BA pt. 3 and Puerto Madryn - Semi-cama chameleons

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domingo, 11 de abril
Our last day in Buenos Aires before heading South to Puerto Madryn. We´ve opted for a night bus in semi-cama seats (half-beds) to save on hostel costs. So far we´ve haemorrhaged money and are looking for savings already! I sneezed once and a 2 peso note came out.

Sunday is market day in San Telmo. It´s the last of its kind in Buenos Aires and dates back to the turn of the century. The Plaza Dorrego, just a block from us and usually home to the outdoor parts of surrounding restaurants, is the large square setting for tens of stalls. Nothing here is younger than even our parents, save for the hastily made necklaces and coathanger sculptures done this morning whilst we slept. There is more brass here than the Symphony Orchestra - door knockers, coins, knives even! Some of the knives look like they would do more damage as rusty carriers of Tetanus than they would stabbing implements. One stall literally looked like the owner had just unscrewed public notices off of the walls and slapped a price tag on them.

Just off the Plaza Dorrego on Humberto is a street lined with local art. All of those people carrying around canvasses during the week, this is where they come. The paintings are of two main themes - tango and nudity. Sometimes this is combined to make nude tango. Nudity itself is kind of split into 2 categories being attractive and grossly overweight. Whatever floats the Argentine boat.

Elsewhere the 13 blocks of Defensa have been turned into a market stall too. No antiques here though, more touristy knick-knacks that get bought and after 5 years go up into the loft only to ever be seen again when your children need space to put their cr*p. The knives on Defensa are a lot sharper, great big ones shining in the sun. Today is possibly the largest concentration of English speakers we have heard thus far, it´s much more difficult than travelling was before. Feels a bit more real though.

Having walked all 13 blocks which felt marginally like a cartoon (where it repeats itself in the background to save money) we had reached the Pink House again without realising. More protestation here this time veterans complaining about something or other. A great big banner stated "the Malvinas are and always be Argentina". Doesn´t strictly follow the laws of war but our cue to exit without comment.

In the evening we caught the (very-late-which-made-us-cr*p-ourselves) bus down to Puerto Madryn.

lunes, 12 de abril
Our 18 hour bus was an 18 hour bus. That´s all. The one thing of note was where the local Gendarme searched the bus and barked at us to get our passports out. Evacuate bowls...now.

We had been promised hostel pick-up, but actually somebody just put us in a cab and paid for it. Sweet. We stayed at Che Patagonia, a family run place hosted by a very pregnant woman. We spoke quietly to her for fear that any loud noise would make the baby fall out. As standard over here breakfast is free and the hostel booked us onto a tour for tomorrow.

Puerto Madryn is primarily a stop to take tours of the wildlife reserve in the Valdes Peninsula. It´s a Welsh settlement but there is p*ss all evidence (besides perhaps the name - which itself sounds like Madrid when the locals say it) that this is the case. For a start the sky is blue. Despite travelling 3/4 of a day South it´s still above 20 degrees. There is a long sandy beach which is as deserted and bereft of life as Nick Griffin´s skull (ooo political humour). One thing´s for sure, John Bull would have had us on this beach in much colder weather than this. The whole town itself is eerily quiet, at a cool 10 degrees lower than in summer and being outside of whale watching season it´s not difficult to understand why. Life picks up again at 5 o´clock suggesting that the siesta has comfortably made its way across the Atlantic.

We didn´t do a lot today, the temperature on the bus was so cold that the icicles in our nostrils stopped us from sleeping too much.

Hayley spent two minutes looking at a bird through tree branches wondering what species it was. It was a lamp-post head.

martes, 13 de abril
Tour day today, the reason we have come here. The day started at 6.30am with the classic Argentine breakfast of bread rolls and coffee and an equally early bus to Reserva Faunistica Peninsula Valdes. The Peninsula is a whoppin 102km from Madryn which begs the question why it´s the tours main starting point, you´re talking remortgage if you wanted to get an English taxi that distance. Our multi-lingual guide informs us they have one rule for these trips - if the customer falls asleep, he and the driver can fall asleep. Everybody sits bolt upright. Quick, open a window. The roads are pretty straight, we might have got away with a cheeky power nap...except no. The guide also has another game (he called it Sambo we think) where he flicks stones towards open mouths of dozing passengers. Two reasons not to fall asleep. Can just imagine the conversation now:
"What did they die of?"
"Oh, er, choked on a stone."
"A stone. Why were they eating stones?"
"Dunno. Los gringos. Strange customs. Maybe they were slightly retarded."
"They´d have to be."
And the guide gets away with it again.

It´s another 104km to Punto Norte, conveniently named for the North of Valdes, but this stretch is filled with guanacos - an orangey-brown llama native to Argentina. There are loads of them. We arrived at Punta Norte for high tide since this is the time when orca spotting is most likely. The Liars Bible (Lonely Planet) equates our chances of seeing one at about 3%. With the weather as windy as it is here we´ve more chance of seeing a 120 year old Hitler hiding out in the sand dunes. No orcas but plenty of sealions and elephant seals still hanging around. Strangely enough they look happier without a circus ball balanced on their noses. Even more happier than the photo in the information centre from the 60s where they are all being clubbed to death. It´s illegal now, just for reference.

It´s a piffling (yes, piffling) 47km down to Punta Cantor and look at little Hayley´s face light up! Penguins and tons of them! These are much closer than the seals too you can almost touch. It made Hayley´s day for sure. Down on the beach huge elephant seals lounge like English tourists in Benidorm, only moving to fight. Slightly inland we spotted an armadillo, some road runner type creature that throws stones behind it as it runs (take that Wyle E Coyote) and a grey fox or two. We were also lucky enough, I say lucky but really I was just a guide´s shout away from treading on, to see ´The Dual of the Titans´- basically to feed it´s young the St. George´s Wasp (Eng-er-land) hunts the largest spider in Patagonia (the Grammostela), stings it and then carries it to its burrow and lays eggs on top which eat it alive later. That might have hurt.

Lastly the tour went to Punta Piramide which, since whale watching is in hot December, was a bit Punta Pointless. All in all a pretty good day though.

miercoles, 14 de abril
Killed time before bus. As Austin Powers once said "there was a flock of seagulls, that´s about it."

Next to Bariloche.

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Photos

P P P P Pick up a penguin
Actually you shouldn't. They bite.

Guanacos
Or wa-knackers as Hayley calls them

Peninsula Valdes
No relation to Victor

Adamski
Seal is not as fun...

Comments

[Kirsty]

Showing appreciation
Thoroughly enjoyed your latest installment , chuckling to myself over my lunch, which normally would worry my colleagues but they're used to strange episodes when I'm high on sugar so they probably think I've just pigged out on a slab of carrot cake for lunch. Kx (I know - a waste of good cake opportunity by tainting it with vegetable Chris, I should make it Chocolate Brownie/Fudge Cake)

[john bull]

Making Media
Congratulations about the Malteste Times taking you on as a writer. Spondoolics? Or are they filling their pages for free? Liverpool won 4-0 at Burnley, which means horns of a dilemma next Sunday, unless Sunderland do a job and as Bruce has probably been paid, v. unlikely.

[BullyandSpence]

The Maltese Times
Not quite taking me on as a writer, just the one blog about Argentina!! I´ll take it as a mini claim to fame though. Wish I knew someone there to get a copy, oh well.