Long awaited Journey

Here is the complete up to date information you all have been waiting for…………… The best thing about Argentinos is their patience!

Patience for:

· foreigners buying up their country,

· Tourists who don’t speak a lick of Spanish

· buying a car without ever test driving or even sitting in it.

I equate this to the simple fundamental saying: It’s like premarital sex. Why wait until after the purchase before you know it’s going to be a good fit. It seems that the Argentino’s have a lot of faith in the person selling them the car. Luckily so did we! However, it seems foolish to pay up front and not be able to test drive what you will be with for a prolonged period of time.

After getting the money situation finally straightened out on Thursday, 2/22/07, we were told it would take an additional two days (two business days) for the proper paperwork to be completed; ie. registration, licensing etc… Holy Shit! Another three days in the wonderful city of Buenos Aires. Did we tell you that we are not city people? After finding out this news we decided to get the ball rolling on our Thule cargo box purchase and ensure that the Thule was in stock at the store we visited three weeks prior.

As our luck turns out, the Thule store, Waypack, will be closed the following week for vacation. Imagine that! Apparently, everyone that works at this particular store will be on vacation. In addition, they sold out of the Thule Ocean 700 that we wanted. (When we were at the store 3 weeks prior they informed us that they were getting a shipment in and they would have plenty of Thule Ocean 700 in stock. The only other store in the area was there sister store in Pilar (1-1.5 hrs away by car). You may think to yourselves, no big deal, just find another store! NO!!!!!!! The only place in BA that sells Thule is Waypack. We couldn’t find any other dealer nor were we told of any other dealer. I kept on thinking to myself that this would be o.k. We will just have them deliver the cargo box to us on Saturday, 2/24/07, to our apartment. Saturday morning came by quick. We took our 30 peso taxi ride to the store and talked with the owner of the company and explained our situation. After being told more than twice that he wouldn’t be able to deliver the boxes before the first week of March, we pretty much were having a cross between a panic attack and an all out, no holds bar, ass kicking session. He must have seen the anger in my eyes and the tears forming in Jen and Payton’s eyes, before he gave in . Come to find out, he is a very nice Porteno who actually ended up going above and beyond. He delivered the Thule, car rack and bike rack to our apartment within an hour.

On Monday we were finally able to pick up our car. The early afternoon started out as the typical path of misinterpreted of translations. I was told that we could pick up the car at 1300 (1:00 pm). However, I must have experienced the head up your ass syndrome, because we arrived at 1300 and were told that we couldn’t get the car until 1500. This is because (what I believe to be the truth) everyone in the office goes on his or her cushy siesta for 2 hrs.

Long story short. Renault gives you, the purchaser, a bottle of nice champagne and what I believe to be the “Golden Handshake.” Everything is on track. We left with the Kangoo at 1600 and drove to the apartment. Jen packs everything down from the apartment and loads the Kangoo while I put the racks on the car. Racks went on easy, however one simple problem. The damn racks were too far apart for the Thule and the bike racks. Jen and I just gave each other disappointing looks. We had few options at this point. Our check out was at 1700 and it was already 1645. We needed to get different racks and fast!

After the checkout we made a mad dash out of BA to Pilar, where the sister shop of Waypack was located, it was approximately 1-1.5 hrs away depending on traffic. We left at 1800 and we knew that the shop closed at 1930. Despite what a lot of you may be thinking, we didn’t drive fast to make up time, nor did we attempt to take a “short-cut.” We were actually the ones being passed left and right of us. With little traffic we made it to Pilar at 1900. Thirty minutes before the shop was to be closed. Ismael, (the owner of the shop) was very nice and was actually briefed on our situation by Carlos (owner of the Waypack shop in BA) prior to us even calling Ismael. Two hours later we have new bars and our Thule Ocean 200 is secured and ready to go. The only bad thing is that we were unable to have a second bike rack on top. Oh well. Ismael helped us even more by finding lodging for us since it was so late. He called numerous hotels in the area and after making the reservation for us he guided us personally to our hotel. We gave him our champagne we received from Renault as a thank you (it was a really nice bottle of champagne).

We stayed at the Parque Hostel. It was probably a 1-2 star hotel. It was clean, but the sheets were really thin and the king size bed (two twins put together) were very old and used, so say the least. Jen didn’t really care for the lumpy pillow (it was old egg foam pushed together inside a pillow case. I thought it was comfortable. I like the fact that I’m breaking down Jen’s 3-4 star hotel comfort requirements!

Tuesday was nothing but pouring rain. The Parque Hostel was on the verge of flooding from all the rain we received during the night. Payton slept with us most of the night because of the thunder and lightning, it scares her. We drove to La Plata from Pilar, but first had to make a quick stop back in BA to pick up my bike at the apartment and to drop off a present for Juan Harrington since he had been so wonderful to us. When we arrived in La Plata we went straight to Repulica de los Ninos. (put link here) Supposedly, depending on what reference you read, Walt Disney visited this establishment in the early 1940/1950’s and got the idea of Disneyland from this ideological children’s park. Eva Peron (put reference here) had this built for her hard working constituents. Unfortunately, I don’t think the park has had much maintenance performed on it since the park opened in the 50’s. It’s in much disrepair. It seems that the only good thing at the park is their outside pool for the children. It’s very sad. I truly could imagine this place back in the 50’s with all of its glory.

Due to the lack of fun potential at Republica de los Ninos in La Plata, we decided to go to Pinamar a day early. It was only a couple of hours away so the drive was short and rewarding. The roads down here are quite impressive. They are as good as any federal highway in the states. Pinamar is a beautiful, small and well designed beach resort town. Apparently, 50+ years ago the entire area was displaced with sand dunes. Then ___________planted some trees and realized he was able to change the way sand dunes were placed and designed Pinamar from the center square and outward.

We quickly found a nice two star hotel, unpacked and walked to the beach as quickly as we could. When we got to the beach we let Payton run and play since she has been talking about the beach for nearly two weeks now. Payton loved it…The next day, we got a tent on the beach for 30USD. Payton took her first nap outside in the fresh air! She slept on a lounge chair in our tent. We stayed on the beach from 1000 to 1700 and Payton played in the sand the entire time, minus her 2 hour nap. We were truly happy for her! If it wasn’t for the weather, we probably would have stayed in Pinamar for a couple more days, however, as our luck turned out it rained the entire night and into the morning. The forecast for the next couple days involved more rain and clouds. Therefore, we decided to leave Thursday and drive to Tandil.

Tandil reminded Jen and I of what Sonoma County probably looked like 50-60 years ago. Rolling hills, green farm pastures, and plenty of open space. Tandil is approximately 25-30000 people in the central city, then all of the outlying areas are fairly large parcels. Tandil was designed for individuals who want what a city has to offer, but want to live just a short distance outside of the city to enjoy open space and rolling hills. If only we had the same premise in other areas of the world. Tandil is now a destination for adventure tourism. (not that I see much of that) Tandil also appears to be a meca for athletes. I’ve never seen so many people running and road biking in all of Argentina. It was a site for my sore eyes! I was fortunate enough to get on my mountain bike finally. I transported this bike from the U.S. and have only ridden it once prior to leaving Buenos Aires. It felt good to get back on the saddle. I went on a 2.5 hr ride and only 1 hour of it was on dirt. However, I was able to play around in some moderate technical areas, so it was worth it. Apparently, a lot of the mountain biking around here is on private land, so I’m told I need a guide. My plan was to get a guide for Saturday, but my luck is changing. While we were driving toward a mountain bike guide’s shop I saw a guy on a pretty nice mountain bike take a good jump off this embankment. I looked at him riding and 100 yards later there was a red stop light. I waited, fortunately for me, he was riding towards us and stopped at the stop light right beside us. I started talking to him, he said that he saw our Thule Bike rack and suspected I was a rider. After conversing with him for a couple minutes on the side of the road, he said he would take me out Saturday for 3-5 hrs. Holy Shit!!!! Am I out of shape!!! A lot of sedentary activity and drinking by my part has left me to be one lard ass. I’m going to have my ass handed to me on a platter. Hopefully, he isn’t that good on the technical stuff, it maybe the only way I can hang with him, (Gustavo). Best of all, I don’t have to pay him. I told him that I would buy the beer!

