with my book - I'm reading Paulo Coelho's 'Alchemist', and in spanish, with a dictionary at the ready, it's proving rather slow going! Time passed, the sun set, and all out of ham and cheese sandwiches (as a variation on cheese and ham), the journey continued with two alfajores being served in place of dinner.

Now I think about it, I could probably have gone from Brighton to Auckland door to door in the time it took for me to travel halfway down the Argentinian coast (well perhaps not with British Airways, and certainly not from terminal five...), nevertheless the bus finally pulled into Puerto Madryn in the early hours of the morning. The bus station was closed, and there weren't too many people around, but thankfully, the taxi office opposite the station was manned, and I managed to get a car to the hostel. Absolutely shattered, I checked into my dorm, and after a much needed wash, collapsed into bed.


Day 154: Puerto Madryn, about bloody time

After a blissfully late start, a hot shower and three cups of coffee, I felt almost normal and ready to face the day ahead; not that there was much to ´face´, since I didn´t really have too many plans. The day started with an aimless wander about town, which all in all was rather pleasant, and much warmer than I´d anticipated, with lots of bikini-clad folk heading down to the beach to make the most of the sun. I went for a walk along the beach and down to the end of the pier (concrete and not nearly so much fun as the one in Brighton), before getting some lunch and setting off along the coastal path a little way out of town. The walk was very pleasant and followed an incline out to a headland with great views over the town, sea and beach. It was rather windy and there were plenty of people out in the bay windsurfing or kitesurfing. From the headland, it was a little way down to the beach, where the remains of the first shelters of the early welsh settlements were cordoned off. With only the foundations really visible, they weren't so exciting, but they were so close to the beach and sea that it's a wonder they survived at all.

Next stop a little further along the coast was 'Ecocentro', a really interesting and modern museum exploring the marine life of the local area and Peninsula Valdes. As well as a sound room where you could hear the noises made by different species of whale, there was a photo gallery, a dark room featuring displays and films of creatures from the deepest part of the ocean, and various other informative exhibits besides. Fortunately most of the exhibits had English translations, otherwise I don't think I'd have come away with nearly so many not-very-useful facts, such as: the female elephant seal usually only spends 19 days per year not pregnant, and will lose 9kg per day when feeding pups (while they gain 4kg per day). Anyways, enough of that, but it was well worth the trip.

From Ecocentro, I walked back into town along the coastal path, and with the sun getting lower in the sky, it was actually pleasantly cool in the galeforce winds. I stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some supplies before heading back to the hostel to cook dinner, meet some of the folk staying there (a healthy mix of Argentinians and non-nationals), and get an earlyish night.


Day 155: The Peninsula Valdes

After a painfully early start, I was picked up by the tourist shuttle bus doing a tour of the Peninsula Valdes. It was an hour's drive to the start of the peninsula, where we stopped for a quick look around the museum containing various wildlife exhibits including a whale skeleton, before continuing on to Puerto Pyramides, where five of us from the bus took a boat trip, getting up close to a whole load of sea lions, cormorants and a token (probably lost) baby penguin. Having spent two hours on the rough and windy seas, it was quite a relief to get back to dry land and back on the bus, which was all ready to goto the next stop, a couple of seal colonies further up the coast. The seals were pretty much all lying out on the beach basking in the sun, but although cute, they weren't doing anything too entertaining. A little further along the coast, and penguins were next on the itinery, as we visited a huge flock of them (if flock's the right word), lining the shore. Some of them were right up on the coastal path and were nesting very close by. Just as cute as the ones in Australia (I think it's the way they walk), I'm definitely a fan of penguins and am still tempted to get a baby one as a pet.

Almost completing our circuit of the peninsula, our final port of call was home to two more sealion colonies, and we were told that there was a significant possility of seeing orcas there as well (frequently sighted feeding on the sea lions). Unfortunately the orcas had apparently had a good feed the day before and were nowhere to be seen, so we just had to be content with watching the two month old sealion cubs playing on the shore, whilst the adults took it in turns to lie in the sun, or go off fishing.

From the final stop, it was a two hour drive back to Puerto Madryn, where I was quite pleased that I had my dinner all prepared for me in the fridge (the remains of last night's pasta and veg, when I somehow managed to cook enough to feed a hungry family of four).


Day 156: A little bit of Wales in darkest Patagonia.

