Advertisement
Published: December 7th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Searching for Evita
Reflection of tourists in the cemetery I finally got to the cemetery in Buenos Aires a couple of days ago - had a quick look and then dashed off to get my bus down south to Puerto Madryn. The bus was late and so I spent a very scary hour at the bus station not knowing if I had missed it or if it was ever going to turn up (there were no announcements and no one to ask). Luckily it did turn up eventually and the journey was as comfortable as I´d hoped (the seats are like giant marshmallows and recline fully). I had checked twice with the bus company that they knew I was vegetarian and they assured me there was no problem (journey was 20 hours with food served on board). The steward on board also showed me his passenger list, which had "vegetariana" next to my name. So I was quite suprised to be served a ton of meat for dinner! I had a minor (no, make that major) hissy fit and the steward did a great job of acting out his apologies (sorrowful look whilst clutching his heart), so I kind of forgave him and picked at the few vegetable bits of
Bicycle man
On Puerto Madryn beach the meal. I also managed to sleep for 9 hours and watch 3 movies - a very, very long journey...
So I´ve now been in Puerto Madryn since yesterday afternoon - enough time to orientate myself and do the Valdes Peninsula trip (Puerto Madryn itself is like a Martin Parr postcard scene - I think everyone comes here for the wildlife and not much else). There is also no sign of Welsh people. I think they landed, renamed the town in Welsh and then settled elsewhere. The peninsula is flat and barren, with a 400km circuit of untarmaced road - quite a journey in one day. We went out on a boat first to do some whale watching - I was a bit sceptical as its pretty much the end of the season, but after an hour or so we saw a pair of southern right whales (mother and baby). I was in a mini crow´s nest at the top of the boat and as the whales approached the water got really choppy so I had to cling on for dear life! I got some good shots of both of them, but they were so close up its mostly
Me
Getting ready for the whale watching trip at Peninsula Valdes of sections of the whales - bit of a head, bit of tail, bit of barnacle stuff etc. The baby whale (several metres long) decided to breach right next to the boat, which caused a mini-tsunami and they had to move the boat pretty quickly (apparently the adults know not to breach next to boats, but the youngers ones have no sense of danger or concern for drowned tourists)
All the other wildlife after that was a bit of a sideshow, although the elephant seals put on a good display, as did the penguins. I also saw a bit of interesting food chain stuff - orcas trawl the coast and jump out and eat the elephant seals. The elephant seals trawl the coast and jump out and eat the penguins! Saw one elephant seal trying to do this, but the penguins had it sussed and got out the way in time (although I swear a few of them were playing ´chicken´).
Tomorrow is another bus journey (20 hours this time, and I´m taking a packed lunch of my own)down to the very bottom of S America, then on Friday 12th I get on a ship to go up
the Chilean coast. The ship has been a nightmare to book - it only departs on Fridays, its very expensive, you have to book initially by email, then by fax and I still haven´t had a confirmation from them. And no one here will help me because it´s a Chilean matter and I am still in Argentina (I don´t know if the two countries speak at all, to be honest!). It´ll be a fantastic trip though, and I will get to wear my thermals!
The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty frantic as I have to be in the north of Argentina well before Christmas. I seriously underestimated how long it takes to travel, then book the next leg, find accommodation etc. At this rate, I will only be able to fit in two more days of sightseeing, and the rest of the time I´ll be on a boat or a bus! But a lot of other people here are in the same boat - some are here for 4/6 weeks, some longer but everyone is trying to fit in long distances and several countries. It is frustrating trying to get from a to b to
c within your set timescales, but we are all bloody lucky to be here on extended holidays and so I think we should just get on with it! I´m a bit disappointed I´m not going to see more of Patagonia but hopefully I´ll get a day or two and then after Christmas I´ll try and slow down a bit.
I will upload some pics of the whales when I can find a pc with a visible usb port in it!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.043s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0242s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb