Sunday, January 21, 2007
Midnight at the oasis
At precisely 7 AM we drove out of Puerto Deseado, on our way to Puerto Madryn, 915 kilometers up north. We had reserved a room in a hostel in Trelew the night before, as we thought that Puerto Madryn would be fully booked. (We later found out that that indeed was the case). The trip was uneventful, apart from the long distance and lot of dust on our way.
We read earlier that Punto Tombo has the largest concentration of Penguins in South America, and that, we wanted to check out. We took Ruta 47, 130 kilometers over Dangerous Ripio, to get there. At the entrance of the reserve, we had to pay to get in. Argentines pay 6 pesos, and foreign tourists pay five times more; 30 pesos. So Fernanda got out of the car, paid 12 pesos, while I stayed inside, windows closed, so nobody could see this Dutch boy, innocent looking, hehehe.
After parking the car we walked for about a mile, and there they were; the penguins. Cute little birds, sunbathing or walking around, oblivious for what was happening around them. If you ever watched penguins you know what I’m talking about. They seem to keep to themselves, but don’t get to close please. They pick, and protest and do everything to scare you away. I saw how mother and father penguins feed their babies. Pretty disgusting actually. They feed themselves in the sea, and back on land, they throw the food up, the young penguins picking this out of their parents beak. Bon appetite!
We shot a few films, looked at two volunteers who were registering the penguins weight, nests and all other things, and then left for Trelew.
Next day we visited Peninsula Valdez with its huge colony of seals and sea lions. These fat buddies were lying in the sun at the sea shore, basically just making an incredible noise, and smelling terrible. I got some great pictures of male species fighting. But those are on slides, I scan them back in Rio de Janeiro, if we’re even get back there. We are not in a hurry, especially after we read what’s going on in Rio, this week. We had dinner in Puerto Madryn in a sympatic little restaurant, when tiredness finally hit in hard. I asked the waiter to prepare me a strong espresso, and he laughed at me conspiringly. His espresso woke me up, oh yes! I’ve never felt so much caffeine running through my veins.
January 16th, 2007
After checking out of our hostel, we took the road, knowing it was going to be a long day, as we wanted to get to Bahia Blanca, 700 kilometers away. The trip was long, hot and windy, as we entered the Pampa state. It is flat, flat and flat. Amazing how grass has the courage to grow here. Some skinny cows were looking sadly for some food. Trucks were doing 110 km an hour, literally 50 cm distance from my back bumper. Looked like I was back in Rio again. The sun was doing 38 degrees Celsius, and the Ruta 3 and Ruta 251 were just straight. No curves. And that is suffering, my friends. You loose all sense of distance and time. Every two hours we stopped, drunk some water, stretched the legs and ate some fruit. (Cherries for 2 pesos a kilo; that’s less 
than a dollar a kilo) Somewhere halfway we stopped for diesel. A gas station, a little shop selling cigarettes, porn magazines and coca cola, and nothing more. Ooops, I forgot. Next door was a whiskey bar/nightclub for truckdrivers. That must look nice at the inside….
As we didn’t book a hotel in Bahia Blanca, we decided to try our luck somewhere outside the city, where we would have more chance to find somewhere to sleep. We stopped again for diesel at Medanos, and saw a parador. Fernanda inquired, and found a room there for 80 pesos, breakfast included. So imagine this parador, in the middle of a flat landscape, some trees, a building, some bricks thrown together for the “Asado”, and nothing more. But the host was so friendly, received us, and cooked us dinner.
Its midnight now, as I am writing this. Outside, a nice wind blowing to cool things down. Mr Johnnie Walker Pure Malt to accompany me once more, a Cohiba Siglio IV at my side; my favorite cigar. And just now, a nice song comes up to me, fitting nicely to this scene; “Midnight at the Oasis”. I got it on my Ipod, played by Bob James. From his CD Heartfelt. Nice.
Tomorrow we have another long day ahead. Right on to Buenos Aires. Fernanda is missing Lucas, her son, a lot, so we skip a few places we wanted to visit. We will stay in Buenos Aires four days, get ourselves together, doing laundry, washing the car, sending 24 films of slides to my favorite laboratory in Rio (Krono Kroma; Mr. Milan rocks!!!).
Talk to you soon, my friends.
Jeroen and Fernanda
Of Dynamos, Polias, Rolamientos and a lot of stress.
So next morning we continued on Ruta 251. 127 kilometers on our way we heard some strange noise from the car’s motor, and when we stopped discovered the “polia’ of our dynamo got into trouble and out of order. Was it really that here, in the little town of Colonel Pringles our adventure would end?
