Puerto San Julian

Driving in a foreign country is difficult at times. I felt myself reflecting on American driving standards, its laws and safety standards. For instance, most roads would have a maximum speed limit ie. 80 or 100 km/hr and most cars would be driving at 150+km/h. Although I feel that Argentinean drivers are generally better than most American drivers, I believe that the majority of them have a blatant disregard for driving laws and personal safety. I cannot count how many times we would be driving 65-70mph/hr and would be passed by a car driving well over 100mph/hr with either poor visibility or on a blind corner. More often than not, I feared that I would drive up on a traffic accident and would have to administer emergency care. Luckily, we didn’t witness nor were we involved in an accident.

We left Puerto Madryn fairly early the next morning. We knew it was going to be a long day, but didn’t anticipate the road construction and a few detours in small towns since there were no signs to direct to the route/highway. This resulted in nearly 10 hours in the car. Payton did great! I think she was in a better state of mind than Jen and I. This was also the first time we drove at night in Argentina. What a difference. Argentinos are so particular with the use of their high beams on the car. I can’t recall how many times I would be driving with my high beams on and a car barely visible, traveling toward me, would flash their high beams until I put my lights to low.

We arrived in Puerto San Julian around 9:00pm and found a hotel at 10:00pm that night. This fairly new hotel was cute. Unfortunately, due to fatigue and a lack of caffeine we didn’t take any pictures. The hotel reminded me of an old bar/ restaurant that was converted to a hotel. Our hotel room was tiny, two twin beds with a small armoire (I don’t think it was bigger than 10x12 room with a bathroom equally as small. The only way to go the bathroom on the toilet was for me to sit on the toilet at a 80 degree angle because my knees would touch the sink that was opposite of the toilet. We would have stayed in a better hotel but our pickings were limited. With no telephone or internet at the hotel we had to stay in town until 1000 to take care of some business at a local locuturio.