My "weekend" in Patagonia that ended near Antarctica...

Well well well. Where do I begin! I went on a little spontaneous vacation. I had been mentally planning it for a while, but no one else wanted to go. I was in class with Ester and telling her how I was feeling restless and worthless and needed to get out of town. She was like, chica – go for it. Just go.

I bought a bus ticket an hour later. That left 3 hours after that.

So I frantically throw some random clothes in my Vera Bradley duffel. The cleaning lady was in our room cleaning and I was speaking in panicked Spanish that I was going alone omg and what am I thinking, etc. She thinks I’m crazy. And after spending so much time with myself, I think she’s right.

So I got to the bus station, waited on my bus, finally got on and entered German Spring Break 08. Not really, but all these German kids were wasted on the bus. Oh and we played bus bingo! The winner got a bottle of wine. My kind of bus.

We rolled into Puerto Madryn about 24 hours later. I was like, omg bus don’t be here yet, I can’t do this, tell me this isn’t the stop. But it was. I grabbed by bag and headed into tourist info office. My Spanish miraculously appeared and I got a map and tour info and had a lovely chat with the office lady about whales. I made it to my hostel, showered, and took off to see the beach.

Puerto Madryn is a small city about the size of Monroe on the Atlantic coast that is basically the hub for whale watching and going to Peninsula Valdes. I walked down the huge pier and then decided I was ready for lunch. Solo restaurant adventure here I come.

I went to a seafood place by the pier. I sat by the window and watched the ocean. I ate some salmon (it was white, I was confused) and drank a vast amount of wine. Coping mechanism I guess.

So I leave the restaurant a bit intox for 3 in the afternoon (minus grove days, duh). I proceed to nap on the beach in my clothes for about an hour. And it’s not beach season yet. I was the only one on it. I woke up a bit disoriented. Then I went into the mall and bought a wallet. How lovely.

The next day I signed up for a tour of the peninsula. The tours are pricey, but really are the only way to go see everything.

A little white van picked me up from my hostel. It was already full of about 12 passengers from Spain, Japan, Argentina, and me. Our guide Maria told us all about the animals we would see that day. We then went out on a whale watch which rocked. All of the Southern Right Wales (Franco Austral) come to the water there and they are huge and unbelievable. The come so close! I saw tons! You can also see plenty just on the pier in town. It’s unreal. Like real Sea World. I was very concerned that a whale might just accidentally tap our little boat and swallow us but the boat captain assured me that that doesn’t really happen. The whales have super sensitive nerves that keep them away or something. Watching the whales jump out of the water was unreal. They just swim around and play with their family. It was like Brucie and I at Saks just frolicking around. The tour also took us to a sea lion colony, which was so cute.

Fun story from this tour: After seeing huge whales, cute penguins, seals, sea lions, ostriches, llamas, and sheep we were in the parking lot and an armadillo walked by. The people freaked out and chased it down with their cameras. Like 30 people. Fascinated by an armadillo. After all we had seen. I mean really. They can just come to my backyard anytime in Monroe. It was hysterical.

The next day I did a tour of Punta Tomba. We started with a boat tour to see these little dolphins that only exist there. They look like mini orcas. So cute. Like flipper but black and white and sneaky. They were such a delight to watch. I took a million pics. It was like photo hunt. They jump up so fast it’s hard to get a shot. Then we went to the penguin colony. OMG. Heaven. It’s like these acres of land just filled with penguins!

It’s odd bc I’m sure you also envision penguins in the snow and ice. Not all penguins. These Magellan penguins live with sheep. It’s so funny! They live as couples in these little cave hole things. When we were there, they were all sitting on their eggs. It’s so fun. When walking around, the penguins have the right of way. So humans have to stop and wait for the penguins to cross the paths. Then we went to have tea at this Welsh teahouse. It was deelish.

Our tour guide that day was a guy named Luciano. There were 2 other American girls on the tour and we hung out a lot. Luciano made lots of inappropriate comments to us all day long and we were clearly infatuated. So when the van dropped me off at my hostel and he asked us to go out to dinner later we were like oh heck yes.

He picked me up first. I was quite nervous but played it cool, you know. He’s way hot in an indigenous tattoo man way. Not exactly Delta Debutante Material, but that makes it more fun. We picked up the other girls and went to this pub to get a beer. The night was fun but by the end of it I was dunzo. All Luciano wanted to talk about were things I could never ever type or blog about. The other girls loved it. I sat ther in my Ole Miss properness and tried not to gape. I was relieved to get home to the hostel. We all made plans to go on some big bike ride the next day. Woke up not really feeling a 30 mile bike trip with the pervs so when Luciano came to get me, I told him I couldn’t go – adios lo siento. I spent the day in town and on the pier. It was lovely.

My hostel was great. I went to an asado there and met tons of cool people. Everyone is on career breaks, which are the coolest thing ever. American needs to get these. They were all on “around the world” trips doing South America, New Zealand and Austrailia, then China and Vietnam and Laos. Omg. And they’re all like, teachers and stuff. They just get to take off for a year, travel and play, and then go back to work like nothing happened. If one of the presidential candidates would add this to his platform, I would campaign door to door.

So while in Puerto Madryn I thought a lot about going back to BA or continuing south. I really have no commitment in BA so I decided to keep on going. And it was the best decision ever.

I took a bus to Rio Gallegos and then to El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. It was so amazing. Cold and amazing. The hostel there even had heated floors. I met lots of cool people there too. I sat on the bus by my potential future hubby. He just graduated law school in London and is from the Cotswalds where his dad is an antique dealer. Brucie heaven. Sorry, he’s got a girlfriend. I’ll move on.

El Calafate is a lot like a mountain resort town, like Vail or Crested Butte. Lots of nice restaurants and ski shops.

From El Calafate I went to El Chalten, which is at the Fitz Roy mtn range, part of the Andes. It was so pretty. The town is only 15 years old. Chile and Argentina were fighting about it and Argentina built a little teeny town first so they won it. All that’s there are trails to the Cerre Torre and Fitz Roy. I’m not normally a big hiker, but I did it. And it was one of the coolest things I’ve done.

I’ll take this moment to try to convey how unprepared and dumb I looked throughout my travels. So when packing I a huge hurry, I seemed to forget my hiking gear (not that I have any). Everyone I was with was all geared out in north face everything with huge backpacks. I had fake little ballet tennis shoes and a Vera Bradley bag (which actually got lots of compliment bc no one has ever seen one before). Along my trip I had to buy some supplemental clothes including a blue fleece with “America del Sur – Patagonia” written on the back. It looks like I work for a tour company. A puffy white coat with whales on the zippers (everything in the stores was whale themed, I did the best I could). And a red school backpack. Nothing to be proud of. Bad bad purchases, but they were necessary.

From there I continued down to Ushuaia, the most southern city on the earth. It’s beautiful as well. Most people there are in route to Antarctica. I went to the national park with some girls in a rental car. It was a stick shift so I couldn’t contribute. I spent a few days in the town. Loved it. To get back to BA on a bus was going to take almost 4 days. No thanks. And the bus to Ushuaia was HORRIBLE. It only goes during the day bc you have to cross into Chile and back into Argentina which takes hours. Everyone has to get off and go through customs. And you have to get on a ferry. All bags get searched. Miz. We did this 4 times. Oh and the guy directly behind me on the bus had a seizure. We had to pull over and everyone was freaking out. I almost fainted. He turned out to be fine but it was quite an ordeal. I couldn’t put myself back on that bus. So I paid lots of money to fly back. Lame, but better than the alternative. And I was back for Halloween, which I’ll post about tomorrow.

My last night in Ushuaia I took myself out to a fancy dinner and had lamb and wine and this potato thing. After these 2 weeks alone, I have mastered eating in restaurants solo. And doing everything alone. It was a great experience. I totally understand traveling here now. So much easier than I expected. And I know I can really do anything on my own. Quite empowering.

That’s my 2 week random vacation. Loved it.


Some fotos.