As there were no spare parts, dynamos and Ted the Mecanics (that’s deep purple again) at the gas station, a very nice young man offered to tow us to the nearest mechanic, some 10 kilometers away. When we got there, the mechanic in question said that he was busy until march, and that dynamos for Land Rovers had to come from Britain. And he was about to close his shop for his siesta. And nobody disturbs siesta. “Why don’t you try at Pancho” he said. Once explained how to get to Pancho, we drove without dynamo – and so without water pump, hydraulics and so on - to Pancho, who, just as his colleague, was about to close his shop and leave for siesta.
We heard the same sad news about dynamos being ordered in Great Britain, but he promised to give it a try, waive away his constitutional right for siesta, while we went for lunch in the town’s only restaurant. When we came back, things looked fine, and off we went. Only to encounter the same problem after 37 kilometers. This time, some nasty belt was strung up into the motor. Lonely on a provincial road, nobody around. Finally, after half an hour, a car was approaching, and offered to tow us to Laprida, (Argentines Capital of garlic) where he knew Christian, a mechanic. Christian looked at the dynamo, and said he could fix the problem, but not today. And so we left, booked a room in the town’s only hotel, and spend the rest of the evening having dinner, and watching the life of Elvis Presley unfold in some movie on cable TV.
Next morning we walked to Christian’s office, nervous about receiving bad news, but we found him sweating, with a broad smile on his face. He explained that he practically made a new dynamo, which would last surely to Buenos Aires, most likely to Rio de Janeiro. So again, we drove off, hoping we would this time make it to Buenos Aires, still 434 kilometers away.
And we made it. At 6 PM we got to the house of Claudia, one of Fernanda’s friends, who lives in a nice suburb, surrounded by tennis courts and polo fields and armed guards with dogs and shotguns. What a contrast with what we’ve seen weeks before. After constantly consulting the fantastic Mr. Jairo from Land Brasil in Rio de Janeiro over the past two days, we decided to change the car’s dynamo, and so we did today at Land Rover in Buenos Aires. That, unfortunately, put a serious dent in our budget, but it is inevitable, okay? Last night I cooked dinner for the family. Some white fish with olive oil, tomatoes, shrimps, mussels and basil in the oven, a salad of arugula, oyster mushrooms, green apple and thyme oil with just a hint of limejuice, to balance things out, and young Peruvian potatoes from the Andes, simply boiled, and tossed up with some butter and freshly chopped parsley. Today I am cleaning out the car, washing it on the outside. And in a couple of days we’re leaving. So again, we’re all set for the final leg of our trip; Uruguay, and the south of Brazil.
Talk to you soon.
Jeroen and Fernanda
At precisely 7 AM we drove out of Puerto Deseado, on our way to Puerto Madryn, 915 kilometers up north. We had reserved a room in a hostel in Trelew the night before, as we thought that Puerto Madryn would be fully booked. (We later found out that that indeed was the case). The trip was uneventful, apart from the long distance and lot of dust on our way.
We read earlier that Punto Tombo has the largest concentration of Penguins in South America, and that, we wanted to check out. We took Ruta 47, 130 kilometers over Dangerous Ripio, to get there. At the entrance of the reserve, we had to pay to get in. Argentines pay 6 pesos, and foreign tourists pay five times more; 30 pesos. So Fernanda got out of the car, paid 12 pesos, while I stayed inside, windows closed, so nobody could see this Dutch boy, innocent looking, hehehe.After parking the car we walked for about a mile, and there they were; the penguins. Cute little birds, sunbathing or walking around, oblivious for what was happening around them. If you ever watched penguins you know what I’m talking about. They seem to keep to themselves, but don’t get to close please. They pick, and protest and do everything to scare you away. I saw how mother and father penguins feed their babies. Pretty disgusting actually. They feed themselves in the sea, and back on land, they throw the food up, the young penguins picking this out of their parents beak. Bon appetite!
We shot a few films, looked at two volunteers who were registering the penguins weight, nests and all other things, and then left for Trelew.Next day we visited Peninsula Valdez with its huge colony of seals and sea lions. These fat buddies were lying in the sun at the sea shore, basically just making an incredible noise, and smelling terrible. I got some great pictures of male species fighting. But those are on slides, I scan them back in Rio de Janeiro, if we’re even get back there. We are not in a hurry, especially after we read what’s going on in Rio, this week. We had dinner in Puerto Madryn in a sympatic little restaurant, when tiredness finally hit in hard. I asked the waiter to prepare me a strong espresso, and he laughed at me conspiringly. His espresso woke me up, oh yes! I’ve never felt so much caffeine running through my veins.
