From there we were excited to see this town of Rawson which is on every globe (S.E. Argentina). We followed the signs to Rawson and when the signs stopped we wondered where the city center was. After driving around a couple of blocks of the run down part of town we waved down a motorcycle policeman and asked where the town center was. His response was “Esta calle y la proxima. Nada mas!”. So, Rawson Argentina is basically a shit hole in the middle of a desert. Oh well, I suppose that the prosperous side of the family ended up in the states.
We hadn’t eaten all day so we quickly abandoned our dreams of grandeur in search of Puerta Madryn where our hostel for the next 2 nights was located (100km north). The Hi Patagonia hostel is consistently reviewed as “the best hostel in South America”. Gaston the owner is from BA and couldn’t be nicer. He always has this smile on his face that says “have I got a surprise for you”. The hostel is one block from the beach. We found a beach side restaurant and had a late lunch.
Gaston had given us some suggestions in the area so we chose to hit the Peninsula Valdes on Thursday. It’s about a 2 hour drive north along gravel roads, think rally driving in a Chevy Corsa. Charlie was practicing his skills learned by Frank Summers in Savannah and Rawson had her eyes closed most of the time. It felt more like driving a boat than a car. Needless to say, the Corsa performed much better than expected, not sure Hertz will appreciate 140 km/hr on gravel though. We arrived at Punta Norte on the Peninsula Valdes about 30 minutes prior to high tide. There are several sea lion colonies there which are very cute and also attract the main attraction, Orcas. The Orcas usually feed from an hour and a half prior to high tide to an hour and a half after. We got some cute sea lion pictures, but the Orcas weren’t hungry that day. Apparently the chance of seeing them is only 3%. Almost snapped a shot of a postcard, but we’ll just have come back.
We headed back to the hostel to chill out after a long day of being bounced around in the car. Gaston asked if we wanted to join them for a parrilla dinner at the hostel which sounded perfect. They really do a fabulous job there of making everyone feel welcome and bringing the group together. Dinner was a asado(BBQ) of chicken, sausage and steak: with warm rolls and salad and wine. All of this for the rock bottom price of 40 Ar Pesos, about $12 USD. We met several interesting folks at the hostel including a professional photographer, a physical therapist, an IT consultant and a pastry chef at the Four Seasons on the Big Island in Hawaii. Shockingly all had been recently laid off. Hostels aren’t all kids right out of college trying to find themselves.
This morning, we got up early (6am) to make the drive back to Comodoro for our flight on LADE, the airline run by the Argie military. We made it to the gas station 2 minutes from the airport in record time (all the gravel road rally driving was practice for this). Filling up here is like New Jersey, only employees of the station may fill your tank. Apparently, this guy didn’t like our version of Spanish, because as we pulled away from the pump, the car choked to a halt. Now, some might suggest this little Chevy had been road too hard. We’re maintaining that the attendant screwed p and put in leaded gas. At least, that is what the Hertz folks are documenting. On to the airport for the LADE flight. Highly subsidized and therefore EXTREMELY reasonable in price, we should have known it was too good to be true. Arriving at the airport early enough to make our Dad’s proud, we were informed the plane was broken and not flying to our destination until Monday (it’s Friday). SOOOO, after going to the main office in the city center, we now wait patiently for our overnight bus (full beds though) to Rio Gallegos where will we catch a final bus to Calafate. Hopefully!
Next stop El Calafate!
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