Thursday, July 2, 2009

No Sleep ´til Puerto Piramides

We awoke early and starred out the window overlooking the end of the earth for a while waiting for the shuttle to Rio Grande to come pick us up. When it finally came we walked out into the deep snow, climbed into the van and anticipated another wild ride. The daylight brought the scenery and we were able to see what we couldn´t 2 nights prior. Snow covered forests (finally, trees!) lakes, steep cliffs we could have easily sailed off of all came into view. They made one stop in Tolhuin at this excellent panaderia which sold delicious empanadas y rows of popular South American pastries. 3.5hrs later we were back in Rio Grande only to discover that the bus to Puerto Madryn didn´t leave until 8:30 the next morning. We bought our tickets and walked ten icy, icy blocks to the cheapest hostel in this drabby town. Since there was nothing to do we found the grocery store and bought dinner for later, seven 40´s of beer, preceded to get drunk for the rest of the afternoon and passed out wicked early.

After waking up at 3AM since we passed out so early the night before, we waited around until a reasonable time to walked the 10 icy, icy blocks back to the bus station. 8 hours later and one much calmer ferry ride back we arrived in Rio Gallegos. We sat around, observed all the street dogs that were running around the place, used the internet and kept ourselves somewhat busy until our bus left at 20:15. 20hrs, 3 meals and 3 movies later we arrived in Puerto Madryn. Our destination was actually Puerto Piramides, a nature reserve famous for being a breeding ground for the Southern Right Whale on a peninsula 1.5hrs Northeast of Puerto Madryn and as soon as we got off the bus we decided we would go right then. We bought tickets to Puerto Piramides, used the ATM, threw our bags onto the collectivo and hoped on the bus right before it pulled away at 16:00.

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