Bahia Bustamante-Days 3 & 4

After 2 nights at our cozy hostel in the middle of nowhere with no one in our company except some slightly crazed sheep dogs, 10 staff members, some Argentinian old ladies who pinched our cheeks and said "Buenisimo" all the time, and some very fluffy penguins you are bound to be relaxed. In the morning of our third day, we walked with the old ladies and our guide to Bustamante's very own petrified forest. In the evening, around 4:45, we and about 15 more people got in a boat and went out o the islands in the bay that were chock full of sea lions, penguins and more of those flightless steamer ducks. The next morning we went to the beach and played soccer with some boys Taylor's age, and then, regretfully, headed out to Trelew. Bustamante is an experience we will never forget. Again, here is the link to the NY Times review as well as a bunch of photos I took of the last two days.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/travel/06bahia-bustamante.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Taylor stands in the middle of the Patagonian steppe on our way to the petrified forest.

A piece of wood, petrified with the drippings of sap.

A huge log of petrified wood.

Taylor's little accident involving a rock and a steep hill, but his cover story is that he was attacked by a penguin!

Taylor enjoys the boat ride out to the islands.

This is the time of year when their is lots of pups, or sea lion babies. We were about 10 feet from them!

Tons of sea lions!!!!!

We enjoy the boat ride, with our guide/owner Matteus.

Bahia Bustamante- Days 1 & 2

If their is one place that could win the award of Awesomest Nature Place in the World, it would be Bahia Bustamante. Isolated in the Patagonian Desert, this hostel faces the Southern Atlantic, and the steppes of Patagonia back it up. For four beautiful days my mom, my brother, my mom's friend Emma and I walked the beaches, learned of the seaweed harvesting that first started the place, hike through a petrified forest and explore the untouched by man-kind islands full of penguins and sea lions that fill the bay. We saw sea lions, penguins, llama/camel-like "guanachos", ostrich-like reas, tiny armadillos, and much to my brothers delight, lots of sea birds and birds of prey within 500 yards of each other. It was an experience of a life time.  On the first two days, we went on a historical tour, went to Penguin Island and hiked along the peninsula to a wonderfully secluded beach within a cove. Here are some pictures of day 1 & 2 of our beautiful vacation to the coast, as well as the link to the NY Times article that brought most of this seaside paradises publicity.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/travel/06bahia-bustamante.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

The restaurant were we ate at Bustamante.

The barn where the seaweed harvesters store and bail the seaweed, before shipping it out to various Japanese companies for food and mysterious French companies for facial products and spices.

                                                                                    

The drying racks for the seaweed. The  high temperatures and fierce Patagonian winds make the seaweed dry in 24 hours.

Mara, rabbit/deers of the desert!

Steamer ducks, they only nest in Patagonia and there is only 2,000 couples in the world!

This little guy is one of the many members of Bustamante's "Penguin Island"

The swimming hole where we had a dip.

The beach on the peninsula.

                                                                             
 

Punto Tombo 2

After Puerto Madryn, we booked 3 nights at a small hostel called Bahia Bustamante. It is a place 2 hours from the nearest town, alone in the Patagonian desert except for a few Argentinean ranches called "estancias". Anyway, on our drive down, we stopped at Punto Tumbo, a wildlife reservation full of penguins, for the second time time to let Emma see the tuxedoed birds. It just so matters to be that at this time of the year the fluffy little chicks are coming out of their nests.  Heres some pics!

Taylor spots a Caracara, an Argentinian bird of prey

Puerto Madryn

Well, we have been gone from the blog for a long time, so it's time we filled you readers in. We spent a night in Puerto Madryn, a seaside town near Trelew, a week ago. We stayed in a Hostel with our friend Emma and went to the beach as well as a museum about ocean life.  Here is some pics!

Puerto Madryn

Mom and Emma getting eaten by a tree!

Awesome restaurant called Estela

Whale skeleton outside museum

Carrefour and Banks

Today we went to our faithful everything store Carrefour. It's like a Walmart - a conglomerate of junk and food - but we're happy that they had pink light bulbs!

When walking home past this bank line, I thought of how lucky Americans are to have tellers who don't go on strike!

Sickness

Unfortunately I got sick last Friday and I just ended having the bug,  Abby and Mom were sick in Bariloche but theirs only lasted one day.  All of yesterday I spent lying on the couch with a bucket on my side, napping, reading and watching TV. What makes me most bummed out is we missed the Huricans game on Friday and it was at home!!!

