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Published: June 26th 2008
Having a Whale of a time.....
well it sounded more appropriate than wish you were here!A long day of travelling via Lima (again!) sees our intrepid adventurers arrive for visit numero dos into Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The last time we were here was pretty much just a stop gap for a couple of days whilst waiting for our flight to Ecuador. (That said we did still do quite a bit, so on arrival in BA this time I was pretty keen to hot foot it further south as soon as possible)
One of the key differences between this time and our last visit, is that it has now turned winter in Argentina.....ouch. The climate is much cooler than back in March. Now given the fact that we have just come from 37 degree temperatures in Colombia, certain parts of the anatomy dont know what has hit them! (Fingers and toes people, lets keep it clean, this is a family friendly blog you know! But yes even Sir Lancelot has retreated back to Camelot!)
Buenos Aires is one hell of a city actually, with a very continental feel behind it. Some areas are quite old and bohemian, which is in perfect contrast to the centre with its bustling shopping, bars and restaurants.
It takes two to tango....
but evidently when I attempted to teach them our traditional dancing of the Morris Dance, it didnt go down to well....I mean as if thats not sexy! Despite the fact that we have been up since 3.30am, it is none the less Saturday night in Buenos Aires and that can only me one thing....one or two quiet beers (or bottles of wine!) After a hearty steak (when in rome...its a figure of speech you morons! for you cereberally challenged folks out there, I am of course still referring to Buenos Aires) we head off for a beer in one of the many Irish bars in BA, there are several actually, as apparantly there is a large Irish community here. 2 bottles of Grolsch for 36 pesos...thats about 6 quid! Now you understand why we quickly moved onto the wine!! We sink a few bevvies and meet up with a couple of Swedish girls that we met during Carnaval in Rio. They are living in Buenos Aires at then moment so they turn out to be pretty good tour guides. I remember getting to bed around 4.30am the following morning....thats 25 hours on the go people, 25 hours that my head really regreted the following morning!
In a vain attempt to clear my head, I wander the streets of San Telmo, the arty bohemian area of the
2 cans of Lilt, a Pepsi....
and 1 Tango please...alright alright, im out of tango jokes. city. Sunday is actually the perfect day for this, as the area is pedestrianised kind of like The Lanes in Brighton, and so there are bands playing, tango shows, artists and all sorts of market traders. The sun is out and there is a chill in the air....just right for blowing away that boozy feeling! Though after wandering around for several hours I still feel like crap. To make things a bit more interesting I wander to La Boca, the guide says this is one of the poorer areas of BA and so to get cabs. I of course wander there alone and at one point im in a very quiet area thinking to myself 'shit, if I get jumped now nobody will see me'...this didnt happen of course. In assuming it was partly thanks to the fact that I smelt like one of the local wino's, with beer breath to match. Obviously, I didnt decide to wander into a rough area just for shits and giggles people, my reason for being there is that La Boca is home to La Bombonero...the famous stadium of the Boca Juniors football team, no doubt Argentinas biggest side and once a home to
La Boca.....
the colourful neighbourhood of Buenos Aires! famous players such as Diego 'hand of god, my arse! Maradona and Gabriel Batistuta. Well the museum was pretty dull, but at least I got to wander onto the pitch, so at least it wasn't a wasted journey.
We induldge in a spot of shopping in the evening, mainly for a couple of hoodies and some warmer clothes as we head south the following evening along the Atlantic coast to the town of Puerto Madryn. Its 18 hours south in fact, but we manage to book on a coach cama, which is pretty much a coach with beds (well large leather reclining chairs anyway) you also get meals too, man when im a rock star this is going to be the only way to travel!
