The Great South American Adventure

What up yo? Happy Easter everyone. How are you all going? Things are going pretty well over here. Puerto Madryn was good, saw some sea lions, elephant seals and a shite load of penguins. I met a couple good blokes from Buenos Aires, Hernan and Gaston, at the hostel in Puerto Madryn. Hernan had his car with him and was going to Peninsula Valdez so I took full advantage of that and got a lift with him. We stayed on the Peninsula at Puerto Pirimides for a night, which was good cause it meant we didn´t have to rush around the place trying to see everything in one day. Unfortunately we did not see any killer whales, despite going to the most likely place to see them at the most likely time two days in a row and waiting a total of about 8 hours. Oh well, there´s always documentaries. A couple of days later, after returning to Puerto Madryn, we went down to Punta Tombo, which was awesome. There is a massive Magellan Penguin colony there, and there is a path that goes right through there nesting area and up to the beach where they were always getting in and out of the water and swimming around in the shallows. It was so cool because they were always on the path and you just walked among them. Photos coming soon.

From Puerto Madryn, I took a bus to Esquel, which was pretty nice but I didn´t really do much there, because there wasn´t really much to do. I did walk to a small lake, which was pretty crap cause the walk was along a dusty road, instead of like a beaten track through forrests, and I watched a kids soccer game which was pretty good quality, on my way out of town. I hitchhiked to El Bolson with a father and daughter from Spain. They were pretty nice. The daughter had just moved over to Buenos Aires and the father had come over to do some travelling with her. I found all that out speaking only spanish, how good am I. In El Bolson, I have been working on a WWOOF farm, which is very chilled out and has been very kind on the budget. Work has included collecting rocks and shovelling dirt. I came down to town today, also hitch hiking, to check out the local handi craft market. I stopped to watch a street performer who was mainly juggling and joking with the crowd, and he asked me to come forward to throw flaming clubs to him while he balanced on a board on top of a cylinder on top of a box. I thought why me as he got the crowd to applaud until I got up and explained to him that I was Australian and didn´t really understand his instructions but he just forwarded this information to the crowd and laughed it off. It wasn´t so funny when he didn´t catch the third burning club cause I threw it to the wrong hand. And after the trick, which was the finale, he asked if I wanted to give him money, then made a joke about how little I gave him. Anyway, it´s all good. From here I´m going to go to Bariloche, probably on monday. Until then, stay tuned for more TALES OF INTEREST.

So what have I been up to lately. I went to El Chalten and that was pretty nice. I did a bit of bushwalking there. On the first one I thought I was doing pretty good, everyone had said that it was a pretty hard walk, and I thought I was just some naturally tallented hiker, without any training at all. That was until i reached the last couple of hundred meters or so, over which the track rose a couple of hundred meters (about 45 degrees). By the time I got to the top I was absolutely buggard and the Fitz Roy (big granite rock at the top) had just been covered up by clouds and it started to rain.
But enough whinging, I made it and I´ve got the photo to prove it and that´s what matters. I took the next day off to recover and the day after I did another hike which, wheather wise, proved equally disappointing. The wind at my destination was the strongest i have ever experienced. That in itself was pretty cool, but the main attraction was once again covered in cloud. That walk was a lot
easier than the previous one though and in the end was quite pleasant (how boringly lame ). The day after that I got a bus further north toward Perito Moreno, but I decided to stay at
an Estancia (ranch) 75km out of town cause my guide book said it was cheap and I thought it would be cool to gaucho (cowboy) it up for a couple of days. When I arrived there were no other guests there and there was no electricity. The "local" attraction there is La Cueva de Las Manos (Cave of Hands), which the owners of the estancia told me was about a 3 hour walk away, from where I could return by car, I think, because they only spoke spanish and thought that talking faster made it easier to understand. However, I thought that compared to my previous hikes this would be a piece o cake. After about 5 hours walking, following a badly signed track I finally made it and it was pretty cool, 9,000 year old cave paintings mostly of hands, juanacos and hunters. But at the end of the tour when I asked about getting a lift home the guide looked at me blankly and basically said that there were no cars there and he didn´t think
anymore people were going to come that day. It was about 5 o´clock by that stage so I thought I was going to have to walk back and arrive by about 10pm. Luckily another tourist came to see the paintings, did the tour then gave me a lift even though he wasn´t going to go that way. The day after that, which was yesterday, I hitched a ride into Perito Moreno, cause that was the only way into town. I started hitching at about 10am and got a lift at about 12:30pm. In Poreto Moreno I managed to find the bus station after wondering round in circles and asking for directions about 5 times. I caught a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia, which arrived at 10pm and I thought I was going to stay there the night but there was an overnight bus to Puerto Madryn, my intended destinations so I thought I´d kill 2 birds with 1 stone, transport and accomodation. Unfortunately sleeping on the bus wasn´t that comfy, and I awoke this morning with a terrible feeling in my neck to the sound of the driver telling me we´ve arrived after an estimated 2 or 3 hours sleep. Anyway, the plan is to stay here for a while and check out the penguins, seals, dolphins and hopefully an killer whale. Keep up the comments, I know Daino that I´ve written a long winded entry again. Shut up! Peace out, I´m going to sleep.