MUNGO EATS Latin America

The drive yesterday went well yesterday and we ended up in Gaima’n just in time for high tea.  This town was first settled by a group of Welsh immigrants trying to create a “new Wales”.  Initially all the signs, school, everything was Welsh, but eventually most of the Welsh left, leaving behind only the tea  houses.  High tea involves a lot of tea, bread, scones, and countless amounts of cakes, tarts, and other pastries.  It was definitely enough to fill our bellies.  We parked almost directly outside the tea house, and of course, we had to leave Mungo in the van.  It was actually a bit warm, not the crazy heat of other oceans, but warm enough that I thought Mungo might be a bit hot.  The front windows were open a small amount. 

After being in the tea house for a few minutes, I could hear Mungo barking.  In the same way that a Mom knows her kid’s cry, I KNOW Mungo’s bark, and it drives me crazy to hear it.  I know that it doesn’t really bother anyone else to here him bark, especially here in South America where EVERY dog barks, but when Mungo barks he is either really excited (like when he sees another dog), or he is very distressed (like when his whole family abandons him to go for high tea).  If he is in his kennel, in the van, he NEVER barks.  Also, we have discovered another trick.  When he SEES his kennel in the van (even collapsed), he doesn’t dare bark, because he thinks we will put him in it.  The kennel is usually stored in the bedding in the back of the van, but just pull it out and he immediately jumps to the back of the van and looks at you with eyes that say, “no need to put me in that thing…I will be good, I won’t bark and I will just lay here in the comfy floof”.  So, I went to the van, pulled out the kennel, watched my dog turn into a perfectly calm, sleeping in the back dog, and I went back in the tea house to enjoy the rest of my tea.

When we came back out, I was surprised to see Mungo sitting in the front seat, since he usually will not pass the “scary kennel”.  He was quiet though, not barking, just sitting up front.  We have a large wooden box between the front seats of the van, where we keep things like maps, guidebooks and various other things that seem to get in the way, and some of these things were pulled out of the box.  At first I thought that Mungo pulled stuff out of the box, but soon it became apparent that someone had been in the vehicle and we had been robbed… AGAIN.  Now, I hummed and hawed about even sharing this little fact with you all, because I am sure you are all thinking that we are complete MORONS, that should have learned better the first time.  I agree with you.  We are morons, but I have to say a few words in our defence.  No matter where we go we attract a huge amount of attention.  We are not a “local” vehicle and people go out of their way to come have a look at us.  Yes, the windows were cracked a bit, but I honestly never thought a stranger would put their hands into a vehicle with an 80 lb dog staring back at them.  But, there is the fatal flaw in my thinking.  I am POSITIVE that no one would put their hands in the vehicle if Mungo had been in the front seat  looking at them, but  remember I had admonished him for barking and banished him to the back seat, by introducing the kennel.  Here is what we think happened.  Likely the thief came over to check out the vehicle, and saw the windows cracked and thought, “Oh boy, my lucky day. “  He started to look for goodies, and found the GPS (which I had taken off the dash), my camera and one of the kid’s cameras.  At this point, the dog had managed to wake himself from his slumber and  work his way passed the scary kennel, in a effort to greet the new stranger in the front seat.  This was probably an unexpected development for the thief, who hastily slammed the door and took off.  We think this is what happened, because the other kid’s camera (which was right next to the one that was taken), was left behind.  There was more that they could have taken that was also left behind,  so I think the thief was interrupted.  So the guard dog did his job, just in a very lazy hound dog sort of way.   

So please folks, no “I told you so”, no “oh no, not again”.  We will just have to let this go.  Just another expense for the trip.  We have replaced the GPS and my camera (again!!)  Lately, we have found the GPS indispensable and since our road maps of the area are very poor, I think we would be screwed without it.  Also, tomorrow we plan to go looking at wildlife again and I just could not bear to have only one, pretty poor camera to shoot pictures. So, I purchased another camera today as well.  I have only taken a few shots with it so far, so I am not sure if I love it of not.  It has a much better zoom than the one I lost, which I am sure I will be happy about when I see the penguins and stuff.  The zoom however comes at the cost of size and so this camera is larger than the last one (which was one of the things I loved about my last camera). 

