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Published: January 9th 2007
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An empty bus...
...just for us! It was an interesting journey to Puerto Deseado. As we got on the bus at San Julian you could sense the other travellers thinking “why have they got on here, where have they been?” But when we got off the bus at the dot on the map labelled Fitz Roy they must have been thinking we are rather strange with a wild sense of adventure. Getting off the bus was a daunting sight as all we could see was the flat monotony of the Patagonian countryside going on as far as the eye could see, and the endless straight road disappearing to the horizon. As the bus pulled away a tiny one street village was revealed and we were to wait at the miniature general store for a connecting bus.
Now connecting buses are all well and good, but we were amazed by this one. The store had sold us tickets so we felt reassured the bus would arrive. I went off to take some pictures for the website and found a helpful and friendly tourist office who supplied me with lots of leaflets about the area. The bus eventually arrived early and we were the ONLY passengers! No wonder
the bus driver looked at me as if I was crazy when I asked if we should sit wherever we wanted. That was before we got on and saw the lack of competition for seats!!
We arrived in Puerto Deseado at 9.30pm and started wandering around looking for accommodation guided by a list and a map, kindly supplied by the aforementioned information office. The one we wanted to stay in was full. This did not bode well. The next one was nice but rather expensive. Our trek went on and the “residential” on the list didn’t even seem to be open to welcome guests and the cabanas looked way out of our league. Back to the Hotel Isla Chaffers to bite the bullet and pay more than we wanted to. It turned out to be very comfortable and not bad value in reality.
The main reason to come to Puerto Deseado was to take a trip to the Penguin Island to see the rockhoppers. Unfortunately the trip leaves at 6am and that’s only if it’s NOT windy. Now this is Patagonia so we didn’t hold much hope for that! Instead we did an afternoon boat trip into the
ria, a flooded estuary. It was excellent and we were able to see lots of Magellanic penguins mixing it large with cormorants, seagulls, petrels and oystercatchers, all sharing the same rocky islands. The birdlife was marvellous to see, but we had a questionable twenty minutes walking on one island which scared the living daylights out of the poor penguins and the seagulls lifted in one giant flock reminding us of Hitchcock’s The Birds!! Unfortunately the black and white Commorson dolphins stayed away which was a shame. We finished with a good soaking as the driver of our rigid inflatable created some wake then ploughed straight through it.
Afterwards we dried off by walking around the peninsula to the old railway station. The railway closed in 1978 and the station is now a very good little museum. We were even shown upstairs into the offices area which is earmarked for renovation and will eventually host the museum contents. It was good to see, but needs serious investment to make it a great attraction.
So, was it worth visiting the Patagonian coast? Generally we found it frustrating that it promised so much but delivered little. The information provided was frequently
wrong or out of date, but we head back towards Chile nicely relaxed and Trish has been able to recover from her bout of flu.
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natalie
non-member comment
A Whole Bus?!?!
Ooooh your plush bus experiences are quite the opposite of most of mine! Wow, you really ended up in the middle of nowhere. I'm thinking right now how all this time we have been in the same country but soooooooo far away from each other. It's incredible how many middle of nowheres Argentina has, isn't it?!?! Hey, you guys are going to like Salta, I think...I just got here a couple of hours ago and it really is Salta la Linda! I'll give you some more feedback after I get to know it a bit. I'm just so happy to put away my ' ropa de abrigo' and walk around in my flip flops again!!! suerte, chicos!