Tea and Wildlife in Welsh Patagonia

I’m having a lazy day in Puerto Madryn today, catching up on uploading pictures and, of course, writing here. I’m off on a night bus to Bueno Aires at 7 pm; this time I’m travelling “cama ejecutivo” so am looking forward to it. I hear it’s very good, and at any rate it’s got to be an improvement on North American buses! Have you ever travelled by night bus in Canada or the U.S.? I did, once, from Toronto to New York (12 hours and $100); I don’t recommend the experience.

I spent the past couple of days exploring the area. Tuesday, I headed off to Peninsula Valdés, which is a protected wildlife area. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry flew around the area as the postal manager from 1929 to 1931, and there’s an island off the Peninsula that inspired his description of a “snake swallowing an elephant” in The Little Prince. (I’ll have to re-read it – it’s been a while since Grade 10 French class!). Interesting note: did you know that The Little Prince was one of the books banned under Argentina’s former dictatorship?

The Peninsula is chock full of interesting wildlife. I was too early for whale season – that starts in about June – but some of the Magellanic penguins were still hanging around. I didn’t get to wander among them as I did in Antarctica, but they’re still pretty funny to watch. These penguins carve out burrows for their nests in the side of the hill, working away industriously with those little webbed feet. Sea lions and elephant seals were also hanging around; any time I’ve seen these creatures, they’re pretty much just lying on the beach snoozing, so I don’t think it’s a terribly difficult life.

Well, other than the ever-present risk of being dinner for an orca, anyway. I also saw a few of those lean, mean killing machines cruising around near the beach, one swimming close to shore as if to check out the seal and sea lion snacks on offer, and the others further out to go after any animals that might get past the first one. We didn’t get to see any orca hunting, though, as they seemed content to just watch; I felt a little bloodthirsty wishing for a sea lion pup to be captured, but it would have been an awesome display. I’d have felt bad for the cute little pup, though.

One sea lion pup almost got snagged as he followed his mother into the water; Mom made it out again safely and looked around for the pup, who was no longer right behind her. You could almost see the panic on her face as she looked around the beach; she plunged back into the water, heedless of the lurking orca menace nearby. Mom and baby both made it out safely on the second attempt, and wisely shuttled much further away from the water.

Land animals were out in force, too. I didn`t see any pumas, but I think I saw everything else that lives around there, including some sheep being chivvied along by a border collie and his authentic gaucho handler on the horse behind. Guanocos, alpaca-like creatures with reddish-brown fur, liked to hang out by the side of the highway, only moving when the van came too near and leaping effortlessly over the high fence to get away. Speedy little maras (also called the Patagonia cavy or Patagonian hare) also lurked by the roadside, taking off at high speed when we approached; they`re odd little creatures about the size of a beagle that look like a cross between a kangaroo, a deer and a rabbit, that leap like `roos on their spindly little deer-like legs. I can`t show you what they look like though, as they moved too fast for me to snap a picture; you`ll just have to google them yourself.

Our very friendly guide Hugo also introduced us – two Australians, two Brits and a lone Canadian – to the Argentinian mate (pronounced `MAH-tay`) ritual. Argentinos are addicted to this bitter herb, which is brewed something like tea into a hot drink. There`s a special mate cup from which you drink it (they`d think you were loco if you used a regular mug), and it`s usually shared.
They drink this in preference to coffee, as it`s a mild stimulant like caffeine; I think I understand now why there is usually only instant coffee on offer everywhere I`ve stayed! I`ve just been looking for the wrong drink, that`s all. Mate`s pretty good, actually, so I might see if I can find it back in T.O. – take a look at the pic to see my first taste of the stuff.

The next day brought me to Gaiman and a drink to which I`m more accustomed: proper British tea. Gaiman was settled in the late 1800`s by Welsh immigrants, who left Britain after some abortive independence movements and rising unemployment in Wales. They looked around the world for somewhere with a lot of free land, where the English couldn`t be found; consequently, they settled on Patagonia and 153 intrepid souls came over in the first boat in 1865. You can still see the site on Puerto Madryn beach where they built their first crude shelters after landing.

Puerto Madryn has lost most of its Welsh character, but Gaiman is much smaller and is clinging fiercely to its heritage. Welsh is still taught in schools in Gaiman and the rest of the lower Chubut valley, and street names often has a distinctly non-Spanish flair (`Avenida Lewis Jones`, for example!). And teahouses flourish all around; I met a couple of Vancouverites on the bus ride there and we went for an authentic Welsh tea at one of these establishments. All-you-can-eat scones, apple tarts, custard, jam, fruit cake, and a dozen other kinds of baking meant we all walked out of there groaning because we were so full; likewise, the pot of tea was never emptied as the attentive lady of the house kept it filled. I didn`t bother to have dinner that night.

There`s also a wee museum in Gaiman that displays some of the artefacts belonging to the first settlers and gives you a history of the area. The sweet little old lady in charge could have stepped right out of an illustration for a traditional British grandmother; she spoke in slow, careful Spanish to me until she realized I spoke English, then switched to that language (with a hint of a Welsh accent).

I also paid a visit to the garden-cum-art-park El Desafio (Spanish for challenge or defiance), an ever-growing installation by an eccentric local artist who creates sculptures, walkways, arches and other decorations for his property out of garbage.  For 10 pesos, he lets you wander around at will, and will occasionally come harangue you about the meaning of his art (I think – he spoke in very rapid Spanish so I missed a lot of it!). It`s a fascinating little place and quite thought-provoking even if you can`t translate all of the Spanish. And I think it`s a much better use of plastic water bottles to turn them into flowers, or Chinese lanterns, or the Taj Mahal, than to pile them up in a landfill!

The only thing I didn`t like about Gaiman was the fact that it hailed, briefly. Yes, HAIL ... you know, that hard icy stuff that falls from the sky. It isn`t winter here, yet, so if that`s any indication of what`s to come, I think I`m glad I`m leaving the area! Buenos Aires should be warm, and I might even be able to stop wearing my fleece and hiking boots – T-shirt and Tevas, here I come!

Yet Another Reason Why Cats are Better than Dogs

I already have a lot of reasons, but here’s another one. Cats won’t follow you down the street in a pack, growling and snarling and snapping at you. If a cat really wants to hurt you, it will stalk past you haughtily, nose in the air, and ignore you completely; this, it is sure, will devastate you.

There are a lot of dogs running around freely in South America, and they’re usually large (German Shepherd-sized). But walking back to the hostel from the Ecocentro in Puerto Madryn today was the first time I’d encountered them in a pack, rather than just one or two, and with them not feeling particularly friendly. I don’t speak “dog” terribly well, but even I could translate those noises!

I ducked into a snooty hotel on the way to get away from them, and it took some tricky manoeuvring to keep the dogs from following me; the hotel had automatic sliding doors which one of the dogs appeared to figure out how to work. But once I’d managed it, the very nice lady at the reception desk commiserated with me and escorted me out a side exit, well away from the frustrated pack of canines.

People will generally come through for you, I find, when you really need them. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably still be sitting in that hotel lobby, waiting for the pack glaring balefully at me through the glass to disperse.

But aside from that little adventure on the way back downtown, the Ecocentro was very cool. It uses a variety of art, sculpture, film and conventional displays to hammer home its point about the vital importance of the oceans and the necessity to protect the marine life within it. One display says, mincing no words, that we “must not let the destiny of the sea ... be its destruction.”

Another display is a figure of a life-size whale, constructed from rubbish discarded in the ocean and washed up on the nearby beach: tires, plastic water bottles, even old sneakers. An installation in a darkened room simulates the depths of the ocean and plays haunting whale sounds all around you. On the wall of one gallery, there’s a Pablo Neruda poem, in letters half a foot high proclaiming the “Ode a un albatros viajero” (``Ode to a Wandering Albatross”).

Most of the displays had English translations, but the Neruda poem didn’t. So I sat there for a while, dictionary at hand, trying to puzzle my way through it. I got the gist, I think, but poetry loses something when you take it word by word and interrupt the rhythm of the language.

