Well, I wasn’t expecting anything other than a long uncomfortable bus ride to Puerto Madryn with Andesmar, but I was looking forward to it as you get to see the countryside and meet other travelers. It turned out to be quite easy, especially with the ‘cama’ seat, although most unlike a bed, it was quite comfortable. The views as we ventured south were fabulous and on leaving BA we passed the Argentinean national football training ground which, in comparison the surrounding area, was lush, the grass bright green and appeared in stark contrast to the surroundings which were generally dusty and parched.
On the journey behind me sat Dave, (Daveed said with a strong French lilt) a very unlikely Parisian, of Jewish Polish extraction and very anti-French, well, anti Parisian French, which was most noble. Next to me sat a couple who it was difficult to place as they spoke English like Helen Bonham Carter but they must have been Scandinavian as they did rather well in the Bingo and won a bottle of Wine from a bodega in Mendoza whilst everybody else tried to unravel the rules. The Bingo card was four numbers square and the winner had to fill the outer line. No ‘legs eleven’ or ‘all the threes’ and no hen nights.
The difference traveling on buses now is that you seem to stop rarely, but they are still cheap relative to the flight costs. They have increased efficiency to such an extent, and the bus has a toilet, so stops, breakdowns, dirt road services for a mate are a thing of the past. Thus we only stopped once in the evening for 10 minutes, a couple of hours after we had left, and then it was straight through. The charm of the old trips was an unscheduled stop in TMON and a couple of hours to stand around, share biscuits, dulce de leche cakes and various humorous bus anecdotes, this has all but gone with the charmless drive towards ultimate efficiency, profit and comfort.
Dave (alors…Daveed) and I got talking at the first stop and we agreed on a suitable end for the Parisians, then we were back on and subjected to loud, somewhat salacious films (some were taken off after a few minutes or so for being too bawdy) so talking, sleeping, relaxing was a little tricky. If you had a seat under the screen, epilepsy was not an option.
In the morning we awoke, if you had slept, and we had to watch ‘the Bourne Supremacy’ which was a little strange at 5.30 in the morning and it repeated so I now know the plot. Somebody does something that somebody doesn’t like so the Psychopath wipes out all the wrong-doers and becomes a killer with a conscience and something of a hero, meanwhile there’s a change of President and the Simpsons do a first very successful run on HBO. The message being, don’t fuck with the guy who has no basis in reality and always go to church.
We arrive in Puerto Madryn, ‘whale central’ in Patagonia and Dave and I get a coffee and some Media Lunas and decide to meet later for a bike ride around the town with a sojourn in the Eco-Centre. We cycle to the end of the headland on the gravel road which is tough going, especially on a bike with 3 of the 18 gears working, I dream of my Ellsworth!
The Eco-centre is closed but the walk along the beach with the bikes is beautiful with the usual S. Easterly wind blowing at the back. You can cycle all along the front with the plethora of restaurants and new builds readying for a tourist explosion, I hope the whales know this.
Hunger strikes and we stop at the Lizard café for a Lizard pizza and some more Guilmes as the sun sets over the back of the town and then off to one of the famous Heladerias for a quarter litre of vanilla and dulce de leche ice cream which is just a ‘taste sensation’, comparisons:
(£1.00 = 6.00 Argentinean pesos)
1 café con leche – 8,50 pesos, ¼ litre of mixed dulce de leche/ vanilla – 5 pesos
All you can eat Parilla (barbecue with hunks of meat cut from whole carcasses from the parilla barbecue – 35.0 pesos
1 litre bottle of Quilmes beer: shop 5 pesos, bar 12 pesos
Bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn – 265 pesos – 23 hours – 1465km
The Plaza des Armas is full of strollers and young girls with prams catching the early evening sun. The hoards of young mothers suggests a good population explosion in an area where there is no population or bad sex education, either way it’s the fashion here, Accessorize has missed a beat.
There is not much in the way of industry here but a recently, much opposed, aluminium factory has opened to the north of the town and the population has swelled to take up the slack on jobs. The bauxite is bought in from Campo Grande, or north somewhere, and there are ships docked at the new pier, fresh ones arriving daily. The cancer rate here is the highest in Argentina although it has been vociferously denied by the government as being to do with the new Aluminium smelter, plus ca change, in a land of corruption and serial Presidential nihilists, nothing is surprising.
