Puerto Madryn

LEARNING ENGLISH

It would seem that long bus rides would be torture.  But, not for me.  I use this opportunity to learn English...Proper English to be specific.  I have learned on this journey that I not only do not speak Spanish so well, but I also have a limitted English vocabulary.  Steph and the other Euros are very polite to use English when in my presence, but they use this version they call Proper English.

They have been warning me about my things getting nicked if I am not careful.  I might say something like "I don't mind if my things have a few scratches on them."  They giggle.  And then explain to me that "nicked" means stolen; not scratched.

Here are some of the new Proper English words I have learned:                                                     Knackered = Tired      Faffing Around = Doing Nothing Important     Biscuit = Cookie    Smalls = Underwear  Dodgy = Dangerous Area    Minging = Disgusting   Pop Socks = Knee highs   Bollocking = Telling off     Nail = Old Thing   Right = Very   Jelly = Gelatin  Pudding = Desert   Pulled = got the Attention of    Winge = Whining   Pants =  Disappointing    Cack = Rubbish    Cheeky = Mischievious  Trainers = Tennis shoes   Ruck Sack = Back Pack  

BUS FOOD

I never thought it could get worse than airline food.

  Our bus food experience has been very interesting.  For breakfast you can get toast in pre-packaged wrapping.  Yum.  Good crunch.  For dinner you will get ham and cheese, of course, but with your choice of bread.  When will I get a choice of meat?  I seriously had 3 ham and cheese sandwhiches on my tray...on white bread, brown bread, and roll. 

Spent another 24 hours on buses today.  It was 13 hours all night from Bariloche to Puerto Madryn with stops in El Bolsen and Trelew.  Then within 15 minutes of arriving we were on the 7:45am-6pm tour bus to the various whale and penquin watching sites.  What were we thinking?!

I am not sure if this occured while on the Don Otto bus to Puerto Madryn or on the sand to watch the penquins and whales, but I have counted 36 flea bits on my left leg, 28 on my right leg, and more than a dozen more on various other parts of my person.

  Either that or I have chicken pox.  Just another thing to add to my ailments while travelling.

As soon as we arrived at the bus terminal in Puerto Madryn, we purchased onward tickets to Rio Gallegos for the next day which would get us part of the way to El Calafate.  We were told that there wern't many seats left and we better do it now or risk having to stay in town an extra day.  We spent 164 pesos on that ticket.  After our all day tour, we could not bare the thought of another long bus ride, so we asked to be dropped off at the Aerolineas office.  Yes, the airline known for being late on a regular basis.  But, still quicker than a bus.  We bought tickets from Trelew (1 hour away) to Calafate for 830 pesos.  Yes, that is how much we did not want to take the bus.

  The Andesmar bus people were nice enough to only keep 50 pesos of our original ticket price when we turned it in after several attempts to scalp them to backpacker type looking people in the bus station.

WHALE AND PENGUIN HUNTING

We dropped our bags at El Guilicho hostel www.elgualicho.com.ar and then jumped on our little 15 seat van for a long day of chasing nature.  I'd say that this is my first real tour during my 3 months of travel.  And it was pretty pricey.  It is 40 pesos on top of your tour fee to get into the park.  I think that was about 100 or more pesos too.   But, then again, if you divide by 3 it isn't that much.

  I keep forgetting that.

Our van took us to several stops around Penninsula Valdez which is famous for having the best whale watching.  About 45 minutes in we stopped to jump on a boat.  Before getting on we were required to get dressed up in yellow rain panchos and orange life jackets.  I was totally clausterphobic in this garb.  It was necessary though as we did get splashed on quite a bit and it was windy and freezing out there.  We spent about 1.5 hours out annoying a mama whale and her baby.  Good advice we got before going was to enjoy watching and forget about trying to take the best photo.  You can always buy a postcard.

The next stop on the van was at a beach where penquins hang out.  I love these animals.

  Apparently there is another tour that will take you to a colony where 7000 of them hang out together.  We still saw a few dozen of them and that was good enough for me.

Next stop was a beach where sea lions lounged around.  I knew how they felt.  I had been sleeping on the tour van through the commentary and pit stops to watch various land animals.  Another stop took us to a spot where we were sure to see Orca whales.  Those are the killer ones that are white on the bottom.  None were there though.  Not our lucky day.

Last stop was a museum which we were told had the nicest bathrooms in all of Puerto Madryn and that we must get of photo of.  I did not get the photo, but I can vouch that these are the nicest bathrooms I have seen in all of South America.

  There was actually toilet paper, paper towels, and soap there.