Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn

We left Buenos Aires on Wednesday. We had to check out of our apartment at 10am but the 'overnight' bus to Puerto Madryn did not leave until 3pm. So, after a little confusion with the concierge about timings (I need more practice telling the time in Spanish), we left our luggage in reception and headed into town for a quick whizz around the Botanical Gardens. You can never see too many exotic plants (long pink dangly things and large bushes) in my opinion. After collecting the bags, we had an early lunch in a very friendly cafe - before we left, the solicitous proprietor asked if we were ok and supplied us with bottles of water for the onward journey. Perhaps we looked a little frazzled after the 'broken backpack strap incident' earlier. A swift but difficult tube trip (same backpack problems) saw us emerge into the area around the station. The main street was lined with alleyways of corrugated tin shanties and was full of fast-moving commuters and street vendors. The homeless lay sleeping across the pathways, chunks of bread still clutched in their hands. I soon noticed that all the women were wearing their backpacks on their fronts, and quickly switched the position of mine too. We entered the haven of the station building to await the announcement of our bus platform number. We waited, and we waited, then we waited some more. At 2.50pm, we were worried enough to head out to the bus points, armed only with the information that it could be anywhere between numbers 10 and 25. After a frantic half hour of pigeon-Spanish with anybody who looked official, and running up and down the platform (to cover all numbers), our coach finally left at 3.30pm.

In the early part of the journey, we passed through a pleasant landscape of flat scrubland and marshes, with the occasional highlight of an egret or a roadside shrine. This, and the Bingo kept us entertained until about 8pm. The bus host even sent down two English-speaking teenagers to explain the rules of the game. He probably didn't realise that we both speak fluent Spanish. But by now we were hungry. I hadn't got enough strength to pierce the holes in the numbers with my little plastic stick, especially since it was taking me so long to work out said numbers. If you remember back to the beginning of this saga, we ate early. We were finally fed at around 11.30pm. We slept quite well, but woke early. I opened the curtain at around 5am to see an eery terracotta landscape, lit by a perfect silvery moon. We watched the sun come up over the ridge of the horizon, and I passed the time by taking photos of anything that interested me (anything that moved, and anything that didn't). Around 7am, I noticed a policeman and a traffic cone. I didn't get a picture of the policeman, or the traffic cone. I daren't. We were being pulled over. The policeman got on the bus. Chris had a better vantage point from his aisle seat, and kept me posted when policeman two, and then policeman three, got on the bus. The first policeman visited us down in our 'first class' boudoir, spending a worryingly long time looking at the stamp pages in our passports, but was very polite, and smiled at us before he left. Phew! Visions of Midnight Express evaporated.

We arrived at Puerto Madryn bus station around 10.30am and after a brief reccy at 'Informacion', headed towards the front to find our hotel. As he reached the sea, Chris stopped to take in the view. When I finally caught up, he said, "Are they whales out there?!" We had read in the guide book that you could see them from the hotel windows, but didn't expect to see, and hear them (they boom and snort-blow) cavorting in the bay from the prom.Read more