There was a room sided entirely of glass right at the top of the tower attached to the Ecocentro building. Squashy white couches faced out to the sea, and the low table in the middle was scattered with books on photography, wildlife, natural history and environmental issues. I got immersed in a book by Rachel Carson that I hadn’t read, and came back to reality with a start about an hour and a half later.

Fortunately, i was not on a schedule today, so lingering over a book was entirely fine. I got to Puerto Madryn at 7 a.m this morning, having left Bariloche at 6 p.m. the night before. I sat at the front on top of the double-decker bus, which was always my favourite seat on London night buses and will now be my requested seat on all Argentine long-haul coaches. Seats were comfortably large and plush, with plenty of room – two seats on the lefthand side of the aisle, and one on the right. I was on the right, so I had lots of room to spread out.

This bus was “cama economico”, which I’ve decided means that you get a comfortable, almost fully-reclining bed (that’s the “cama” part) but the food is terrible (that’s the “economical” part). There are other classes of Argentine buses, and the most deluxe – coche-cama or cama ejecutivo –will get you good food as well as a completely flat bed once your seat’s put down. I may get the opportunity to travel this way to Buenos Aires (my likely next stop).

As it was, I was presented with a plastic-wrapped Styrofoam tray of two tiny sickly-sweet muffins and a chocolate cookie, together with a lukewarm Styrofoam cup of tea. About quarter to 11 (nearly five hours after getting on the bus), the attendant brought around dinner, which included plain boiled chicken and spaghetti with just a hint of sauce. Some reasonably tasty quesadilla-type things were included too, though, so it wasn’t all bad. Dessert was bright red jello, so no more need be said about that.

A very loud movie went on immediately after dinner was served, and I tried to follow for a while to practise my Spanish (there were English subtitles, but the screen was at an awkward angle for me to read). To the best of my knowledge, the movie was about a guy named Javier, who was being chased by other guys with guns, for some reason that I don’t fully understand but I think had something to do with drugs. There were a couple of female characters, one who seemed to be the boss of the guys with guns and who liked to parade around on screen wearing very little. The other girl looked frightened a lot and eventually got rescued by Javier and (I think) went on to live happily ever after with him.

(Or something like that. Hey, it was an action movie, they’re all basically variations on the same theme, aren’t they?)

The landscape between Bariloche and Puerto Madryn was awesome; not in the Valley girl, like, totally awesome sense of the word, but awe-inspiring. It grew dark a couple of hours outside Bariloche, but until then it was mountains brooding under clouds and rain; after it got dark, the mountains would loom suddenly out of the blackness when struck by the highbeam headlights of the bus. As we got nearer Puerto Madryn, the landscape flattened out into broad open pampas, empty of any sign of habitation except for one tiny town about 4 a.m.

No lights in any direction, and no sign of moon or stars under the cloud cover above, so the blackness was absolute -- just the headlights of the bus pointing down the two-lane highway as the driver barrelled along. Highways in Argentina don’t have reflectors as North American roads too, so it was very difficult to tell, in the pitch black, where the centre – or even sometimes the edges – of the highway really were. Our driver seemed to be just pointing the bus down the middle and hoping for the best; fortunately traffic was very light and we rarely met any other vehicles.

At any rate, I made it to Puerto Madryn in once piece, and reasonably well-rested if a little bit hungry. Today I wandered the town, and tomorrow I’m off to the nearby Peninsula Valdés. There I will get to see sea lions and elephant seals, fur seals and (if I’m really lucky) orcas ... and perhaps even another penguin or two. A different species this time, but I’m sure just as amusing as the ones I’ve already encountered.

So lots of animal life tomorrow ... and as long as the canine variety stays well away from me, we`ll get along just fine.

A Very Specific Fear

(I meant to add some of this entry to my previous blog post, but I see now that was a little long anyway, so probably better that I forgot!)

I don’t have any phobias, really, unless you count anxiety at having to walk into a room full of complete strangers and make small talk for five hours over cocktails. Or I didn’t think I did, anyway. But I discovered that I have a fear of heights ... sometimes.