Well, I found the right person to ride with. Gustavo invited two of his friends, Martin and Marino. They are all on the same mountain bike racing team. Gustavo is the most talented. Martin is another Ryan Ness (for those of you who don’t know Ryan, he’s a highly talented and athletic person who kicks my ass on the road…) Marino who didn’t understand nor speak a lick of English was always smiling and very gracious; he also wanted to find out how much everything cost ie. Watch, bike etc... He was a very good climber. All I can say for me, I’m out of shape. They are at their peak shape from summer training and races. However, when it comes to downhill biking. The Yeti takes it all… I actually felt bad/worried at the same time. They kept looking at my bike and speaking in Spanish, it’s all the “best.”

After a little over two hours of riding, my ass was sore and my legs were tired. I literally got my ass handed to me on a platter… It was embarrassing to be this out of shape on a bike…After the ride we stopped by a little minimarket. I told them I would by the beer, I went in to buy four 1 liter beers, but Martin stopped me and said way too much, so we got 1 liter of beer and 1 liter of coca-cola and split it between the four of us…Definitely not like riding with the guys at home. We would have finished a liter each.

Unfortunately, we had to leave Tandil. We NEED to get to Patagonia before the weather becomes unbearable. We had a long day in the Kangoo, 8 hrs, driving to Las Grutas. If any of you have ever went to Rosarito (put link here) Baja California, Mexico back in the late 1980 or very early 1990’s then you know exactly what Las Grutas looks and feels like. In the next ten years Las Grutas will be upscaled and no longer inexpensive for the commoners. Because truly, Las Grutas now is for the Commoners. Unfortunately, we never took one picture. We got in 1800 and left at 1400 the next day. We spent four hours on the beach and Payton wanted to go after that. Mainly she was tired, but also the tide was increasing more quickly than we imagined.

We left Las Grutas and drove to Punta Piramedes. Small village on Puerto Valdes. This town is really small. All of our guide books informed us they didn’t have atm or internet yet. However, recently, (very recent) they obtained both. They use satellite. However, after using the Internet, they might as well be on high-speed dial-up. Puerto Valdes is a World Heritage site. Something very unusual about the SE seashore was very amazing. The entire hillside and rock walk way had visible crustaceans from 10+ million years ago. None of the guidebooks mentioned this in its description of the small town. After speaking with two different people we were told the high tide the next morning would be at 0800. Therefore, you would want to be there at 0700-0900. The night went pretty smooth, except at 0400 in the morning the electricity went off. No big deal, alarm on the wristwatch. We awoke in mid darkness; luckily we were prepared with headlamps etc…

We drove off to Puerto Norte at 0700 in hopes of seeing Killer Whales eat baby sea lions. Unfortunately, we arrived at 0800 after driving 1 hour on pretty horrendous dirt roads. We arrived, however, the high tide, which enables the Killer Whales to beach themselves and grab a pup, didn’t arrive till 1255. Its amazing two different locales within the community could get the tide incorrect, but be able to tell us the exact same time when it was to occur??? We took the liberty to see other animals ie. Penguins. See photos.

After a couple hours we ended back at Puerto Norte, however, after 1.5 hrs their was no hope of seeing a Killer Whale. Nature is unpredictable. Did I mention the weather was pretty bad with 50 mph/hr winds and rain at times… Oh yeah, the roads. I sparing our family from the details, but lets just say, that the Kangoo takes a lick and keeps on ticking, even with 10kg of small gravel rocks remaining above the skid plate.

We drove to Puerto Madryn, found a nice hotel. However, as luck turns out, electricity has been another issue. Only on our block has it been out for the majority of the night, in addition we are having problems with the internet, like no internet. This is the major night in determining what are plans will be for the next couple of weeks. Will see and how it turns out. I’m writing this letter right now at 2200 and hoping to get on the internet before its too late…