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just a quick update while i´m waiting for gay computer to upload photos - i survived the 18 hour bus ride and am now in puerto madryn, bout half way down the atlantic coast of argentina. coach was really good actually, comfortable seat and went overnight so slept half the way. also there was an old argentinian man with presumably his son sitting next to me who i had a fairly limited dialogue with on the way, and in return he gave me his lasagne and the boy gave me a can of coke, which made me happy. also when i was having a mare trying to open the toilet door the boy came and opened it for me, saying ¡fuerte! in a fairly condescending way. how embarresssing. pretty amazing scenery along the way, south of buenos aires is the completely flat grasslands of the pampas which goes on for miles and miles, then when i woke up its still flat and empty but arid patagonian wasteland, really big and empty. turned out two of the canadians i met in BA, danny and rachelle, managed to get tickets on the same coach so i´ve been hanging around with them the last couple of days. a couple of other guys from BA turned up today so surprisingly enough i still have some mates, and we should be sticking together for a while longer to do trekking and stuff.
went to peninsula valdes today, which is the little sticking out bit above me on the map and is actually huge, and is one of the best places to see wildlife on the continent apparently. so we saw guanacos (kinda like llamas, tend to run out in front of the bus unnexpectedly), rheas, armadillos, foxes, sealions, penguins (videos to come, rosanna it turns out they are in fact birds, not fish, they live in holes), elephant seals and probably some other stuff, all pretty cool. spent the day being driven along obscenely bumpy gravel roads at rather high speeds, trying to avoid suicidal guanacos and banging our heads on the ceiling, whilst attempting to get some sleep on the sly as it turns out we had more beer than we thought last night. also the guide brewed up some mate on the bus, which is a traditional argentinian herbal tea, and let us try some, which was pretty cool. its made by filling a little clay pot with the mate leaves and pouring boiling water over them, which u drink from the bottom with a kind of ornate metal straw, and tastes a bit like really strong green tea and tobacco. he was telling us about the various rituals for drinking it, like u have to pass the pot around with the straw facing towards the recipient, and u aren´t allowed to touch the straw which is fairly challenging when trying to drink hot liquid whilst hurtling along the bumpiest road ever!
theres not really much more to do here so will try to get further south tomorrow, depending on coach vacancies, its another 18 hours to rio gallegos which is the last city before tierra del fuego, so the plan is to spend a night there then try and get to ushuaia as soon as possible. might have to wait a while though by the sounds of things, and for some reaon the bus/ferry seems to take another 11 hours or so, despite it being really close on the map! stupid patagonia, could be here for a while. proposed itinerary - here, rio gallegos, ushuaia, tierra del fuego national park, puerto natales, torres del paine, el chalafate/chalten/fitzroy, bariloche, puerto montt, santiago de chile, mendoza, cordoba, salta, jujuy, BOLIVIA. may be wild, think the roads up north might be gone as well, heavy rain apparently. see how it goes. jason and etienne are staying here another night then hopefully meeting up with us later for the national parks, they were slightly worse for wear tonight so not entirely convinced though! computer is having an all round farce with the photos, might give up for now. got loads of beer left as well, not sure how that happened. good. spanish is too easy btw, got a woman to sell me a watch with a multicoloured flashing light for 19 pesos. stormer. OUT
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