High balconies don’t faze me. I can jump up and down on the glass floor at the CN Tower without batting an eyelash. I went happily ziplining in Costa Rica, hundreds of feet in the air, without so much as a twinge of fear.

Put me on a Mayan temple, though – one of those that have very narrow, very steep stone steps from a high top platform – and I’m petrified. I discovered this about 3 years ago when I went gallivanting around Mexico, Belize and Guatemala with Shelley. Going up the Jaguar Temple at Tikal was fine; getting down again was an exercise in sheer terror. (And there are no elevators in Mayan tempIes; advanced as they were, they didn’t think of that.) I think Shelley just laughed at me inching my way down the steps with quivering knees; she’s heartless that way.

The other time that a fear of heights rears its ugly head, for me, is riding down chairlifts. I’m used to going up, having had lots of practice on ski hills over the years, so that didn’t faze me at Cerro Catedral (where I went Wednesday) or Cerro Campanario (where I went yesterday). But put me in a chairlift going DOWN the hill, with distressingly hard rock and barren earth below instead of nice soft cushy snow, and I’m terrified. It didn’t help that the chairlift at Cerro Campanario rattled so hard that I was convinced that bolts were working themselves loose, or that it kept stopping for no apparent reason and left my chair swinging wildly in the fierce wind. I gripped that chairlift bar so tightly I nearly cut off circulation in my fingers.

I decided at first to walk down Cerro Campanario instead of take the chairlift, to avoid just that situation. That was fine, even though it was windy and rainy and the path was turning to mud ... until I realized that the trail had taken a sharp turn AWAY from the direction of the road. And that I wasn’t actually sure it went to the road at all; it could’ve been going to some remote mountain refuge 14 miles away for all I knew. So I sighed heavily and hiked back up, rationalizing that it was good exercise for my legs anyway.

I survived the harrowing chairlift ride, dear reader (but then you knew that, as I wouldn’t otherwise be writing here). And fortunately neither of these situations arise frequently in my day-to-day life, so my particular phobia is not a debilitating one. If I ever get to El Mirador in Guatemala, though – with the tallest temple in the Mayan world – I’ll have to brace myself. There’s no way I’m NOT going up it, so I’ll just have to figure out the “down” part of it. Perhaps I can hire a brawny Kiwi backpacker to carry me down ... hmmm.

Anyway, now that I’ve unburdened myself, I should tell you too that I’m leaving Bariloche tomorrow, heading on to Puerto Madryn on the coast in what is nicknamed “Welsh Patagonia” because of the number of immigrant from that particular part of the world. Bydd yn ddrwg gennyf i adael Bariloche ... but I’m also happy to hit the road again! (That’s Welsh, by the way, courtesy of an online translation site. Thought I'd get in the spirit of the thing. “I’ll be sorry to leave Bariloche” ... at least that’s what it’s supposed to mean. If the website lied, and I accidentally said something rude, I apologize to any Welsh speakers who may be reading this.)

My bus is at 6 pm tomorrow, and will be my first experience of overnight bus travel in South America. I’m told they do it very well, so the 14 hours should pass quickly enough. They will even feed me, and give me a seat that reclines all the way so I can actually sleep. I’ll take a picture if I remember so I can show you.

I’m going to say goodbye to Bariloche properly tomorrow with one of the things it is best known for: chocolate. There are 3 things, mainly, that Bariloche is famous for: skiing, trekking and chocolate. I figure I’ve done enough of #2 (and would have done #1, were it the season), so I can indulge in #3 to my heart’s content. Er, stomach’s content. Whatever.

Chocolaterias abound in this town (and I love that there is a specific word for chocolate stores in Spanish), and I’m going to check out a few. I had chocolate ice cream at Rapa Nui on Friday (see picture to left), but I also want to try their hot chocolate with chilli, and go to a couple other stores that are supposed to be mouth-wateringly good. I’d offer to bring some back for you all to try, but I don’t think chocolate would survive 3 months on the road. (Plus I don’t think I’d have the willpower to get it all the way back uneaten.)

Talk to you again from Puerto Madryn! Keep your fingers crossed for me that the bus is as comfortable as they say, otherwise it`s going to be a long 14 hours.