Puerto Madryn & Bariloche (part 2)

Saturday: We arrived in Puerto Madryn around 1pm after a long bus ride from Rio Gallegos. It's a cute little seaside town and our hostel, HI Patagonia, was located just two blocks from the beach. The hostel staff were really friendly and showed us to our room, a bright airy double with cable TV, kettle and fridge! We spent the rest of the day wondering around the town and planning the week ahead. David had initially planned to do his PADI course here, as there are a number of dive schools offering this at a good price and giving divers the opportunity to dive with sea lions! However, we were told that the weather was likely to change throughout the week so unfortunately he had to put it off to do it elsewhere on our travels.

The owner of the hostel, Gaston, holds regular bbqs in the evenings and so after our long journey we opted to have dinner at the bbq that night, which gave us the chance to meet and chat with the other hostel guests and eat a ridiculous amount of steak, lamb and chicken!

Sunday: We were up reasonably early and so headed off for a run in the morning after some breakie. We took the beach promenade south along the coast for a good run in the refreshing sea breeze. In the afternoon we went to the beach, where the speedos made a long awaited reappearance! It was a beautiful afternoon and we were looking forward a week of great weather...but it wasn't to be!

Monday: We visited the Peninsula Valdes, a vast nature reserve situated north of Puerto Madryn. Our guide was really informative and spoke great English. We saw more Magellanic penguins, sea lions and their pups, elephant seals, foxes, armadillos and many birds. Orcas are also spotted in these waters as they feed off the sea lion pups in February-March and the elephant seal pups in November-December. This is one of only two places in the world where the orcas use the method in 'intentional beach stranding' to catch the pups. However, we were still a little early in the season and didn't manage to spot an orca, not too surprising as there are only 34 orcas in total on the east Argentinian coast line which spans over 40,000km! We found ourselves willing the sea lion pups into the water in the hope they would entice an Orca – initially we felt cruel thinking this but we got over it soon enough. We arrived back at the hostel in early evening and had another chilled evening chatting with the other hostel guests.

Tuesday: We awoke to pouring rain, which was forecast to last until Thursday. We decided to use the time to plan our time in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador and our route home via central America. We then whiled our evening watching Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sandra Bullock films on cable!!

Wednesday: Again we awoke to grey skies and rain and spent the morning firing off emails to various travel agencies to check out costs of tours and flights. In the afternoon the rain finally relented and we braved a walk along the coast. However, the rain may have disappeared but the wind still hounded us and we were sandblasted as we walked along the beach – good for exfoliation at least! Along this walk we came across several monuments commemorating the first Welsh settlers – not surprising the most common name was Jones!! We resisted the temptation to deface them in the spirit of the 6 nations rivalry and moved on. Apparently Welsh is still spoken in some areas with Trelew (a town 60km south) being the stronghold; we didn't make it there unfortunately to try out the famous tea houses.

Thursday: The sun was back out for our penultimate day in Puerto Madryn! So we hired some bikes and cycled he 17km along a gravel road to Punta Loma, another sea lion colony.
There is a really good pizza and empanada shop just a couple of blocks from the hostel, so after 5 nights of walking past it and looking in longingly we finally relented to the cravings and got a large pizza to share for dinner...delicious!

Friday: We spent the morning on the beach before headed back to make some lunch and shower in time to catch our bus to San Antonio Oeste, where we would take 'Tren Patagonica' overnight to Bariloche.

We made it to San Antonio Oeste around 7pm and were dropped off at the very quiet and deserted bus station, from there we found our way to the train station with the help of some helpful locals, who seemed fairly surprised to see two backpackers wondering through their town! The train station was no more than an office and platform next to the train line. The train leaves once a week and the platform was already crowded with passengers and 'train spotters'. We had booked to travel in tourist class (the middle class), this was our first mistake! We should maybe have realised that the price ARS 90 was far too cheap for such a long journey and as we boarded the train we both wished we had stuck with the buses! The interior of the train felt like it was from the 1970s, very retro, and I don't think they had replaced anything since then! The seats were pretty worn and some of them didn't recline, we thought we would be sat across from each other but we hadn't realised that the seats rotate and the Chilean lady that David was sat next too had already rotated her seat to face her family by the time we got on which meant that David was also sat facing them, while I was on the seat behind him. It was fairly late by then time we boarded and set off so we both stuck our ipods on and tried to sleep...tried being the operative word...the train stopped at numerous stations throughout the night and passengers got off and on, the constant noise and movement kept us awake most of the night. We were happy to see the sun rise and hoped that the journey would be at an end soon but then, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, the train broke down! We were stationary for almost two hours before a guy with a spanner turned up and appeared to fix the problem in just a few minutes...then we were off again, chugging through the barren wilderness! We finally arrived in Bariloche at 3pm, 17hrs after setting off.

We disembarked with relief and made our way to the hostel, the lovely Hostel 1004, which we had stayed at previously. The chilled out vibe off the hostel washed over us and after a hot shower we had forgotten all about the horrendous train journey. We spent the afternoon at the tourist information checking out the local walking routes and then headed back to the huge kitchen in the hostel were we cooked up a blinding spag bol in the hostel, accompanied by a glass or two of Malbec of course!

Sunday: We caught the 10.10 bus to Cathedral where we planned to spend the day climbing one of the trails to Refugio Fray. It was a beautiful day and the trail started off with a nice winding, fairly flat path, after about 1 ½ hrs walking the path started to become steeper and the last 30mins was a fairly steep ascent to the Refugio. We had a great view from the top and enjoyed our sarnies sat next to the lake which is next to the Refugio before we began the walk back down. The refugio is used as a base camp by rock climbers who tackle the towering rocks around the lake – a few brave souls provided the lunchtime entertainment – we both felt a little queasy looking at them dangling off the overhangs. The walk provided many great views and was a nice way to end our Patagonian trekking experience.

We spent the evening in the hostel, resting our weary legs and chatting with Brian and Mary, another couple we met who have jacked in their jobs in the UK to travel South America!

Monday: After a slightly later start to the day we decide to take the number 10 bus to Colonia Suiza, a village founded by some Swiss pioneers. The bus dumped us at the end of a dusty road with a sign pointing up for Colonia Suiza, we started the walk up, unsure of quite where we were or how long it would take. After about 30 mins we found ourselves in the village, which is really just a few houses, tea rooms and some touristy shops. We ate our picnic then read our books and dozed in the sunshine.

In the evening we once again enjoyed the company of Brian and Mary as we swapped stories of our journeys and experiences so far.

Tuesday: We took the 9am bus to Santiago via Osorno, both of us sad to leave Bariloche, where we have enjoyed some great walks, kayaking and met lots of lovely people in Hostel 1004. This is Lynne's favourite place so far, and we would love a chance to come back at some point, perhaps in the winter to get some skiing in!