So quite a lot has happened since our last entry. First, ….on the morning of 15 June, we were still waiting for our car in BA, when we got a phone call from the agent; we had 15 minutes to get ready to go down to the docks to get our car! …a mere 12 days after the ship had docked! So after I’d wiped the shaving cream off the mobile phone ….
Now I sort of naively thought that we’d sign a couple of papers, then drive off …. Silly me! Once we arrived at the docks, we waited around a bit, signed some papers …. and were told to go and check the container being opened … big ceremony! The chief, top, headman made me open a couple of boxes, then he said OK …. and we all trouped off to sign some more papers …. What fun! Great I thought, now we can go …. wrong again. They said we’d have to drive to a warehouse to unload the car … and I sort of thought it would be next to the port….. Oh no, it was 35km away! So our convoy set off; the truck with the container, a car full of customs people, and a taxi with the agent and us. When we got to the warehouse …. they didn’t have a ramp to offload the car! So we set off again to another warehouse. By this time the customs guys had got fed up and gone home! We eventually got the car out and drove away after 6 hours! Free at last!
We drove north to Tigre, a BA suburb on the banks of the River Plate. Ann had found a reference to a camp site, so on arrival in Tigre we started to look for it. It was 6pm and going dark and all we had was a street name …..to find in an area the size of Manchester ….with no street map! The people we stopped to ask for directions were absolutely marvellous; they spent ages giving us exhaustive and detailed descriptions of how to find it ….unfortunately we didn’t understand a single word!. So we finished up in front of a police station. I went in and asked again for directions. The policeman launched into another long explanation, but quickly realized I wasn’t understanding anything (sort of glazed look in my eyes I suppose). So with no hesitation he jumped into a squad car, and with all lights flashing he escorted us all the way to the campsite!! Even going the wrong way down one-way streets!
Once again I have to say that the Argentine people are the kindest and politest people I’ve met in a long time.
Our trials and tribulations were almost over ……almost …. The campsite was closed!
So we just slept in the car outside the gates until it opened in the morning.
Then we spent three very pleasant days amongst the « river people » of the River Plate delta. They travel mainly by river to get anywhere; school, market, to the pub …
After we’d sorted ourselves out, we set off for the great south! We left for Patagonia … over 1300km of rather boring roads, with just cows, grass, cows, and more cows! Imagine a single field that is 1000 hectares (2000 acres) in size! And roads that are dead straight ….on one stretch of 170km there was just one bend!
For some strange reason the police in Patagonia are neurotic about visitors bringing in fruit and meat from other parts of Argentina. They let us keep our bananas, but confiscated 2 apples?!?! Work that one out! But once again everything happened in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
After 2 days, and several closed campsites, we arrived in Puerto Madryn in Northern Patagona; the main town in a large marine life ecology park next to the Valdes peninsula ….. So I finally get to the title of this entry ….we saw our first whales; Southern Right whales (12 to 16 metres long). They come to the peninsula to mate between June and December … and there are lots of them. There isn’t really any need to take a boat trip to see them, they come right in to the beach …. A mere 15 metres away from where we were standing! The females turn on their backs, flippers in the air, white bellies exposed, if they aren’t ready to mate. In that position the males can’t do anything. This must be the whale version of « I’ve got a headache and I don’t feel like it » The only snag is that they can’t breathe in that position, so they have to turn over again after so long ……. Gotcha!!!
In the next update we‘ll tell you about our trip round the Valdez peninsula, and I`ll try to improve the blog posting!
Now I sort of naively thought that we’d sign a couple of papers, then drive off …. Silly me! Once we arrived at the docks, we waited around a bit, signed some papers …. and were told to go and check the container being opened … big ceremony! The chief, top, headman made me open a couple of boxes, then he said OK …. and we all trouped off to sign some more papers …. What fun! Great I thought, now we can go …. wrong again. They said we’d have to drive to a warehouse to unload the car … and I sort of thought it would be next to the port….. Oh no, it was 35km away! So our convoy set off; the truck with the container, a car full of customs people, and a taxi with the agent and us. When we got to the warehouse …. they didn’t have a ramp to offload the car! So we set off again to another warehouse. By this time the customs guys had got fed up and gone home! We eventually got the car out and drove away after 6 hours! Free at last!
We drove north to Tigre, a BA suburb on the banks of the River Plate. Ann had found a reference to a camp site, so on arrival in Tigre we started to look for it. It was 6pm and going dark and all we had was a street name …..to find in an area the size of Manchester ….with no street map! The people we stopped to ask for directions were absolutely marvellous; they spent ages giving us exhaustive and detailed descriptions of how to find it ….unfortunately we didn’t understand a single word!. So we finished up in front of a police station. I went in and asked again for directions. The policeman launched into another long explanation, but quickly realized I wasn’t understanding anything (sort of glazed look in my eyes I suppose). So with no hesitation he jumped into a squad car, and with all lights flashing he escorted us all the way to the campsite!! Even going the wrong way down one-way streets!
Once again I have to say that the Argentine people are the kindest and politest people I’ve met in a long time.
Our trials and tribulations were almost over ……almost …. The campsite was closed!
So we just slept in the car outside the gates until it opened in the morning.
Then we spent three very pleasant days amongst the « river people » of the River Plate delta. They travel mainly by river to get anywhere; school, market, to the pub …
After we’d sorted ourselves out, we set off for the great south! We left for Patagonia … over 1300km of rather boring roads, with just cows, grass, cows, and more cows! Imagine a single field that is 1000 hectares (2000 acres) in size! And roads that are dead straight ….on one stretch of 170km there was just one bend!
For some strange reason the police in Patagonia are neurotic about visitors bringing in fruit and meat from other parts of Argentina. They let us keep our bananas, but confiscated 2 apples?!?! Work that one out! But once again everything happened in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
After 2 days, and several closed campsites, we arrived in Puerto Madryn in Northern Patagona; the main town in a large marine life ecology park next to the Valdes peninsula ….. So I finally get to the title of this entry ….we saw our first whales; Southern Right whales (12 to 16 metres long). They come to the peninsula to mate between June and December … and there are lots of them. There isn’t really any need to take a boat trip to see them, they come right in to the beach …. A mere 15 metres away from where we were standing! The females turn on their backs, flippers in the air, white bellies exposed, if they aren’t ready to mate. In that position the males can’t do anything. This must be the whale version of « I’ve got a headache and I don’t feel like it » The only snag is that they can’t breathe in that position, so they have to turn over again after so long ……. Gotcha!!!
In the next update we‘ll tell you about our trip round the Valdez peninsula, and I`ll try to improve the blog posting!
