Penguins, Piramides and . . . Motorcycles?

Greetings All,

Today I'd like to talk about expectations and travel. Expectations can really make or break your travel experience. For example, we have spent the last three days and quite a bit of money to get ourselves out to the Valdez Peninsula, famous for Orcas who eat seals off the beach and rare right whales. Sounds pretty awesome right? Maybe in December. Right about now, the only town on the peninsula, Puerto Piramedes is a wasteland, there are no whales and it will cost you an arm and a leg to drive 70 mph down a gravel road, slipping and sliding the whole way, only to catch a fleeting glimpse of an ornery Magellan penguin as it waddles away to some more desirable location (See above).

Now, should you arrive at Puerto Piramides expecting a shanty-town instead of a campground, complete with all night drum circles and midnight motorcycle rallies, you will be thrilled with what you find there. You may even have the time of your life. It took some re-adjusting of our expectations but in the end Puerto Piramides was not really so bad. And, it certainly made our splurge on a hostel here in Puerto Madryn seem extra awesome (wifi and running water . . . both incredible luxuries).

Tomorrow we take a six hour bus ride to Viedma where we will catch a Friday train to Bariloche. Now there is something I'm excited about. Also tried to include photos of Doug, Recoleta Cemetery, and Sea Lions but the Internet is not working so well. Hopefully I can have a photo post tomorrow!

Until then!

Moving on Down

Greetings all,

I apologize for not writing so frequently but things have been pretty busy around here preparing for our jump off to Patagonia. We leave this afternoon (20 hour bus ride, yeck). In the last few days I have been getting used to life here at my hostel: the public bathrooms, the hot sweaty nights, and the all night parties that the Brazilians staying in the hostel have literally right outside our door until 7 in the morning. Now I must say goodbye to all of it, at least for now as we begin treking southward.

We leave tonight at 8:00 pm and will be taking a bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn. We will spend tomorrow night in Puerto Madryn and then head into Peninsula Valdez, a park famous for oodles of penguins and orcas that eat sea lions right off the beach. We should be in the park tuesday and wednesday. Thursday we will be busing to Viedma where we will stay until we take the train on friday evening heading to Bariloche in western Argentina (beginning of the Lakes District). I´m letting you all know in case I have no internet for the next week and am unable to blog.

I will try and post some pictures from my recent visit to the Recoleta Cemetery. It was incredibly beautiful and incredibly creepy.

Cheers for now!