The best shot we could manage of our tiny room in the Chungking Mansions
The best shot we could manage of our tiny room in the Chungking Mansions

Fortunately, our marathon bus ride from Buenos Aires was the hardest part of our journey from the biggest city in the country to one of the least inhabited parts of the country.  We read about Bahía Bustamante in a NY Times article a few weeks ago and decided that a visit was an absolute must.  Bahía Bustamante is a tiny village and nature preserve that now accepts a small number of guests each night.  The village calls itself “el único pueblo alguero del mundo” or, the only town dedicated to producing seaweed in the world.

Bahía Bustamante is on the coast about 200km north of Comodoro Rivadavia.  One option for getting there is to take a bus to the nearby town of Garayalde and from there you can arrange car transport to the estancia.  The other option is to rent a car in Comodoro and drive the whole way yourself.  We opted for the latter for the flexibility and we were glad we did as there are a number of sights in the area to which you can drive.

Renting was a piece of cake.  You can either use a local firm (there are dozens) or you can use one of the corporate giants (Avis, Hertz, etc).  We ended up with Avis as the seemed to be the cheapest of the bunch.  Total price for a three day rental of a VW Gol came out to $145.  While I was shopping around I discovered that it is often helpful to pick up from the city location (as opposed to the airport) as you can avoid the nasty 20% concession tax.  This trick also works in the States…good to know.

While I was working on the rental car situation with Avis, Amy ran to the grocery store and stocked up on food for coming days.  At Bahía Bustamante you can choose between self-catering (some houses have kitchens) and having your meals prepared for you.  We opted to self-cater to keep our costs down.

My first Argentine truck stop!
My first Argentine truck stop!

With a (very small) car full of groceries and backpacks we headed up Ruta 3 towards Bahía Bustamante.  It is a good thing we stocked up before we left town because there is very little along the highway north of Comodoro.  On the two hour drive we only saw one truck stop and by that I mean a shack along the side of the road that didn’t even sell gas (only meals and refreshments).  Once we turned off Ruta 3, it was about 40km further to Bahía Bustamante along a gravel road.  It was on this road that we had our first guanaco and ñandu sightings.

The quiet village of Bahía Bustamante
The quiet village of Bahía Bustamante

The village was exactly as promised.  Laidback and quiet.  The streets here are all named after different species of seaweed!  It took us a little while to find the staff (read: this place is quiet!) but they soon showed us to our house.  I believe that the house we are staying in was originally workers housing, although it seems they have been modified to make room for a kitchen and large bathroom.  Our place was $110 a night and was more than enough space for the two of us.  There will be more tomorrow about Bahía Bustamante including lots of pictures of penguins! 

Bahía Bustamante – Day 1
My first Argentine truck stop!
My first Argentine truck stop!
First guanaco sighting!
First guanaco sighting!
Then some ñandúes!
Then some ñandúes!
Steamer ducks (patos vapor)
Steamer ducks (patos vapor)
American Oystercatchers and some seagulls
American Oystercatchers and some seagulls
The quiet village of Bahía Bustamante
The quiet village of Bahía Bustamante
Home cookin
Home cookin
Moonrise
Moonrise


I went out for a walk one day in Buenos Aires with the goal of photographing some of the graffiti.  Most of the photos below were taking in Palermo, not far from where I was living.  Quite a bit nicer than the gang tags I am used to seeing back at home!

Graffiti of Buenos Aires


 

Roughly 1300 miles of this.  That is Boston to Miami.
Roughly 1300 miles of this. That is Boston to Miami.

Yesterday was exciting.  We checked out of our apartment in Buenos Aires.  It was a bit strange to go from having a nice comfortable apartment to being nomads again in just a matter of minutes.  That is the way it is though, the trip must go on!  I will post more about our month in Buenos Aires in the coming days.

Our plan was to fly LAN Argentina last night from Buenos Aires to Comodoro Rivadavia – a three hour flight to the south.  We jumped on the 160 colectivo from Plaza Italia, snagged some seats and enjoyed the short ride over the Jorge Newbury Aeroparque.  We were greeted at the airport by a half dozen or so media trucks.  That is never a good sign!  Inside we found lines of passengers that would even make the TSA jealous.

News crews at the airport!
News crews at the airport!

A LAN employee informed us that the Buenos Aires airports (both AEP and EZE) were shutdown due to an air traffic control problem.  We had heard rumors of there being a strike planned for that day but apparently this was unrelated.  They said it was some sort of technical issue and that it may not be resolved for a day or more.  We were supposed to depart around 11pm but we were told to expect a cancellation.

After our flight last night, we had a hotel reservation in Comodoro Rivadavia followed by a rental car reservation, followed by a booking at Bahía Bustamonte (much more on this later!), followed by a bus, etc…  In other words, we had a long chain of bookings that had just been derailed.  We opted to abandon the flight and switch to a bus then try to push everything else back by a day.

It took us about an hour to call hotels, change the rental car reservation, book bus tickets, etc.  I worked through some of the issues on my laptop and Amy worked some of the others on the phone.  When it was all said and done we had tickets in hand for a bus departure later that evening.  I have yet to get a straight answer out of LAN but I believe we will be able to refund our tickets from lsat night.

We departed Retiro station at 8:30 PM and made only one stop during the first twelve hours of the trip. A hot meal was served a couple of hours after departure and breakfast around 9AM the next morning.  At about the 13.5 hour mark while crossing a flat eastern Montana-like savanna we had a blow out.  Nothing too exciting just a few seconds of buzzing, then a bang and a short while later we came to a stop.  Thirty minutes later we were back on the road.

The first blowout on my RTW trip. Oh goodie!
The first blowout on my RTW trip. Oh goodie!

As I write this we are in the 24th hour of the trip.  Due to a few other delays here in there we are still about four hours from reaching Comodoro.  I just finished my fourth consecutive bus meal (roughly equivalent to a airline coach meal) and I am really longing to get off this thing.  The good news is that the gaggle of cackling old ladies as well as a crying baby disembarked a couple stops back.  Hopefully we are only one or two dubbed movies away from arrival!

Update: We made it!  27 hours and 8 minutes to cover just short of 1300 miles.

MET: 25 hours, 22 minutes.  Are we there yet? Nope.
MET: 25 hours, 22 minutes. Are we there yet? Nope.
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Where we had the flat.
Where we had the flat.

At last, I have a website.  I have procrastinated on this far too long and it is hard to believe that it has been more than a month since I left Boston on a bitterly cold February morning.

I am in Buenos Aires at the moment starting my third week of Spanish lessons.  I spent the first two weeks here at a schooled called IBL that I had read about on a number of other traveler’s blogs.  I was enrolled in group classes at IBL which held about 5-7 people on average.  The classes were pretty useful but after a couple of weeks I decided that one-on-one tutoring is probably a better fit for me.  Much of the grammar is coming back to me (I did take 4 years of Spanish in high school!) but I am in dire need of conversational practice, especially when it comes to the rapid and heavily-accented Spanish spoken by the porteños.

I will be here in Buenos Aires until the 21st of March taking classes after I will be heading south towards Bariloche.  Expect some posts over the next few days about my experiences in Paraguay, South America’s least visited country!

In the mean time, I would encourage you to check out some of the photos that I have posted as well as the map which I will keep updated with my route.

© 2011-2012 RoamingRyan.com Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha