Uruguay to Patagonia, Adios Cheffina :(

Sunday, January 27


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We woke up just in time for another hostel breakfast consisting of... Cereal, bread, and bad coffee, but it was better than nothing, and free, so we couldn't complain.  Our goal was to get to Cabo Polonio by the end of the day, so our first mission was to make arrangements to get there.  We put on our beach gear, as we would be spending any spare time at "Playa Brava" before we had to get on the bus.  We walked to the bus station and inquired as to the best way to get to Cabo Polonio.  There was a direct bus at 5:00 pm, but that would mean that we didn't arrive there until close to 9:00 pm, and we didn't want to do that.  So what we decided was to take a local bus to a town called San Carlos, which was an hour away, and catch a 4:00 bus from there, which would bring us to our destination earlier. 



D'Alice at the big hand

We got to the beach around 1:00 pm, and it was definitely the best beach we had been to thus far in our travels.  It also had a very large statue of a half hand sticking out of the sand, which we found to be interesting, and spent awhile taking cheesy pictures with it.  It was a very hot and sunny day, and despite wearing pretty heavy sunscreen, Jeff and Adina both got pretty badly burned, in the hour and a half we spent there.

Super-Jeep

We walked back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff, and made it to the bus stop right on time to catch the local bus we needed to go to San Carlos for our transfer.  We arrived in San Carlos about an hour later, and were dropped right in the middle of what seemed to be a ghost town.  There was no one else around with the exception of the bus driver, and a few people who also worked for the bus company, as this was the end of the line for that bus route.  We asked where we could pick up the bus to Cabo Polonio, and after much hand talking, Alice managed to get one of the guys to draw us a little map of where to go. We weren't expecting to have a 12 block walk with our backpacks, and being that it was a very hot day, this walk would take it's toll.  We made it to the bus terminal, though, and had just enough time to down a huge schnitzel sandwich before boarding the bus to Cabo Polonio.

We made it to Cabo Polonio just after 7:00 pm, but it was still very hot and light outside. We got tickets for the final leg of our journey; a nauseating and bumpy drive over the sand dunes in huge 4x4s.  We finally made it into the town just before 8:00 pm, and walked right into the first hostel we saw and got a room.  The town itself was exactly as was described to us by Magic Mike a few days earlier; Very quaint, quiet, filled with hippie type travelers and with limited electricity, if any.  We threw down our bags and ran outside (after Dave locked the keys in the room and had to get the hostel keeper to let us in again) just in time to see the sun setting on one side of the peninsula, and moon rising on the other.  We also made friends with some local women named Anna and Georgina, one of whom spoke English, and neither of whom could pronounce Jeff's name.  Thus, for the rest of the trip (and maybe his life), he would be known as "Cheff".  We also managed to pick up a straggler named Carlos, who spoke no English at all, and just decided to join us out for dinner as we left the hostel.



We had fried fish balls and pizza over candlelight for dinner, and ended off the evening at a local shack/bar called Lobo for drinks.  There we were also treated to a candle-lit experience and we all enjoyed the rustic style very much.  There were local musicians who took turns playing fiddles, guitars, and drums for us, and after each was done would walk around the small bar with their hats open looking for compensation, which we provided happily. Cheff got lots of laughs as the girls tried to teach him to roll his r's, and he tried to make jokes (bromas) en espanol.  We got back to the hostel feeling happy with our decision to come to such an interesting place, and turned in for bed around 2:00 am.

Monday, January 28.

After sleeping for a whole hour, we were all woken up by a hoard of vicous mosquitos.  They were everywhere and ready for attack. Alice counted 25 of them on the ceiling alone and noticed that they looked "healthy", and had obviously been pretty good hunters.  We all tossed and turned for hours (the lower bunks where Cheff and Dave were sleeping were notably more vulnerable than the uppers where the girls were), but despite our best efforts were not able to get back to sleep.  Eventually we decided to open the window and try to shoo out as many as possible, but also to no avail.  We eventually did manage to get to sleep for an hour or so from 7:00-8:00, probably just because of the exhaustion.

We got out of mosquito hell just after 8:00, and took a walk over to the point of the peninsula, where we were told we could see sea lions (or sea wolves, as the Spanish translation would say).  We rounded the first corner, and saw that there were a ton of them on a rock island off in the distance.  We were disappointed though, as they were too far away to get a good look.  We kept walking in disappointment towards a lighthouse that we decided we'd like to climb, and as we turned the last corner towards the lighthouse, we saw about a hundred more sea lions that were no more than 100 m away!  Excited, we ran over to the closest view point, and watched the sea lions for about a half hour as they slid down the rocks into the water, swim and waddled their way back up the rocks, and what appeared to be play fight amongst one another.