What with it being a Monday morning, and having been on a bus all of Friday, a call to BABA was long over due. I now know many of the staff in the office by name, despite having never met them. Today I was in luck and spoke to Bruna, she had been the person who had put in the request for me to change my flights in the first place (having already been trying for a week or so). Anyway, I hadn't spoken to her for a couple of weeks and so she was quite symptathetic, actually calling the problematic finance department and incredibly getting an instantaneous quote for me to change my flights from Caracas to Costa Rica. Hurrah! On the downside, it's not cheap, but is around the figure I was expecting (three-hundred pounds mark). Anyways, I'm 'thinking about it' overnight, but think I'll probably go for it, I quite fancy going to central America again, and it should be a bit safer than Venezuela.

With a successful call to BABA behind me, I skipped to the bus station to catch a bus to Trelew (meaning 'town of Lewis' in Welsh, named after it's founder), the first leg of my journey to Gaiman, one of the more Welsh towns in Patagonia. My handbag, now clean and dry after being handwashed clean of all suncream, was not to stay that way for very long, since I'd chosen to stand beneath a roosting pigeon, and whilst waiting for the bus, it decided to release the contents of it's bowels over me and my bag. Rather annoying, but it is supposed to be good luck (surely should have happened before I called BABA). Having cleaned myself up, I caught the bus to Trelew, and then had a half an hour wait for the next bus to Gaiman. I was wondering what I'd let myself in for, as the bus left the tarmacked roads of Trelew and set off down gravelly country roads across barren land and deeper into Patagonia. After forty-five minutes or so, we seemed to be in a town once more, people got off, people got on, and fortunately, as we started to leave the town, I asked someone if we had indeed already passed through Gaiman. It turns out we had, but luckily, I only had about a kilometre and a half to backtrack to get back to the centre.

So being siesta time, it was pretty quiet when I arrived, in fact there was noone else around. I scaled the streets looking for an information centre to get a map, but having no luck with that, I managed to find an internet cafe and googled the address of said information centre, which was down a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. I trekked out of town a little way, and found the right address. Open from nine until nine, the information centre was manned by three people who probably hadn't had another visitor in a very long time, and were all only too keen to help. Anyways, they sorted me out with a map, and pointed out the main tourist attractions. I couldn't help noticing that there was an advert on the wall for Welsh lessons. It was nice to see that the language was alive and well, although I had yet to hear anyone speaking it, and made it my mission to track down some welsh speakers.

First stop on my day's sightseeing list, were the old Capillas (protestant chapels), to the south of town, dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After a bit of a trek (including a detour through the main plaza to see if I could hear anyone speaking Welsh), I found them. Although all locked up, the red big red brick buildings at the edge of town were still worth the visit, and really didn´t look a hundred years old.

Back in the town centre, I was feeling a bit peckish, and was finding it increasingly difficult to walk past the many restaurants and tea shops. I stopped at the rather authentic looking Ty Nain. The door was locked, but peering through the glass, everything seemed set up for afternoon tea, and so I rang the doorbell. A rather excited plump grandmother figure greeted me and before the customary 'Holas', she asked me if I was Welsh. I really wanted to say yes since she looked so excited, but it was probably as well I owned up to being one of the opressive English (who the Welsh were trying to escape from when they moved to Patagonia), since Señora Mirna Jones de Ferrari (I kid you not) was a fluent Welsh speaker (as are her children and grandchildren). I did try to redeem myself by telling her that I used to go to Wales a lot on holiday when I was a child, but I think the damage was done. I sat down whilst Mrs Jones de F disappeared off to turn on the Welsh music and prepare a giant pot of tea (complete with wooly cosy), sandwiches, scones, and a plate of cake. I soon managed to eat the sandwiches, scones and most of the cake. It was probably actually a good thing that three of the cakes contained custard (I don't do custard), and another one had been Argentiniasised with lashings of dulce de leche. (In the same way that the Welsh tried to escape the English, I am trying and failing to escape the all-pervasive dulce de leche.) Anyway, having finished the pot of tea, and all the food I could possibly eat (and declined more), I took a look around the teashop/museum, which exhibited all kinds of Welsh bits and bobs, from books to china. When I went out to the kitchen to pay, I found Mrs Jones de F and two friends/family doing needlework, not a typical Argeninian activity. It was all rather interesting, and a little bit bizarre.

