Leaving Rachel at Las Vegas airport after a cracking little holiday was much easier than I think leaving my family from a UK airport would have been; helped by Rachel laughing at me hobbling off carrying all my belongings for the next 7 months!
From here on in, for full details of locations, proper names of animals, or factual accuracy generally, you're best off going to the main trip blog at www.odysseyoverland.co.uk - you want the south america explorer trip. I'm writing this from memory and the reference books are at the other end of the truck so clearly far too far away for me to use. :o) Kirsten also nabs the best photos from the group and puts them on there too.
My flight from Las Vegas was delayed, so I faced missing my connection in Houston. With the next flight 24 hours later, that would put me arriving in B.A. after the truck and all my yet-to-meet travel companions had left! eek. As it turned out, the pilot 'put his foot down' or whatever the flying equivalent might be, and switched gate, so I stepped off the arriving flight, ran as ably as my recently operated-on knee would take me up the jetty, to check in at the next gate along for my B.A. flight 8 mins before it was due to depart. Was I too late? Thankfully not, as whoever was in charge decided the others due off that flight wouldn't be long after I popped up, so they would wait. The others actually rocked up about 30-45 minutes later so clearly were not quite as eager to make the connection as me. Phew nonetheless. My thoughts now, for the first time, turned to a slight nervousness. Would I like the group? How would I take to bush camping and living out of one bag for 7 months? Would I get too homesick? With no answers handy, I did what any sensible person would do in that situation and got a Bloody Mary.
I was surprised that Buenos Aires was even hotter than Las Vegas! I really should have looked into temperatures a bit more before I left the UK. Oops. Being annoyingly unable to sleep on planes, I arrived at my hotel barely capable of speech, confronted by well rested and rather chipper fellow overlanders. They obviously recognised the post-long-flight look and packed me off to my room with instructions to meet later as a whole group for a trip briefing and dinner. I may have also been slightly exhibiting typical taxi-trauma after my transfer from airport to hotel. My taxi driver clearly had a very short attention span, driving on the motorway pretty fast whilst dabbling with all his belongings in the passenger seat, his pockets, behind the sun visor etc, only righting the car when he strayed completely into another lane. Exciting.
not my hotel but the view from it....reminded me of Cuba
My room mates returned after a day out (Heather, Lisa and Vanessa plus me aka 'The girls' and I was pleased to learn that Vanessa is from Bolton. Having some good Bolton friends, this felt reassuringly familiar, plus Bolton is one of my favourite accents. :o) The group briefing told us what we had in store and here I learned that the truck had not yet arrived. Ah! This is a maiden-trip of this route for Odyssey Overlanding, so the purpose built truck had to come over on a 6 week boat trip. After our trip, it will live out here somewhere. Now 2 weeks overdue, the Odyssey owners/crew (Pete and Kirsten) had re-jigged the plan and we learned we would be staying another night in BA, then overnighting by coach to Puerto Madryn, whilst Pete and Graham (crew) would trot off to Montevideo (Uruguay) to wait for the truck.
The group night out in B.A. took us to a rustic steak house and even sharing a fillet between two people, that half was bigger than any steak I have had in England. Argentinian steak and red wine make delicious bed fellows and I managed to resist Pete's offering of fried tripe and blood sausage (the latter being like a squishy black pudding). Blurgh! I was slowly learning 24 new names though.
So, kit had to be packed up again, to head off for Puerto Madryn. After the location stops I have had, you'd think I'd have mastered this packing malarky by now.....but no, it's pretty hit and miss. Every zip-up to date has been a two man job. So, our first group transfer to the bus station involved several taxis with Kirsten conducting operations. My taxi driver on this occasion was a real gem. Probably 50 years old but looking considerably older, with long curly wet look hair. (Kirsten describes it as greasy but I think wet look gel was involved in this 'look'. Mikkel (fellow overlander) started head nodding appreciatively to the music in the car and Kirsten correctly identified it as ACDC, which the driver then took as a request to turn it up loud, which he then did. This caused an increase in driving speed and as he weaved in and out of the lanes, we gripped on, save for waving at some of our fellow overlanders as we accelerated past them. Whilst negotiating traffic, the driver indicated to my bracelet; a little string thing with a heart chakra symbol on it. He grinned, pointed to a matching tattoo on his arm and said something I didn't understand in spanish. I just hoped it didn't mean we were engaged or something. The cab rides here are certainly not dull.