The new camera has a setting for black and white, which is pretty cool.  I took this very artistic shot of the “guard dog” and his boy.

By the way, buying electronics in this country is no easy matter.  We found what we wanted to purchase within minutes, but to actually “buy” what you want, you have to go through many steps.  First the salesperson shows you your desired item, then he enters what you wish to purchase into the computer.  The salesperson then leads you to another desk to pay for the item.  You then go to counter number three, where another person takes you receipt and issues you an “official” bill of sale.  You then take this official paper back to the original salesperson, who walks with you to a fourth counter, where another person actually gets your merchandise for you from a storeroom in the back.  This salesperson opens your purchase and verifies that they are giving you all the parts they should be giving you, then you finally get to leave the store.  Oh, one more thing, we had to go through all these steps twice, because for some reason, a camera and a GPS cannot go on the same receipt, even though they are purchased at the same store, 30 feet from each other.

This evening we are in Puerto Madryn, on the Atlantic Ocean, just a stones throw away from the Valdez’ Peninsula Nature Reserve, where we hope to see all the cool marine creatures we drove across the continent for.  We visited the Jules Verne Eco-centre where we learned about ocean currents and tides and got to listen to the songs of the Southern Right Whales.  The kids are hoping we can see some elephant seals up close after seeing this model one in the museum.

Check out the schnoz on that thing (the seal folks, not the kids).

I am not hopeful we will see any whales, wrong time of the year, but we did see a skeleton, just to be amazed at the size of them.

Well, that is it, for this VERY long post.  Don’t be too hard on us, we will learn to keep our stuff…eventually!

We left the beautiful mountains today…penguin bound!  I was sad to say goodbye to these wonderful peaks.  Within a short while we went from seeing these types of peaks,

rocky with lots of large trees, to seeing these types of peaks,

still rocky, but only forested in the distance.  Finally, we came across these little peaks.

These are likely just volcanic vents, there was a whole long row of them sticking up from the otherwise flat landscape. 

We had a great day of driving, went over 400km.  Now don’t laugh, that is great for a Westy with a killer crosswind and sometimes headwind.  There is not a whole lot to see as we cross the continent.  Towns are few and far between and the towns are small and offer very little to the traveller.  We are lucky to find a gas station sometimes.  However, the  Atlantic coast is only about 350km away right now, so if all goes well, we will be there tomorrow. 

Tonight we are camping near a river.  It was tough to find a spot off the highway to camp.  There is a barbwire fence that runs along either side of the highway, the entire length.  Only very occasionally is there a gap.  As it was, we had to cross through an open gate to get where we are.  We see no houses around, but it still doesn’t exactly feel “right”  to pass through a gate.  We saw a lake at least a hour before this spot that would have made a suitable camp spot, but we could not get to it through the fence, so we had to keep driving.  Oh well, where we are is quite fine and we are an hour closer to the destination.  We are in a bit of a coulee and there are some cool rocks around, that Sara wasted no time in exploring.

Spot Sara in the picture (it’s kind of like Where’s Waldo!).  She came down with a prize for her exploring too.  She found 3 chunks of petrified wood.  Here is the best of the bunch!

We’ll just add that to the growing collection of cool things. 

It’s a cute little town, much cuter that Bariloche.  We are camped on the outskirts of the town again, but this is not such a big deal because the town is smaller and everything is in walking distance. 

It is definitely fall.  We are sleeping with our down quilt and wearing warm jackets in the evening and the morning.  We are the only vehicle in the campground, although there is one diehard tent dude here as well.  The days are still nice as long as the sun is shining, but I think rain is fairly common here in the fall.  Well, a couple more days and we will be heading out of the mountains and aiming for the coast.  Previously, the coast has meant hot weather, but I am not sure if we will be far enough south to moderate that or not. 

