Argentina

November 6-29, 2009

November 13: Puerto Madryn to Esquel: Esquel

After a long but enjoyable drive from east to west Argentina, we finally came to the Andes. The snow and cloudcover looked cold... what is it with us and rainy vacations in the mountains!?

We were just coming into Esquel when we had our second unpleasant event of the trip (the first having been the panic of almost running out of gas). We'd passed a few gendarmerie stops since arriving in Argentina and were getting used to them. We were travelling with photocopies of our passports, having left the originals with Christine in Buenos Aires for safe keeping (a common practice in countries where petty theft and pickpocketing often occur). However this time the police were not satisfied with the photocopies. Struggled to understand the rapid spanish we finally figured out that they thought we had entered the country with only photocopies. (We thought this was a pretty stupid suggestion, but given that a lot of the hiking treks cross the border between Chile and Argentina, maybe this is actually a problem in the area... still, how would we have gotten the car rental in Buenos Aires?!). The police officer called over a second officer and then they went to consult with a third one. Finally we showed them Christine's letter on Canadian Embassy paper that stated we were her guests (the letter was actually intended for her building security) and emphasized that Rubby's sister worked at the Canadian embassy. One more phone call and finally we got the ok to go. Yikes!

In Esquel the first order of business was to find lodging. On the drive through town we noted tons and tons of little A-frame cabanas every where indicative of Esquel being a winter ski destination. And sure enough, at the information center we were told to just stop at any of the cabanas for a place to stay. We found some that looked fairly decent on the main stretch and quickly got settled in.

Once we were all settled in our cabana, the next order of business was to find dinner. We went back to the tourist information place to get a recommendation. The lady who served us at the info place was much more helpful then the first one and we asked a lot of the same questions about local excursions and things to do, getting much better results this time. Disturbingly enough, some of the information actually contradicted what the first lady had told us so we decided we'd better get all our tickets quickly in case schedules were inaccurate or changed.

Since none of the restaurants open before 8pm, we decided to walk around a bit before dinner. There wasn't much to see downtown and so by 7:30 we were standing in front of the restaurant staring at the menu to decide what we wanted to order so we wouldn't have to wait as long. When the restaurant finally opened we were the first customers, followed soon by a bus load of French tourists and a backpacking couple that we thought at first might be German or Swiss but that we couldnt' quite figure out. Our parilla was a little disappointing... the meat was quite fatty and chewy. We were probably spoiled by our experience at the gaucho festival! Since the kids behaved well during dinner we stopped by the promised ice-cream shop after dinner and got some take-out for the kids to enjoy before bed. With vacation itineraries like ours, we don't worry about the kids not falling asleep due to a bit of sugar... we knew they'd be out like a light as soon as they were in bed!

Our first good look at the snow-capped Andes mountains. [5180]
The last stretch of road was being paved... unfortunately we were detoured on the slow dirt road right beside it! [5182]
In Esquel you have to pay for parking on the roads downtown and they have attendants working full time to go up to the cars as they park and collect the fees. [8325]
Why is it that the natives of a country often look like the poorest of the population? [8326]
The kitchen in our cabana... all the stoves and ovens run on gas here. [8329]

Samantha and Christopher are happy to be out of the car and to be able to play in our cabana.

Rubby got a kick out of these major street crossings that didn't even have stop signs!

Monkey puzzle tree!

Samantha at the tourist information place in Esquel.

Samantha at the train outside of the Esquel tourist information place.

Downtown Esquel with the tourist information center at the far left.

Bench!

Samantha wanted to get her picture taken with Bugs Bunny.

Good thing we're not headed to Australia or Hawaii!

Lots of camping supply stores around here... we found it interesting that all of them sell the various grill apparatus...
in Argentina they sure take their outdoor barbecuing seriously!

Since none of the restaurants open before 8pm, we walked around the streets a bit.

Checking out the menu so we'll be ready to order right away.

While we wait for the food we draw some of the animals we've seen on the trip (penguins, flamingos, whales...)
and Christopher draws his specialty - very long straight roads. ;-)