Next day is the first trip to the Peninsula Valdes and ‘whale central’, Puerto Piramides (PP). PP sits on the northern cup of a huge bay, which is frequented by Southern Right Whales, ballenic (filtering) whales, as they pup. The mating took place a year ago in the same place and the pups have now arrived and being given their first strides in the comfort of the bay. The whales like it because the bay is deep in part - 100m or so - and has food in the silt on the seabed which the mothers dive to, stir up and filter. They need to feed a little as the pups drink 55 litres of good milk a day and gain hundreds of kilos in a short time, preparing for their impending trip south to the feeding grounds in the Antarctic. The mothers then mate again to hopefully get pregnant for the next season; there is no shortage of mates.
The thing that strikes you most as you leave the town north, past the aluminium smelter, on the road to Puerto Piramides, is the plastic that is caught in the short bush that makes up most of the vegetation here. There is an open tip for all the rubbish from Puerto Madryn, which then gets blown by the constant wind to be trapped by the bushes…pif paf.
We stop at the whale information centre and to pay the entrance fee. I start chatting to somebody from the bus who turns out to be from Shiplake, was an inmate at Reading Blue Coat School (RBCS), and did a paper round in Shiplake and formative spent in the Baskerville Arms…we cluck all day about Henley, RBCS and put a lot of seal, penguin and whale watching under our belt. He is on honeymoon with his new wife, the honeymoon is due to last 8 months and this is the second week…
Its fantastic whale watching and the mothers and pups loll around just near the boat; the Southern Right Whales are some of the most inquisitive. We get covered in whale snot as they clear their vast nostrils or breathing holes repeatedly by the boat, something you would be tempted to do as a whale if you had the oppo to snot on irritating revelers in a persistently whining, smoking boat which tailed you half way around the bay.
Punta Delgado was the viewing point for the Fur Seal Colony, just to the south east point of the headland. You can walk down quite close to the colony which consisted of distinct sections with a very large male, many seals from his harem and an abundance of pups (Orca snacks). The males, as they do, patrol the seas in the shallow channel off the beach and bark purposefully, manfully and threateningly at other males in adjacent areas. They females pet their pups adoringly, sunbathe on the shingle and move periodically; to the indignance of the small black pups who look like large black slugs. Many of the older pups are shedding their fur in preparation for the long watery period coming up. Apart from 4-5 weeks spent on the beach now, the rest of their time will be spent in the ocean fishing In deeper waters so the pups have to fatten up fast on mums triple thick fish-o-shake.
The last stop is Punta Cantor a little up the coast for the Magellenic penguins, who are funny little things that spend a lot of their time in burrows rolling in their own poo, the rest of the time swimming miles for a fish supper. If I didn’t know better I’d suggest they were confused rabbits with webbed feet and life belts but Darwin knows best.
That night the ‘Old Blues’ of RBCS meet for a pint (of Quilmes) or so after I have a light fish supper with Dave and his mate from his own trip, Barrack. an Israeli. He is as funny as Barbara Streisand and we talk penguins, whales, fur seals and the ’68 war…inevitable…and other solid travelers stuff.
The combined forces of ‘Old Blue’ James and Imogen beat the Quilmes fueled
Cue Baron and we cross cues ‘til late and decide to take a car to the Welsh town, Gaimen, near Trelew the next day.
Gaimen is a good place to go with a hangover and we set out late with the car, a full tank and plenty of full fat coke. Firstly we visit the cemetery in Puerto Madryn as Imogens family have origins in the area but despite many graves devoted to Davies, Williams and the odd Jones, there is no trace of the rellies which is frustrating…the lady in the office says that she knows most of the graves recorded in the old leather binders but unfortunately if the family don’t pay the annual for the grave cleaners, you get moved on. Where exactly wasn’t clear but one can only hazard at a mass grave under the new aluminium factory.
Gaimen is a little oasis In the middle of the parched Patagonian desert. It sits in the river valley and is tidy and I suppose, vaguely Welsh looking.The Lonely Planet says little but makes reference to tea shops and a reference to ‘quite often being able to watch local youths swimming in the river’. We carefully do a river check first but hanging around too long could get you into trouble and the youths had obviously grown up and moved to Tredaegar.
We wander around looking for a road that doesn’t exist and plump for the only pizza joint in the village. A charming waiter who looks disarmingly welsh serves us up some food and a couple of lines of ‘la lengua culpa’, the next table all break into welsh patter, its glorious. We don’t move from this spot for much of the day and wallow in a little Gaelic pride.
On the way home a visit to ‘ La Playa Bonita’ which does have a certain windswept, duney presence and its back to ‘the Lizard’ for more ‘Guilmes’. James and Imogen are off to Mendoza the next day and I am off to Puerto Piramides for a rest up at the Hotel Nomade…an eco-lodge of some repute.
Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/marco.nails/PuertoMadryn01112009#
http://picasaweb.google.com/marco.nails/ADayInPuertoPiramides02112009#
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