And now we´re cold again

Now I´m blogging from El Calafate, where we found autumn once again :)
Sorry I´ve not blogged in a while, but I was trying to upload photos first.  Speeds from Patagonia are not so good, so, just text for now, and lots of it...

On 3/17 we arrived in Buenos Aires with a reservation at the Hostel Inn, where we spent most of the day crashing.  Walked down by the waterfront a bit, where we discovered BA´s seasonal mosquito problem.

The hostel was a bit crowded with 18-year olds who just wanted to drink heavily, so we relocated for the next 2 nights to the Tango Hostel down the street.  Very friendly folks there.  We met a French couple, Richard and Vanessa, who gave us some notes for when we visit Paris.

Our second day, we ate at a café in San Telmo, where we got our first taste of the famous Argentinean beef.  Patty got the "small steak", which wasn´t.  It was 12oz. of excellent sirloin for about US$3.  I had "asado", which was an even larger helping of some other cut.

On Day 3 we visited the famous cemetery in Recoleta.  It´s a walled-off block with a vast array of crypts.  Each one had coffins or urns inside, and many had staircases leading, presumably, to catacombs below.  The newer crypts were an odd sight, with their heat treated glass for a front wall, giving them a theater-set quality.

We had the obligatory hunt for Eva Perron´s grave, which was the only one with flowers.

That evening, we learned to navigate the subte (subway) into the suburbs to go to a swing dance, which turned out to be cancelled that week.  So, we took a cab all the wya back to San Telmo.  The entire round trip was about US$7-worth of urban orientation.

We attempted to salvage the evening by going to a "blues club", which turned out to be a dive bar with karaoke that night starting a midnight.  We decided not to stick around for that.  Instead, we got a glass of wine at a pub closer to our hostel.

Once we got back to the hostel, we met up with a group of guests who were pre'partying before heading out to a late-night club (they left at 2:30am).  They invited us to partake of their 10-peso vodka in exchange for the use of our portable speakers, which they´d seen us use to practice our dancing.  They were a fun bunch of Brits and Aussies, and the English-language conversation was a nice break.

Getting around with Spanish has been rediculously easy, thanks, in equal parts, to:

· our smattering of spanish
· most Argentines´ smattering of english
· the fact that we haven´t wanted to do anything complicated (though Patty needs to learn the verb "to lose" as she keeps misplacing stuff)

The hardest thing we tried to get across was to explain to the manager of the hostel that Patty had lost one of her family photos, and could he keep an eye out for it?  This was solved by my spotting the photo on the floor!

The next day, we left BA on a rediculously plush bus headed for Puerto Madryn.  We wanted to go to Peninsula Valdez to do some wildlife spotting.  We weren´t sure if the bus served food, so I ran outside to the bus terminal to buy some empinadas (savory pies) from a food stand.  They turned out to be filled with very salty ham and cheese.  Then, the bus served us a tray containing: a croissant with ham & cheese, white bread with cheese, wheat bread with ham & cheese, and a small bun with ... wait for it ... ham & cheese.  Oh, and some cookies.  Good thing we had carrots and persimmons for breakfast!

Next to us on the bus was Sonja, a charming German pediatrician who´s been living in the UK for the past 8 years.  She´d been in BA scoping out apartments in Palermo as an investment.  We spent the entire time in Puerto Madryn with her, and her better Spanish allowed us to take advantage of more opportunities than we might have otherwise.

As soon as the bus stopped, she ran out to see if the tours to Peninsula Valdez had left yet.  They were, in fact, just leaving, so we went directly from a 9 hour bus ride to a tour bus for the day.  Not so bad, though, as Argentina really has this luxury bus thing figured out.

The tour bus stopped frequently at picturesque (pictures to follow!) beaches to see interesting wildlife.  On land, there were llamas, ostriches, and armadillos.  On the beaches, we saw elephant seals, sea lions, and, for the first time in my life, penguins!  We got up close and personal with a few penguins, who like to burrow in the cliffs where we were standing.

The big tourist draw at this time of year are the orcas.  They nearly beach themselves in order to feed on the sea lions hanging out on the shore.  People stand up on a cliff, saying how cute the sea lions are, and simultaneously wishing for them to be eaten!  Our bilingual tour guide kept mistranslating "orca" as "orc", leaving us with an amusing mental image of orcs from Lord of the Rings chasing sea lions down the beach.

(Un)fortunately, no orcas that day.  The next day, we heard, there were a record number on the hunt.  The guides were saying how they´d never seen so many at once.  Oh well.

That night, the clerk at our hostel recommended a seafood place just off the main drag, right on the water.  Very fresh octopus, mussels, scallops, etc.  And, it was the only place that kept its electricity when the rest of the town went dark during dinner.

The next day, we walked along the beach to Ecocentro, a maritime museum with a beautiful view of the bay, the skeleton of a right whale, and a gravel-floored room with low lighting, surrounded by speakers emitting whale song.

Our last day in Puerto Madryn was spent swimming and kayaking in the bay.  Sonja spotted a penguin swimming near us, which was pretty exciting.

Afterwards, we caught a bus to El Calafate, a resort town near the a glacier national park in the south, which is where I sit typing this.