January 16th, 2007
After checking out of our hostel, we took the road, knowing it was going to be a long day, as we wanted to get to Bahia Blanca, 700 kilometers away. The trip was long, hot and windy, as we entered the Pampa state. It is flat, flat and flat. Amazing how grass has the courage to grow here. Some skinny cows were looking sadly for some food. Trucks were doing 110 km an hour, literally 50 cm distance from my back bumper. Looked like I was back in Rio again. The sun was doing 38 degrees Celsius, and the Ruta 3 and Ruta 251 were just straight. No curves. And that is suffering, my friends. You loose all sense of distance and time. Every two hours we stopped, drunk some water, stretched the legs and ate some fruit. (Cherries for 2 pesos a kilo; that’s less 
than a dollar a kilo) Somewhere halfway we stopped for diesel. A gas station, a little shop selling cigarettes, porn magazines and coca cola, and nothing more. Ooops, I forgot. Next door was a whiskey bar/nightclub for truckdrivers. That must look nice at the inside….As we didn’t book a hotel in Bahia Blanca, we decided to try our luck somewhere outside the city, where we would have more chance to find somewhere to sleep. We stopped again for diesel at Medanos, and saw a parador. Fernanda inquired, and found a room there for 80 pesos, breakfast included. So imagine this parador, in the middle of a flat landscape, some trees, a building, some bricks thrown together for the “Asado”, and nothing more. But the host was so friendly, received us, and cooked us dinner.
Its midnight now, as I am writing this. Outside, a nice wind blowing to cool things down. Mr Johnnie Walker Pure Malt to accompany me once more, a Cohiba Siglio IV at my side; my favorite cigar. And just now, a nice song comes up to me, fitting nicely to this scene; “Midnight at the Oasis”. I got it on my Ipod, played by Bob James. From his CD Heartfelt. Nice.Tomorrow we have another long day ahead. Right on to Buenos Aires. Fernanda is missing Lucas, her son, a lot, so we skip a few places we wanted to visit. We will stay in Buenos Aires four days, get ourselves together, doing laundry, washing the car, sending 24 films of slides to my favorite laboratory in Rio (Krono Kroma; Mr. Milan rocks!!!).
Talk to you soon, my friends.
Jeroen and Fernanda
Of Dynamos, Polias, Rolamientos and a lot of stress.
So next morning we continued on Ruta 251. 127 kilometers on our way we heard some strange noise from the car’s motor, and when we stopped discovered the “polia’ of our dynamo got into trouble and out of order. Was it really that here, in the little town of Colonel Pringles our adventure would end?
As there were no spare parts, dynamos and Ted the Mecanics (that’s deep purple again) at the gas station, a very nice young man offered to tow us to the nearest mechanic, some 10 kilometers away. When we got there, the mechanic in question said that he was busy until march, and that dynamos for Land Rovers had to come from Britain. And he was about to close his shop for his siesta. And nobody disturbs siesta. “Why don’t you try at Pancho” he said. Once explained how to get to Pancho, we drove without dynamo – and so without water pump, hydraulics and so on - to Pancho, who, just as his colleague, was about to close his shop and leave for siesta.
We heard the same sad news about dynamos being ordered in Great Britain, but he promised to give it a try, waive away his constitutional right for siesta, while we went for lunch in the town’s only restaurant. When we came back, things looked fine, and off we went. Only to encounter the same problem after 37 kilometers. This time, some nasty belt was strung up into the motor. Lonely on a provincial road, nobody around. Finally, after half an hour, a car was approaching, and offered to tow us to Laprida, (Argentines Capital of garlic) where he knew Christian, a mechanic. Christian looked at the dynamo, and said he could fix the problem, but not today. And so we left, booked a room in the town’s only hotel, and spend the rest of the evening having dinner, and watching the life of Elvis Presley unfold in some movie on cable TV.
Next morning we walked to Christian’s office, nervous about receiving bad news, but we found him sweating, with a broad smile on his face. He explained that he practically made a new dynamo, which would last surely to Buenos Aires, most likely to Rio de Janeiro. So again, we drove off, hoping we would this time make it to Buenos Aires, still 434 kilometers away.
And we made it. At 6 PM we got to the house of Claudia, one of Fernanda’s friends, who lives in a nice suburb, surrounded by tennis courts and polo fields and armed guards with dogs and shotguns. What a contrast with what we’ve seen weeks before. After constantly consulting the fantastic Mr. Jairo from Land Brasil in Rio de Janeiro over the past two days, we decided to change the car’s dynamo, and so we did today at Land Rover in Buenos Aires. That, unfortunately, put a serious dent in our budget, but it is inevitable, okay? Last night I cooked dinner for the family. Some white fish with olive oil, tomatoes, shrimps, mussels and basil in the oven, a salad of arugula, oyster mushrooms, green apple and thyme oil with just a hint of limejuice, to balance things out, and young Peruvian potatoes from the Andes, simply boiled, and tossed up with some butter and freshly chopped parsley. Today I am cleaning out the car, washing it on the outside. And in a couple of days we’re leaving. So again, we’re all set for the final leg of our trip; Uruguay, and the south of Brazil.
Talk to you soon.
Jeroen and Fernanda
# posted by pilgrim of the south @ 4:42 PM 