In the absence of the truck, we loaded onto a sleeper bus, which looked much like an English coach, but with wider seats which reclined. We knew we'd be fed but it unfortunately seemed to be based mainly around the cracker and dolce de leche biscuits which I swear have more sugar in them than fudge! (there's dolce de leche everything here - I'd describe it as a caramel version of nutella). The main evening meal appeared to be much the same, with a creme caramel type pud. As we all reached the end of dessert, we had a hot tray plonked on our laps. Ah! Timing was a bit out there, me thinks. Spanish films were shown till about 11pm and as the speaker above me couldn't be switched off, my journey was accompanied by this but I can't say I have expanded my Spanish vocabulary because of it.
Puerto Madryn 30th Nov to 3rd Dec
We were pleased to see our hostel in Puerto Madryn which had a communal kitchen/dining area and courtyard for whiling away some time. Jeanne and I had a room for two and if Jeanne didn't have the key handy, she didn't bat an eyelid at the option of entry and exit via the window.
The metal staircase was a bit wobbly/exciting but the fact I am writing this now means I survived it.
Now in Patagonia (which we entered just north of Puerto Madryn), our first full day in Puerto Madryn involved a day tour around the Valdez Peninsula, hosted by a very entertaining tour guide, Martin, who had excellent English and threw in the odd motherchuffer (I think you know what I mean) for good measure. This was a great day, spotting Argentinian plants and wildlife: owls and other unusual birds, Mara's (big hare type things with floppy ears), Rhea's (ostriches),
Guanaco's (llama type things)
but unfortunately no armadillo's (soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside). If Robbie the driver saw something ahead, he slammed on the brakes and Martin would nearly go flying, with a sidelong glance and a dryly delivered "I hate you Robbie".
We then stopped at a penguin colony and watched them wobbling around, whilst we took lots of photos. It seemed odd to see them as it was so hot and sunny but they looked happy enough sun bathing.
Next stop was a restaurant overlooking the sea and a seal colony. To get closer to the seals involved descending (and the inevitable return climb) up more steps than I would like to count but watching the seals burp, parp and flop around was worth it.
an ex whale
After lunch, a whale watching trip. A first for me, it was Fantastic! (yes, the capital F is deliberate).
Several mums and their babies swam over to our boat and I think at one point we had 8 whales in eyesight. They didn't breach, other than their heads (which on photos will look like rocks to anyone else but those of us that were there - see below) but they swam under our boat, showing their size and one mum popped her tail out of the water and stayed still in that way for a minutes while, once again, we all filled our camera memory cards.
It was quite breathtaking to see such huge creatures moving so slowly and delicately. Truly peaceful and calming. Some dolphins skipped around near us too, but man, they are so quick, my photos of them are not the best, with all of them either showing no dolphin or just part dolphin.
you'll just have to trust me that these are dolphins!
Little scamps. Oh, this day ended with a shared pizza between 2 at Mr J's. Still too huge for us. When will we get used to these Argentinian portions?!
Following a lazy day for me in Puerto Madryn, we faced another taxi transfer to the bus station, this time jazzed up a bit with one person plus many bags per cab and then others walked. Oh yes, we were getting good at this transfer thing. Now, for another sleeper coach. This time we were prepared with red wine and lots of nibbles. Fate flicked us on the ear on this one though because as soon as we were settled in our seats and off, the coach attendant came round with red wine. Jeanne, myself and Kirsten decided this was the only way to endure both the scent the toilet downstairs would inevitably share and also soften our view of very close oncoming traffic. We soon discovered that our attendant lived up to that name in terms of topping up our wine. We also got news that the truck had escaped the boat and subject to customs letting it out, would be with us. Progress! We were happy, me particularly when we hit a bit of a bump in the road and Jeanne declared her wine had gone all over her food, trousers, fleece and "up my nose"! We were amused further when he popped on the microphone and having handed out sheets to us all, proceeded a game of bingo. He then gave us control of the video selection so we had english speaking films. Brilliant. National Express, please take note.