Staring out the window on the drive, you realise just how vast, but at the same time barren and bleak Patagonia is. As it gets barely any rainfall, there's not much in the way of vegetation ands it's pretty hard to believe that anything could survive in these huge plains of wilderness. The view on either side of the coach is pretty much just large dusty fields, divided by a road....perfect for 18
La Bombonero...
home of Boca Juniors! hours of driving...seriously where did I put my Ipod?? Oh one of the other things worth noting, is that it Argentina seems to only serve every meal with Jamo y Queso, aka ham and cheese. Now don't get me wrong, I like ham and cheese as much as the next man, well unless he's a vegetarian of course, in which case I probably like it a wee bit more...but seriously I don't want it for every frigging meal! Imagine my surprise when we get served jamon y queso rolls on the bus.....what?! you gotta be shitting me!
The main reason why people head to Puerto Madryn, is because the town is an excellent starting point for tours to the Peninsular Valdes national park. This place offers great opportunities to see Southern Right Whales swimming in the bay and also in season (unfortunately not this time of year...boo) you can see Orcas (Killer Whales) rising up onto the beach to snag a Seal or two...just like on the nature programmes!
Another interesting piece of trivia for all you fact fans out there is that the Welsh of all people landed here in 1865, where after wndering for a short
This is the nomal view you would expect to see....
if you were part of the riot police at La Bombonero! (Only you´d probably be in trouble with your gaffer as you are clearly there on the wrong day!) while they stumbled across, get this...a valley of all things and decided to set up home. In their haste, they failed to realise until 3 years later that the land was barren unless watered and so set about building a system of irrigation canals. For a while they even kept the Welsh language going here, though there´s little evidence of the colony left here today. But slightly further down the road in the Chubut Valley and Trelew there are colonies still going strong. Looks like your mob gets everywhere eh Bryn!
So we set off at 8am, its cold and dark but our spirits are high (well actually thats a complete lie...we are moaning like a couple of grumpy old men) especially when we arrive at El Doradillo bay and from the beach spot our first whale! The sun rising behind the sea has set up a pretty cool piccy with a whale tail against the blue and orange backdrop...but in poor night you need to keep the camera still and I can barely feel my fingers anymore as its so cold. I needn't have worried though, our next stop is to Puerto Pyramides, to get out to sea
Apparantly......
a normal spot of busking just wouldn't do for these guys. on a boat for some close up views!
We spend about an hour and half watching the whales splashing around and enjoy a spot of mating, the Whales that is...its far to cold to call Sir Lancelot into duty! They are ridiculously close to the boat and seem to be altogether unconcerned by our presence, especially as they swim under the boat! The mating process is actually really cool, well unless you are the female that is, she pretty much flirts for a bit and then gets gang raped in an orgy of blubber, bobbing and blowing! (water through their blow holes that is!) Part of the process involves pushing their tails up out of the water.....which gives us ample opportunities to capture the 'money shot' on film! Its a cool experience and serves as another reminder of the many various creatures and habitats that this continent provides a home to. The rest of the day is a little disappointing though, as we are in the throes of winter a lot of the other creatures have departed for the season or have gone into hibernation, on the plus side, we get to see a family of Armadillos which are
San Telmo
Lazy Sunday afternoons..... quite funny to watch.
We are having to step up the travelling process as we have to meet Chris's brother and sister at the beginning of July for a spot of snowboarding, this pretty much means we have to hotfoot it around Patagonia. So with no time to waste we jump on a bus and head 18 hours further south to Rio Gallegos. I throw a Naomi Campbell style strop.....'do you know who I am?!' It certainly wasn't the rockstar tour bus life I have become accustomed to! As such it seemed to drag a whole lot more than the previous journey, still not to worry it's not like we had a two hour wait before boarding a bus for another 12 hours to the ends of the Earth! And no im not being melodramatic, we are headed to Ushuaia, the lowest city in the world. which im guessing will probably be home to the lowest pub in the world.....for purely scientific reasons I wonder if a pint tastes the same there as back in England?
I'll let you know in the next exciting installment of Dicki's travelblogs....hey no yawning at the back!
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