Tea with the penguins...

First of all, here is a map so that you can figure out where we have been so far.

View Muddy shoes around the world in a larger map

We left Buenos Aires last Saturday to go to Puerto Madryn. (For those who want to get to know more about this city click here.

We experienced our first 19h trip on a bus and we quite enjoyed it. Even if the journey is definitely long, seats are comfy, we have been fed, and we even managed to watch DVDs in English!

After 19h spent on the bus, we were happy to find out that our hostel (Hi Patagonia) was 100m close to the beach. We left our backpacks in the room and 15mn later we were swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. Yououuuuuu !!!

We really enjoyed our 3 nights in that hostel. People made us feel welcome and they made everything easy for us. They told us what to do in the area and they organized everything for us. The next morning a mini van picked us up at 8am to go to Punta Tombo to see the famous penguins.

Before going there we heard that tourists were not allowed to go walking wherever they wanted to observe the animals anymore. So we were worried that we would not be able to get close to the penguins. ... well the pictures show that we didn't get disappointed. We stayed in the reserve about 2 hours and left it happy. I wish I could have adopted one!

On our way back to Puerto Madryn we stopped in Gaiman. It's a little village which was founded by Welsh people so there are lots of tea houses around. As we had been advised to try it, we went in one of the little cottages and enjoyed delicious cakes and cups of tea.

We spent the next two days visiting Puerto Madryn and relaxing on the beach waiting to take a bus on Wednesday evening to go to Rio Gallegos(1000km further South).

The journey was supposed to start at 7pm and last 19 hours (yes we like it. We left the bus terminal at 11.30pm... No need to say that the time seemed long and the journey even more. We finally reached Rio Gallegos at about 6pm the next day and we spent the night in the nearest hostel. There is nothing to do really in this city but we needed to get there first to be able to go to Torres del Paine, a famous national park.

Yesterday (Friday) we took another bus to go to Puerto Natales in Chile. Only problem, we didn't manage to get a connecting bus once in Rio Turbio and we had to spend the night there. And what a night! We ended up in a hotel which was actually the home of a family who welcome lost people like us. ‘Welcome' is not very appropriate actually as they were not nice at all. On top of that the room was a sh***ho*e and was extremely expensive. As there was nothing to do we decided to go outside to get some fresh air........ and air you can get there!!! The 30°C we enjoyed few days ago are far away and it's as windy and rainy as in Ireland... probably even more (Is that really possible?). After 20mn we were completely soaked so we went back to our not nice room

Right now (Saturday, 11.30am) we are waiting for the bus to get Puerto Natales. The journey is about 2h. We hope we'll find a nice hostel tonight with a good internet connexion so that we can send you some news.

Anyway, after thousands of kilometres where the only thing to look at were flat and dry landscapes, we're finally discovering mountains and soon glaciers! Our trekking boots are ready to be used...