Blogs from Puerto Madryn, Chubut, Argentina, South America - page 3

After a pleasant 20 hour bus ride (with films, food and lots of sleep!) we arrived in the quiet town of Puerto Madryn. We finally made it to our hostel, Hi Patagonia, after being harrassed by an old Spanish Lady trying to get us to stay with her. The hostel is along the main street right by the beach and an excellent ice cream shop. Hi Patagonia is probably our favourite hostel yet! Gaston, the manager, is VERY knowledgable about the whole area and couldn´t have possibly been more helpful. He sat down and helped us plan our trip around the weather, as we were there in Orca season and Orcas are more likely to be seen in the right conditions. Day 1- Gaston hires his car out daily so we rented the car for the ... read more

As we got off the plane in Trelew, we were greeted by high gusts of hot wind and views of endless pampas. Pampas are dry grasslands, almost SW desert-like, that make up nearly the entirety of Patagonia, save the southern tip of Ushuaia and the Andes mountain range. Riding the hour long shuttle from Trelew to Puerto Madryn, we began to ask ourselves, why are we here? We asked the same question again upon entereing the uncharasmatic, dusty, windswept town of Puerto Madryn. The hostel we stayed at was surprisingly very nice. An open, but protected center courtyard of green grass with a hammock, chairs and tables, and potted flowers surrounding it. All the receptionists were very nice and informative of the various excursions available and where all the essential amentities were in town. Although we ... read more

So Patagonia has been a lot different than Cordoba. Cordoba was filled with strange people from all over the world. For example: The first person we met was the manager of the hostel, who was Brazilian. He liked me because I could speak Portuguese with him. But then 20 minutes after meeting him, he was talking to me and my friends and he whipped out this huge mushroom and was like ¨here´s a shroom for you guys¨ and we were like ¨oh cool....where´d you get it?¨and he said he picked it. And we were like, ¨oh okay, you picked it in a forest...cool...¨ and he said ¨NO not the forest--the MOUNTAINS¨ and then we were like oh yeahhhh okay totally legit.......NOT. But here has been interesting in a much more CLASSY way. I went whale watching ... read more

Our nearest and dearest, who may have become encouraged at the news of us booking ahead and the prospect of us becoming a more planful pair, will be disappointed. Our forward planning has got us into a bit of a pickle. We have tickets for specific seats, on a specific bus, scheduled to depart on a specific date......and the bus has been cancelled. Snow has blocked the main road south. We´re told to try tomorrow, but are worried that even if tomorrow´s bus is running, we won´t be guaranteed seats, so we insist on being issued new tickets with dedicated seat numbers. The extra day does at least mean to get to visit the whales again (and gives the camera another battery-sapping outing). We´re joined by two others from the hostel, so share a taxi to ... read more

We have a chilled few nights on the coast - enjoying walks on the beach and fresh sea food. We occasionally spot pods of whales as we walk, flashing their fins at us from various points along the cove. But we know this is only an appetizer for the excursions to come, which will take us up close and personal to the wildlife. The hostel is quiet. There´s an old guitar lying about and Iv has a jam with Harri - a Dominanc Republic author here to promote his book - and a second Gaston who works the the late shift at the hostel (we were beginning to wonder whether the hostel had highly discrimanatory employment practices, but this is disproved when we met Virginia, who covers the morning shift). Gaston cooks a prawn feast for ... read more