Lost at Last

Our ride from Puerto Madryn to Bahia Blanca was boring enough that we plugged in our iPod (which we haven’t used all trip).  Within half an hour the cord gave out, so we were left humming and reminiscing.  The most eventful part of the day was the cloudy ending.

At least the tolls were free for motos.

From Bahia Blanca, Ruta 3 is buttressed with sunflowers fields on both sides for as far as the eye can see.

It was a short, hot ride to Necochea where we were going to visit Martin and Lorena at the beach.  Beach – woohoo. Time to break out the bikini.

In Necochea, we were pleasantly surprised to find Martin’s brother owned an amazing restaurant called Sotavento (“tailwind”) right on the beach.

The food was amazing. (Thanks Ariel!) My chips and beer days are behind me. (Well, the chips part anyway!)

You can probably guess what Trevor had.

I KNEW I shouldn’t have mentioned the weather! I obviously angered the rain gods when I said that we’d been so lucky with it. We woke up to pouring rain. Oh well, at least Trevor got a head start washing his bike (required for shipping).

Since sunbathing was out, we took a bracing walk along the deserted beach and, casting about for things to do, decided to go and climb the lighthouse.

(spiral staircase from below)

(from above)

(the lighthouse is still active)

The storm was picking up and it began to thunder and lightening.

(have I mentioned Trevor is scared of heights!)

Necochea has been experiencing its worst drought for 20 years, it hadn’t rained a drop in 3 months. Today, the rains flooded the streets!

Even so, the great company, food and wine kept us in great spirits and we were still sad to say our goodbyes. Only the sweetness of Buenos Aires can take away the bitterness of the end being so near .

It was 50 miles down a gravel road to Punto Tomba, where we were going to try and see more penguins.

All the way there, Trevor moaned about the state of the road, the wind, the detour, and that these had better be the best damn penguins he had ever seen!

They were. We hadn’t even got into the car park before we saw them.

Even Trevor got excited and wanted to take the photos.

I didn’t really know what to expect before we got there, but I certainly didn’t expect there to be 500,000 Magellanic penguins (the biggest penguin colony outside of Antarctica) and you to be able to walk freely among them.

(click for full effect)

(they are NOISY blighters!)

The park is an excellent and very chill reserve. There are a couple of raised paths and bridges, which are shared with the penguins, but other than that you just have to stay on the gravel paths. Penguins have right of way, as is only proper .

(a sign I never thought I’d see!)

(click for full effect)

The penguins share their habitat with guanaco (apparently NOT llama – oops!), rabbits, and small rodents called cavies.

We gave up any desire to get anywhere that night and spent hours watching the penguins waddle down to the sea where they swim like bullets, and wobble back up again.

The one-minute instruction briefing asks you to keep to the path and try and stay a metre away from the penguins – but sometimes they won’t stay a metre away from you!

I’m pretty sure these 3 are drunk and toddling off home for the night to sleep it off!

Here are a few movies I shot with the little camera (forgive the poor quality and the jerkiness, video obviously isn’t my thing, but I love to see them waddle!)

Our Colombian friend, Sergio, edited a couple of movies together from their trip.  This is the first and we guest-star.    Maybe some of you might be interested in it.  He did a fantastic job of the edit, and you can view his later episodes from his YouTube page.

This one is a little movie I shot of Trevor making penguins copy him last week.  Even the babies followed him!

More videos coming, but we might have to wait for SF for a decent connection!

For me, the worst thing about overland traveling is rolling into town after dark, tired, and then having to find a hotel. We normally manage to check out about 4 or 5 before exhaustion wins and we settle on something more expensive or more grim than we’d like. We got to Ushuaia during daylight hours and we had time to ask around. However, after 7 or so tries, we hadn’t found anything under $100 that had availability. And even in that price range, they didn’t have parking. Standing outside a Lonely-planet preferred (but full) hostel, I decided to ask the Drake hotel across the street. When they told me $75, I was skeptical. It was still more than we wanted to pay… but they did have a private, locked patio to park in. I agreed to look at the room. When I saw it, I took it. When Trevor saw it, he asked me if I was sure it wasn’t $250 dollars, not $250 pesos.

We were the only guests in our separate “wing”. There was a huge, sunny conservatory with 3 new, modern leather sofas, underfloor heating, Wi-Fi, a lending library of books and a DVD collection. Our room itself had a huge picture window looking out onto a private garden and the snow-capped mountains that surround Ushuaia. There was a fridge, coffee-making facilities, TV, DVD player and a desktop-computer. (What? No arguing over whose turn it was with the laptop?) The bathroom was uber-modern: poured concrete with porcelain and stainless steel fixtures, toilet and bidet – and the piece de resistance: a Jacuzzi bath!

Apart from our day in the jeep on the Salar, we had been riding long hard days for more than 3 weeks. We hadn’t had a day without a planned early-morning activity since Medellin. It took us about 15 minutes to figure out we could spend an extra night in Ushuaia and hang out for a day. We woke up, and did nothing at all. No, that’s not true; as Trevor might say, we did 2 things: “f*ck” and “all”. It was lovely. (Sorry there aren’t more photos. We were too busy relaxing to take any!)

The next day we dragged our feet getting up. I took my second 2-hour Jacuzzi in 2 days, and Trevor hit “Snooze” 15 times in a row. We got on the bike at the crack of noon and headed north, for the first time in 3.5 months . We stopped only to take the requisite Tierra del Fuego “windy” sign.

To make Rio Gallegos, we had to go back in and out through Chile. Trevor just loved doing the paperwork for his 4th border crossing in 6 days – our final one of the trip.

The lines at the border dashed our chances of arriving before dark but were treated to a final fling of Patagonian God-rays.

(click for full effect)

We rolled into Rio Gallegos around 11 and stayed at the first hotel we found. We barely made it to the pub across the street where I’m ashamed to say we both ordered a burger (veggie for me), a basket of chips, and a litre of Stella each, before we fell into bed.