In any case, for today, we are enjoying El Bolson, which Kevin is quick to point out, sounds like Molson.  Coincidentally, we are camped at a beer factory.  Beer is one of the industries of this town.  The other one it is famous for is preserves (jams, jellies, and such). 

The town sits in the shadow of some cool mountains.  I love the profile on this peak. 

There are some very strange birds wandering around here.  One large bird reminds me of an avocet.  It has similar colouring and a similar beak.  It, however, walks around on the lawns and I think it eats bugs. 

I see no shore in sight.  Just grass.  These things make a terrible racket when you get close.  Strange things.  The other strange thing about these birds, is that they seem to be Argentina’s answer to Smokey the Bear.  On all the posters telling you to be careful with fire, there is a cartoon figure of this beaky bird.  I don’t know about you, but Smokey the Bear I at least found intimidating.  If a bear is going  to tell you to be careful with fire, chances are you will listen, because well…it’s a bear!!  What is this creature going to do?  Poke you with it’s incredibly sharp beak?!  Annoy you into submission with it’s crazy squawk?!   Makes you want to run right out there and start a fire as a dare. 

Following along the spine of the Andes from San Rafael (near Mendoza) to San Martin de los Andes (near Bariloche):

View

To Bariloche in a larger map

A little bit further south and then we head east across the continent to the Atlantic Ocean, and hopefully, more penguins.

Remember I told you that I was expecting Bariloche to be a “Banff-Like” town?  Well, I was wrong.  It turned out to be a bit of a disappointment actually.  The scenery was quite nice.  There were a number of campgrounds to choose from, but unfortuantely, the two that were right “in” town were closed for the season.  This left only the campgrounds on the edge of town available.  Even though we have a vehicle, once we are all set up for camping, we really don’t want to “unset” up, so basically, once we have the camper at a campsite, we are vehicle-less.  That makes it harder to be out of town.  Even as we drove through town to get to the campground, we did not see a lot that we would have stopped to check out.  I told you that this town is very popular with Argentinean tourists, especially those with a lot of cash, but I think they come with boats or skis and spend their time on the slopes or on the lake.  These is also restaurant after restaurant to visit. 

The campground we ended up at was quite nice.  It was right on the lake, so we pulled out the inflatable kayaks for the first time since Nicaragua and the kids floated around for a while.  Actually, they spent most of their time on a small island just off the shore of the lake.  They enjoyed this island so much, that they decided that they would like to sleep on it for the night.  We couldn’t really think of a good reason for them not to, so we said okay.  We knew it would be chilly, so we got them dressed up in their long underwear.  They had fuzzy slippers and woolen hats to wear.  They were equipped with down sleeping bags, thermarest mattresses and tarps (to keep off the dew and rain).  At 10pm, by light of their headlamps, they set up camp on the island.  We said goodnight and went back to the camper.  By 11pm, they were back.  Seems Sean got a little “camper sick” and needed to be back “home”.  Sara was more than a little upset.  You see, we had made the deal with them before they set out, that they either both sleep out on the island, or they both came back.  they only had one boat out there with them, in case we needed to mount an emergency rescue.  So, even though Sara was ready to stick it out, the dream  came to an end.  Maybe some other time. 

We were hoping to get laundry done in Bariloche, but that did not happen.  Also, we were hoping to get a little shopping done.  I am finding it cooler here than I expected and I was hoping to pick up another pair of long pants.  However, we didn’t end up in town at all really, so no new clothes were purchased. 

Today, we are a little further south, in the town of El Bolson.  It seems like a nicer little town.  We may need to explore it a bit more tomorrow.  Today, we hunkered down to do laundry, a sometimes daunting task.  We got to use a real washing machine though, so that was good. 

today is the first day of fall here, and it is a brisk day.  We are hoping that it is not too cold as we journey south.  Actually, shortly we will switch directions to east as we make our way to the Atlantic coast, to go penguin spotting.  I don’t know what the coast will be like, temperature-wise.  Guess we will see.