Satisfied, we walked over to the lighthouse to climb up, but were informed that it wouldn't open until 3:00.  So we went and had a grocery store sandwich for lunch, and Dave and Alice went to the beach while Cheff and Adina wanted to go over to a local shack that had a Canadian flag, to investigate.  An hour or so later, Cheff and Adina met us at the beach, and reported that the owner was a half Canadian half Uruguayan named "The Condor" who spent half his time in Cabo Polonio, and the other half in Georgetown, Ontario.  After hanging out for a bit on the beach, we went back to the lighthouse.

It only took us 5 minutes or so to climb up the 140 steps of the lighthouse, and it took Dave about 2 seconds to be reminded of how terrified of heights he still was.  It was worth the view, though, as the lighthouse provided a 360 degree vista of Cabo Polonio and the surrounding area.  We walked back down after taking a few pictures, and Dave vowed never to do that again, but we shall see if that holds true.  We walked back to the hostel, and relaxed for the rest of the afternoon in the shade, as we waited for another huge 4x4 to take us back across the sand dunes.  This time, Dave and Cheff decided to take the upper level ride, which was no more comfortable, but provided better views.

We caught a 5 pm bus to Montevideo, the Capital city of Uruguay, and arrived there around 10:30 pm.  We had McDonalds at the bus station (yes, D'Alice's diet had officially gone way out the window at this point) and took a taxi to our hostel from there.  We got there close to midnight, and we were the only guests in what was a new and large hostel that was under renovation.  Once we were settled in "Cheff" surprised by pulling out a travel board game called "Catch Phrase", which we played until about 3:00 am then went to sleep.

Tuesday, January 29.

We had another late wake-up, and another hostel style breakfast with toast and jam, only this time the coffee was instant and a bit more bearable.  We decided to try to make it a cheap day, and made our own walking tour of the city.  It took a few hours to get from where our hostel was located, to the "old city", but was well worth it.  The old city consisted of lots of old architecture, and pedestrian only streets with many street merchants selling their crafts.  We stopped for a banana break, a hot dog break, and a few water breaks, as it was another very hot and sunny day.  On the (long) way back to the hostel, we stopped at a crafts store and bought colored string, as Alice wanted to make bracelets as a project for the many bus hours that were to come. 

When we got back to the hostel, it was close to 6:00 pm, and we had nap/internet time for a few hours before going out to dinner.  As it was going to be the last dinner that the four of us had together, we decided to go out for a nice steak/asado treat, and this time D'Alice picked up the tab, as an early birthday/thank you gift for both Cheff and Adina.

We got back to the hostel well after midnight, but decided to play Kings (a popular drinking game with cards) as we had a half bottle of vodka to finish.  We managed to get pretty Borracho (drunk) and piss off the new German couple who were now the only other guests in the hostel.  We set our alarm for 6:00 am, as we had an early ferry to catch back to Buenos Aires, and went to sleep around 2:30.

Wednesday, January 30.

We woke up after pressing snooze twice, quickly packed, and got a taxi to the bus station to catch our 7:00 am bus that was to take us back to the ferry port in Colonia.  We grabbed a few snacks at the ferry port, and managed to get back to Buenos Aires around 11:30 am (local time, as we had to turn our watches back 1 hour).  We asked at the ferry port where a good mall was, as we thought that would be a nice way to spend the afternoon and grab a bite to eat.  We were directed to a place called "Buenos Aires Design", and caught a cab. 

When we got to "Buenos Aires Design", we discovered that it was not actually a mall, but a collection of furniture stores.  We chalked that one up the language barrier.  A little frustrated and hungry, we walked around the furniture mall looking for a place to eat, or as Cheff tried to explain in Spanish "Where eat Cameras?".  We walked past a few expensive looking places, and decided not to go in, and just as we were about to take a taxi to a different part of town, saw a Starbucks!  As we love Starbucks coffee, and had not had any thus far on our adventure, we decided that would be a great place to spend the afternoon (they also had a great outdoor patio).  So we drank coffee, found street burgers, and chilled there for the duration of the afternoon.  We also found out that we were very close to a popular Mausoleum (where "Evita" was buried) which was a top 5 tourist destination on the Buenos Aires list, so Cheff, Adina, and Dave walked over to check it out while Alice stayed with the bags and had internet/relaxation time.

