Piedra Buena (1 Nov 2010)

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Monday 1st November 2010

Up at 4.15am to get a minibus to Piedra Buena on route to Puerto Madryn, the journey was pretty uneventful on a gravel road through a desolate land of Rheas & Guanacos while we tried to continue our sleep. Suddenly our van screeched to a halt and the smell of burning rubber permeated our air. We got out to look at out to look at the damage to find our back left tyre had exploded. It took a while for the driver to change the tyre with the help of another passenger while Richard checked the tread of the 3 remaining tyres which worried him as they were all almost bald and there were no more spares. Eventually we were off again & reached Piedra Buena just in time to catch our connection, however, it would arrive in the wee hours of the morning so we opted for the night bus instead & had a wander through the small town.

The botanical gardens were closed so we got some lunch at the terminal before catching up on several weeks worth of diary entries & taking three separate trips to the supermarket to occupy our time. When the botanical gardens finally opened we excitedly went to check it out only to discover it was actually someone’s large garden with a variety of trees and plants with name tags... It was an – experience! Eventually the time came for us to get on yet another night bus.

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