Hippies and Penguins

Surf check

Iain: The drive out of Canyon Azul involved a very steep and bumpy 4x4 road which bounced us around vigorously and more importantly, the Troopers oxidized gas tank. It became obvious that we needed to flush out the debris in our gas tank. We pulled into “Rally Sport”, a maintenance shop geared towards 4x4s owned and run by Muaricio and Pamela. It somehow seemed that we were priority and were helped right away. I spent the rest of the day assisting Muaricio while Megan patiently read her book and ate cherries.  Our gas tank was free of debris, our 4x4 system was inspected for wear, and or carburetor was cleaned and tuned. The Trooper never ran so well, possibly too well…..  Muaricio invited us over for lunch, a barbeque for dinner, a bed to sleep for the night, and use of his laundry machine.

Megan: Being in El Bolson an extra day longer didn’t turn out to be all that bad because they have a great  feria artisanal (craft market) three times a week. It happened to be a Saturday when we checked it out and was definitely worth seeing. El Bolson tends to draw a hippie crowd into the town with their nonnuclear zone and fair share of organic farming and the market had new-agers and several people that wore genie pants (a fashion trend in South America it seems) but that had also decided to forgo wearing shoes. One man told us that there were a lot of Canadians from Nelson, B.C. that visited the area. For anyone that knows Nelson, it seemed all too fitting. We got a lot of neat stuff from the market: drinking mugs with wooden exterior, hand-made spoons, I got some earrings, berries and cherries, and a thank-you gift for the soon-to-be-born Melana.

Iain: Ready to leave El Bolson we fueled up on fruits, vegetables, and gasoline. The Trooper purred along without haste. Five minutes into the stress free drive our temperature gauge began to climb. We pulled over, popped the hood and saw antifreeze everywhere. One of our coolant hoses had ruptured. Luckily the hose was long enough to trim and the rupture was near the end of the line. I was able to repair the line on the road and we were back on track awaiting the next obstacle.

Megan: The next day we made it from the west all way over to the opposite coast stopping in Puerto Madryn. The drive was really pretty boring and we were both surprised at how flat and baren the drive was. We stayed at a campground which despite the number of people turned out to be great. The showers were clean and hot, plus there were electrical outlets at every site so we were able to charge up the electronics and Iain cut his hair. We left the next morning to go see the Magellanic penguins at Punta Tombo where a colony of 300,000-800,000 penguins reside from October to March. Although the travel time to see these creatures was ridiculously long they were so incredible to watch. We were also lucky enough to see some babies alongside their parents.

Here are a few interesting facts about these little guys:

-they have a 30 year life expectancy

-most have monogamous breeding partners for the season and have strong family bonds

-they can drink saltwater and expel the excess salt by sneezing

Off to Work

After our visit, we decided to get out of the area because it was so flat, with not a lot to see or do. Previously, I wondered why the guide book didn’t say much about the east coast or anything in the middle of central Argentina, but now we know why! Iain said he had never driven so straight, for so long while driving so slow. We couldn’t wait to get back into the mountains for some change of scenery.