Safari in Argentina

Day 143

Whenever a lot has happened in the past few days, I wonder how to start it all here. Should I go chronologically? Or should I first describe my surroundings? I have done that so many times before. Today is February 25th and it has already cooled down a lot. So we don't have to endure 42 degrees anymore. Only the incompetent bus company Central Argentino, which drove us crazy a few days ago.

In the last entry, I praised the Argentine buses completely convinced and claimed that we had never had a bus delay here and only a week later, this happened in the most unpleasant way. We arrived on time at 2:00 PM, at which time the bus was supposed to depart, and after waiting for a while, we were told by an unfriendly and completely uninterested employee that the bus would not depart until 5:00 PM due to a "mechanical problem" and we would have to wait until then. When we returned at 5:00 PM, we were told that the bus would not come until 7:00 PM, but definitely today. However, since we had already booked accommodation in the next town and wanted to leave the city on the same day, we asked several times if the bus would really leave at seven today. We were assured that it would, and so we were back at the bus terminal at 7:00 PM. When they said that it would arrive at around 8:30 PM, we had enough and made sure to find accommodation to take a bus the next day. Luckily, we found one and were finally able to leave the city one day later. There was no financial compensation, which we asked for politely, and the employee looked at us through her window glass with boredom, as if she just wanted us to disappear. And that's exactly what we did. So, if you're planning to travel to Argentina in the future and take a bus there, don't do it with Central Argentino.

However, the time on the Peninsula Valdes, a peninsula belonging to UNESCO World Heritage, which we had a few days earlier, could not spoil us. We had booked a full-day trip to the nature reserve on the peninsula on the Atlantic coast, and at 8:00 AM, a man named Daniel picked us up from our hostel with his car. He was full of energy and as soon as we got into the car, he started talking to us tired party poopers. We went to another hostel in the city where we picked up two Italian girls, and then the four of us, along with Daniel in a semi-functional car, headed to the peninsula two hours away. Daniel was in his late forties, looked like one would imagine an Argentine, and talked the whole way. Without a break, he talked about all sorts of things, so you had to worry that he would forget to breathe in between. Linus and I hardly said anything at the beginning, but simply looked out the window and occasionally listened to what Daniel was chatting about. He was in his element, and while we were a bit annoyed at first, we increasingly embraced him throughout the day with his passionate and enthusiastic manner. On the peninsula, we saw guanacos, llama-like animals; rheas; small, funny armadillos; a lot of penguins, and particularly impressive, orcas. We were driving on the dusty tracks in the middle of the vast steppes landscape, and Daniel was talking about the important oil industry in his hometown when someone on the side of the road excitedly waved their arms to stop us. He and Daniel exchanged words in fast, incomprehensible Spanish, we drove on, and a few seconds later, Daniel looked at us and said happily, "We will see orcas." He stopped at a spot by the water, where a few other people were already looking out to sea and photographing something that was several hundred meters away and could only be properly recognized with binoculars. I managed to catch a glimpse of an orca fin as well. Since we didn't expect anything, we were still excited, even though the animals were very far away, but then Daniel proudly approached us and claimed that the orcas would come to us and we just had to wait a little. Linus and I didn't really believe it, but about half an hour later, the orcas actually swam in our direction, so that we could observe them from close up ten minutes later. Unbelievable. We had incredible luck, and that was evident in the smiles on the faces of everyone around us. There were three of them, and they were swimming right at the water's surface. To be able to see such huge creatures once is definitely something very special, and we will not forget it. Later, we went to a bay where sea lions and elephant seals were sunbathing. When it was evening and we returned by car after a long day, we were all pretty exhausted, and Daniel promised us that he wouldn't say another word, which he didn't. However, the friendly guide, who stood on tiptoes with a grin on his face as we took a picture with him at the end, will still be remembered by us. The two Italian girls were about our age and are taking a similar route through Argentina like us. However, in Mar del Plata, a seaside resort where we will soon be, they are leaving on the exact day we arrive. They are traveling for a total of about two months before heading back to Milan. For Daniel, there is no further journey. As enthusiastic and fascinated as he is by his Peninsula Valdes, he will probably continue to drive there by car until the end of his life. Luckily for all the tourists he takes there.

For our part, we are already several hundred kilometers away from that spot and in a new province that no longer belongs to Patagonia. Here, there are green meadows and trees and plants again, which we quite like. On the bus ride yesterday, for a tiny moment, with the lush meadows, the birds, and the fields, it felt like being in northern Germany.