We left the Starbucks around 3:00 pm, as Cheff and Adina had a plane to catch, and D'Alice had to get to the bus station to get to their next destination.  We said goodbye with hugs outside the cab at the bus station, and thanked them for sharing such an amazing week with us.  After the cab left, we cursed them a bit for completely ruining our diet, but it was well worth it. 

We compared prices and times for our next bus trip; to Bariloche in Patagonia.  It turned out that all the busses cost around 800 pesos per person (about $160) and were 21 hour trips.  We chose one that left at 8:00 pm that night, and spent 4 hours hanging out in bus station reading, bracelet stringing, and making mini crossword puzzles for each other while mentally preparing for another long bus trip.

The bus left right on time, and we were treated to an airplane style dinner, before popping Gravols and passing out around 11:00 pm.

Thursday, January 31.

We slept pretty well through the night on the bus and woke up in time for a small jam and cracker breakfast provided by the bus company. We spent the rest of the morning working on our bracelets, reading and falling in and out of sleep. After our stop for lunch we were pretty awake and excited that we were nearing our destination. The last 2 and a half hours of the long trip we enjoyed the breathtaking scenery of the Andes mountains and the Nahuel Lake. By the time we arrived in Bariloche it was 8pm, much later than we anticipated. We didn't have a place to stay yet, but were directed 300 meters down the main street by another traveler to a place called Tango Inn.

Just as we started our walk 2 stray dogs that whom we had named "scruffy" and "limpy" started following us, and they were very sweet and made sure we got to the Tango safe and sound. As we were checking in, a guy saw our Canadian patches on our bags as he was walking down the stairs and yelled out "Canadians!!!". Dave turned around and said "where?" and we all started laughing as he obviously was referring to us. He introduced himself as Greg from Vancouver, and asked us if we had eaten dinner yet. We hadn't and we were starving, so we dropped off our stuff and let him lead us into the touristy city centre for some food.

When we were walking out of the hostel, Scruffy and Limpy were right there waiting for us, and the accompanied us for our entire walk into town. It was a long walk, but we there was so much to see as the town was full of people, stores, restaurants, bars. It reminded us of a ski town and that it very well would be come winter time, as it was the #1 ski destination for South America. By the time dinner was over and we made it back to Tango it was late, so we spent about an hour hanging out in the backyard where we met two Argentinian girls named Rosario and Julietta. We laughed over our Spanglish and their broken English and then went to bed.

Friday, February 01.

We woke up at about 9am and made it downstairs in time for a dolce de leche crepe breakfast which we thoroughly enjoyed. Greg was also downstairs and filled us in on his travels, trials,  and tribulations in Brazil, and how he had gotten his wallet, cards and all stolen on the beach. To make a long story short, the bank was supposed to send him temporary cards while still in Brazil and failed on two attempts, and only got him a temp card 3 weeks later. Greg was having a really hard time taking money out without this card so we offered to help him out. He sent us an online email money transfer and in turn we said we would take out some money for him.



We set out for the town again, and stopped for lunch at a local restaurant that was offering "Pizza Libre" (all you can eat pizza) for 25 pesos ($5) a head. This was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. After we filled our bellies, we took the scenic route by the Nahuel Lake into town in search of a bank. We stopped to take some pictures on the way.  4 banks and 1 hour later we were still moneyless. The banks in Argentina were not working in our favor. Not only were they all closed between the hours of 1-5pm for siesta, but they were also not recognizing our Canadian cards. Eventually we found a bank that allowed us to withdraw a minimal amount, though it wouldn't be enough for us to share, let alone pay Greg back in full, but it would hold us over for the rest of the day. When we got back to the hostel, took long naps, and didn't wake up until almost 10pm. We set out to the grocery store to grab food for a home made pasta dinner with a guacamole appetizer and had a nice little dinner party with beer and wine.

After dinner we met up with our Argentinian friends Rosario and Julietta, and shared cabs into town to Tango's sister bar for some free drinks. The bar had a DJ set up in the corner playing Electronic music even though it supposed to be disco night and their flyer had advertised that they would be playing 80's and 90's music. So, after our drinks were done we headed down to the street to an Irish Pub for a change of scenery. After a few drinks and a few hours we said goodbye to our friends, walked all the way back to Tango in the wee hours of the morning. At first, we were a little nervous, being that it was 4:30 am and the streets were pretty empty.  However, we ended up being accompanied by a pack of 6 largish stray dogs that made sure we got back safely.

 As always, thanks for keeping up with us, and stay tuned for more exciting adventures!
With love from Patagonia,
D'Alice (and Scruffy and Limpy)