Full of cake, it was time for something different, and I walked along the road, to another side of town and 'El Desafio', a park built almost entirely out of rubbish! Although I appreciate it doesn't sound too exciting, the park was incredible, and has been built and maintained by one man over the course of twenty-seven years, largely out of old cans, bottles, and a few old vehicles. Throughout the park, there were various sayings painted onto metal placards and displayed throughout the park. It was certainly an interesting walk round, although unfortunately my camera died halfway round, possibly due to sensory overload (although more likely due to the fact that I hadn't charged it for a while), and so I didn't manage to get pictures of the El Desafio tribute to Boca Juniors!

Having left the park, I had a couple more stops in Gaiman, and made my way up the road to the old post office, one of the original buildings in the town, it was looking a bit run down to say the least. The college up the road on the other hand was looking pretty good, despite being being over a hundred years old. It's main claim to fame was being the first institution in Patagonia to provide secondary education. Towards the end of my tour around historic Gaiman, I was delighted when I passed two of the town's older citizens who exchanged greetings in a language that definitely wasn't Spanish or English and sounded very much like Welsh. Mission accomplished!

Satisfied that I had indeed found evidence that there are people in Patagonia keeping Welsh traditions, culture and language alive, I was ready to return to Puerto Madryn. The bus back to Trelew followed a much more sensible route along sealed roads, bringing the journey time down to only twenty minutes. From there, it was again a half hour wait for the next bus back to Puerto Madryn, where I arrived back after dark. Back at the hostel, pasta and beer were on the menu again, before crawling up to bed, for a last night in the city before moving on tomorrow.


Day 157: Puerto Madryn's Indian Summer and the Return of the Roadblocks

Having packed up all of my things and had breakfast, I was feeling rather lazy and so decided to make the most of the late summer sunshine before heading down to the cold south. It was certainly pleasantly warm, and having spent the morning lying on the grass out the back of the hostel, I went down to the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Despite the weather, it was virtually deserted, save for the occasional couple walking along the shoreline or tourists heading for the pier, and I had a very pleasant afternoon punctuated by icecream, soaking up the sun, and battling on with 'El Alchemista'.

I had thought I would stay in Trelew for the final night on the Atlantic coast, and so had booked my overnight bus to Rio Gallegos (down south) to leave from there. As it turned out, I had liked Puerto Madryn too much and so had stayed there. I subsequently had to go back to the hostel, collect my things, and get a local bus over to Trelew, where I would hopefully connect for my onward journey. Since the farmer's strike resumed about twelve hours after it was last called off, I was naturally concerned about roadblocks, particularly with a connecting flight to Ushuaia the next day (sounds complicated, but the flights from the tiny airport in Trelew were too expensive on my budget). I was however reassured by locals that there really are no roadblocks in the south and I subsequently arrived at Trelew bus station at six o'clock optimistic that this time I wouldn't have any problems.

Things didn't start too well when I went to check in at the bus company's office, to be informed that my bus was going to be late due to roadblocks around Mendoza. Since there were other companies, and I could get another bus if need be, I tried to find out how long the delay was. I was reassured that it was only a 'small' roadblock, and the bus would be there in an hour-and-a-half. I set up camp by the platforms, and anxious about missing my flight, scrutinised every incoming bus. The people on the platform weren't overly welcoming, and again I was the only Gringo there (I´m starting to wonder how everyone else is getting around the country, they've obviously got more sense than me). Trelew itself is like Argentina's equivalent to Swansea (with equivalent accent variation). Although I'm sure it's nice if you live there, hanging out at the bus station really wasn't so much fun. Other buses for Rio Gallegos came and went, and a few hours later, mine had still failed to materialised. I'd had the foresight to arrive with a packet of biscuits and some water, so at least that was dinner sorted, but sadly I still had no transport. I did keep hassling the people at the desk, who just told me it was coming soon and didn't seem to want to divulge any further information as to what kind of timescale I was looking at. I was just wondering if I should see if there were any alternative buses, when to my relief, it finally turned up, albeit four hours late.

The bus was only half-full, but the majority of my fellow passengers did seem somewhat disgruntled. I found a seat upstairs, and was finally on my way to Rio Gallegos. Having joined the bus late, I'd missed dinner (although I'm sure if there was any, it would be some kind of ham/cheese/beef combo) and so tried to settle down to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the bus was the first I'd been on not to provide blankets and pillows overnight, and being quite far south, it was rather cold. Although this didn't seem to bother the hardy, mainly fisherman/miner-type clientele on the bus, even with jeans and a fleece, I didn't get too much sleep.

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