Thursday 16 Nov I left Buenos Aires with my friend Meagan and headed to Pategonia. Our bus was super nice. they even gave us wine with dinner (which was a hot meal). the bus attendent (same principle as a flight attendent) couldn´t figure out why we didn´t want coffee or tea the three times she offered it to us. i was like hello why would we want something that will really make us pee if we are on a bus for 20 hours??? i mean really.
before boarding the bus, this guy started talking to me in this language i couldn´t understand. he was convinced i was israeli because of my backpack and hiking boots. we chatted with him for a while on the bus. then these people boarded and there were two little kids, like 5 or 6, from rochester, ny. it was so weird to be with little american kids again. they whined so much. every 5 minutes was mom this or dad that.
anyway, meagan and i arrived in puerto madryn on friday 17 nov and went to the hostel. we dumped our stuff and walked around the little town. we had lunch at this bar (i had grilled chicken and salad!!). then we figured out a tour to go on the next day. sandra and amy arrived at 5ish and we took a remise (hired car) to this beach to try to sea whales...but we had no luck. that night we went out for tea and dinner where i had some yummy seafood.
saturday 18 nov we woke up really early for our tour of peninsula valdez. our tour group was late picking us up. we got on the bus and then picked up the israeli guy that we had met the day before (complete coinsidence!). peninsula valdez is more than an hour from puerto madryn...we arrived and i only had to pay the argentine price to enter (10 pesos, as opposed to the 35 the others paid).
we went first to the whale watching which was really awesome. they came really close to the boat and we saw one of them jump, which was super cool. the boat launch was not from a dock, we got into the boat on land and a car-like thing drove us out into the water. i had a really good time on the boat.
then we went to the penguin lookout point and saw some really cute penguins. then we went to the lunch area, ate and walked down to see the seals on the beach. then we drove to another area to see more seals. basically the entire day was driving around seeing seals and penguins and other animals. we did see the guanacos (kind of like llamas) and maras (big rabbits, but they are rodents). we spent a lot of time in the car. we stopped at the museum thing on the way out. it had a baby whale skeleton in it. afterwards we went to the hostel and showered and went to dinner. i had more fish, the rest of the girls had parrilla and then ice cream. then we went to bed because...
we got up at 6.30 am on sunday 19 nov to head to the punta tumbo penguin colony. however, like the day before, our ride was late coming to get us. we wound up leaving with a private guide at 9.30 (2 hours late). it worked out better to have the private guide because we only went to the penguin colony and to gaiman and we skipped the museum stop in trelew. he also dropped me in trelew where i caught a bus to río gallegos.
the penguin colony was really interesting because you litterly walk among them. they cross your path and you cross their´s. it was super cool to see them up close and there were babies and eggs. then we went to gaiman, which is a welsh village. it was kind of touristy, we had tea in one of the welsh tea houses (princess diana had been there!!). it was super yummy, kind of expensive in a touristy way, but still really nice. after that the driver took me to trelew, where i said good bye to the girls and got on my bus. my bus was the complete opposite of the first one i took this trip. this bus was not at all touristy and there were no backpackers on it. that was okay though, i slept a bit.
on monday 20 november, i arrived in río gallegos to find that i was not going to make it to ushuaia that day. after chatting with other travlers, i booked myself a ticket on an 8AM bus the next day and went to a hostel (the only one in town), where i met another american who had been studying in bsas. he and i spent the day walking around town and went to some museum things...one of which was an old house and the other was supposed to be a science museum, but wound up to be under construction (the whole town is) except for a bad modern art section. río gallegos is nothing special and i am happy that i will be getting to ushuaia tomorrow. while sitting in the locutorio, i was given more info about ushuaia from another traveler, which is always helpful. right now, i´m going to buy some food and then go back to the hostel to do some wash, shower and sleep....don´t worry family, my first day alone was totally fine and i´m meeting lots of great people (other travelers)
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