From an e-mail sent February 6
Darling,
I´m in a resort area in Uruguay at the moment, where I´ve had a great time, after an inauspicious start. The hostel was in the middle of nowhere, far from the beach, the staff was unfriendly and even though I asked about leaving early, they were going to charge me through Sunday regardless, since they had my credit card number. And there were termites in the bed!
But
then that night, departing from the usually unfriendliness I have been
exhibiting at the other hostels, I said hello to a guy in the corridor.
He and his two buddies, all Argentinians, were vacationing in Uruguay
(and hating the hostel too) and they were super friendly and invited
me to share their asado (barbecue).
The next thing I know, I was off with them in their truck Friday morning going up the coast looking for some fantastic beach they had heard about. Sort of Y Tu Mama También, but without the sex. Anyway, we ended up at this place called Cabo Polonio which was a town in the middle of nowhere with miles of beach and sea lions!! No electricity!
We
rented a house for $30 that night and it was really fun. But being Argentinians,
they insisted there were discos around and that we should go look for
them. In the total boonies!! I couldn´t believe it! So then we´re
walking around, can´t see a thing, trying to avoid cow dung with
the aid of my pocket flashlight. Some police guy pointed to some lights
that looked miles away and said that was a disco. One of the guys wanted
to walk it but better sense prevailed. Which was good because the next
day we could see that where they were pointing to was an island and
they were totally pulling our legs.
Oh, and I spent zero time in Punta del Este, which
looked horrible! All ugly concrete and barely two feet of beach. I can't
believe I wanted to write an article about that crappy place!
From an e-mail sent on February 15
Hi all,
This is a mass-mail but do forgive. I just want to express my chagrin to as many people as possible.
I am in Patagonia, where I arrived yesterday, expecting scenic Welsh
villages and unusual countryside (as per the Lonely Planet, I thought
-- damn that book!) only to find myself in a tiny hick town, in the
middle of a barren wasteland. There´s nothing here, outside of
this town. No people. No cows. There are a few motor vehicles, and some
low, tufty, bush like things growing close to the ground, but that is
pretty much it.
I
am the only tourist here. In fact, I think I am also the main tourist
attraction here, as people seem really astonished to hear that I have
come all the way from India and have many questions for me, some of
them rhetorical (Ah, la India, must be really pretty, no?), and most
of them about "shoga."
Today I was in a small town by the beach (in a place called Playa Unión where there are dolphin tours, but I missed today´s one so I have to go back to the godforsaken place tomorrow) and as I had finished my novel (Name of the Rose -- equally boring the second time) I decided to take out the Lonely Planet and persuse it more carefully. Imagine my shock and horror when my eyes fell upon this line:
"Patagonia´s most present characteristic is its endless
expanse of nothingness ...
a lesson in boredom for the overland traveler."
And me, I have spent so much time (and money, more importantly) to get to this void. How did this happen?
Even
worse, the book goes on to say that it is only the eastern seaboard
along the Atlantic (where I am, naturally) and the highway here, the
RN3, that is so very dull. Patagonia to the west, is "the greatest
adventure" where the "historic" route 40 runs along the
Andes, overrun with glaciers, pristine forests, archeological wonders,
snow-covered peaks, and the like.
So I hurled the book away (actually, that is not strictly true, as it is on loan, but not from a library as I already learned my lesson about international travel and library loans on another trip), and I realized the trouble with these big fat guidebooks is that you can only read them properly after you have gone to the place that you are going to.
I suppose I should confess that there is something a teensy-weensy bit amazing at seeing such expanses of nothingness, with not a person in sight, especially with the sky and the sun so very bright overhead. (It must be very unpolluted here.) You could never see such wide open spaces in India. Maybe in the midwest, but I don´t really know. And the ocean was very beautiful (even though I couldn´t help but think that it was a little far to come for a day at the beach.)
But still, if I was actually TRYING to avoid seeing Argentina´s most famous natural sights, I couldn´t have done a better job.
Love to all.
From an e-mail sent February 17
Darling!!
Actually,
my trip here improved a lot, particularly after I rented a car for a
day.
It didn´t seem to matter too much that I didn´t know the rules of the road since no one else seems to follow or know them either, particularly for the speed limit. I tried to follow a rule of thumb of not exceeding the limit by more than 1.5 times, but judging by how everyone else was whizzing past me, they were at least going double.
I truly am an atrocious driver, but fortunately other cars could see that so they would either overtake me or give me a very wide berth. I can´t say my driving improved much, at least not for parking and all that, but it was fine on the highway, except sometimes I would get distracted by the sky.
The sky here is a truly amazing thing. You can see 360 degrees of it at all times and the clouds are astonishing, almost translucent. I don´t think I have ever seen that much sky in my life. Last night, I was in a town called Gaiman, founded by the Welsh and suddenly I glimpsed the sun setting. What colors!
I
should have jumped into the car and headed for the road out of town
-- can you imagine a 360-degree sunset? (However the car had been put
in the hostel´s garage with some difficulty, so I didn´t
do that but I´m kicking myself for it.)
From what I could see through the trees, the sky was bright orange, even saffron, from the horizon a good part of the way up, there was also yellow, lavender and pink, all intensely bright. Just amazing, probably not a sunset I´ll ever see again.
Nearby
I went to a paleontological park with dolphin and whale fossils, though
I didn´t get to see those fossils, as I arrived as the park was
closing. I got to see a little (fossilized wasp nestes) in exchange
for dropping the caretaker and his family to their house.
Did I tell you I also went to see dolphins yesterday? That was lovely, I saw them really up close in the sea, on a launch...
Now I´m in Puerto Madryn, though I´m planning to head back to Gaiman early on Saturday as I want to do a story on something I saw there. It´s a sort of park of attractions constructed out of soda cans and buttons and hangers by an 85-year-old. He´s been working on it since he retired 25 years ago, and it´s in the Guiness book of records.
That´s all for now.