I still have not checked the website to see who won.   

          Also last night I had a huge bloody nose and I had to sleep in my Moms room for half of the night!

          Today mom made “us” scrub the floors all over the house but Abby turned out to read for another consecutive hour so I mopped ALL the floors.  So that also takes us to the point of my dad not being here, He went on a field trip with a colleague to look for rock samples.  He will be gone for one week.       

                                                                                          

Kitchen Issues

I admit to having dreams of time in Argentina spent luxuriating in the kitchen.  No job, no rush, no hurry.  Nobody eats until 9pm.  What could be easier?  But I find I’m working with a very limited, foreign kitchen here in Trelew.  For example, instead of temperature settings, our oven says “muy caliente” and “caliente” (very hot, hot).  What’s the Celsius conversion on that?  

I like the "suave" setting

Finding ingredients in the grocery stores is a translation challenge and we’ve learned a few things.  They don’t use dill here, or if they do, we haven’t found it. Same with breadcrumbs and pickles.  We find only two types of dried beans, located next to hundreds of types of pasta.  Cheeses are a bizarre mystery, but the wine selection at even the smallest markets is awesome.  Yogurt is good - it's all sweetened like crazy, but we're not complaining.  Coffee is weirdly bland and the selection is dwarfed by choices of dried mate (an Argentinian tea that is an afternoon ritual here).  Fruit is good (peaches, cherries, and nectarines are in season now), but fresh vegetables are limp and tired-looking.

Another discovery is that, with no books or reliable internet service, I’ve had to cut the cord on my reliance on recipes.  For normal people, this won’t be considered an achievement, but anyone who's known me in Durham knows that I rely heavily on The Barefoot Contessa or those Cooks Illustrated people for even the smallest thing (egg-boiling, spaghetti sauce).  Those who know me from before that will wonder why Malin is writing about cooking at all. 

Mac and Cheese with cornflakes (where are breadcrumbs?)

Soooo...recent successes of which I am pathetically proud:  macaroni and cheese made with mystery cheese and sauted corn flakes on the top (no bread crumbs, remember), pan-fried mystery white fish (all we know is that it wasn't squid), roast chicken and gravy, chicken and rice soup, chili (and without locating anything called "chili" in the spice section, no less), granola(actually I burned this), and (ta-da!) NYT no-knead bread.  

Cooked this on "caliente" setting...

Even though these are all re-creations of recipes from the aforementioned sources, I didn’t look them up in a book, and they still tasted good.  Does this mean I'm a grown up?

Swimming

So, a few days ago my parents decided to sign up my brother and I for swim camp. 

Now we can swim pretty well, not outrageously good or anything, but pretty good.  My brother and I were complaining so much, because who wants to spend the day swimming with a bunch of kids who don't even know your language? Anyway, my parents met with the camp instructor, who didn't speak any English, but my parents translated the info packet he gave them and it was free and sounded good.

So, we show up yesterday and there are kids from six years old to thirteen. As soon as we walk into the locker room, and I see kids who don't even know how to put on goggles, I think something's up. That is when I figure out that it might be a LEARN-TO-SWIM CAMP!  But, it is too late to turn back, so we spend one and a half hours learning how to blow bubbles with thirteen-year-olds who are afraid to jump in the deep end!

Learning to blow bubbles

I swear, I was so relieved when we came out and my mom said: "I don't think that is the right skill level for you!" Of course, my parents deny the camp pamphlet saying anything about learning to swim.

So, if you go to a different country, I highly advise you not to sign up for any camps unless you are fluent in the language!

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Holding onto the wall

Fountain Running

Taylor likes this fountain in downtown Trelew...

At the Track

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The scene at the track

We’re still struggling to figure out how people exercise around here, since it’s obvious they do (lots of sports stores).  But most activities appear to take place indoors – whether that’s because of high winds, vandalism, or something else.  We haven’t found anywhere to play soccer, basketball or tennis outdoors in Trelew.  Too bad the kids are too old for playgrounds, since there are plenty of those.  We pass storefronts advertising Karate, Judo, Yoga, Gymnasio, Pilates classes, and we know there are private basketball, tennis, and soccer clubs…but we needed to find something we could do now, during summer vacation, and that wouldn't require us figuring out schedules and prices in our rough Spanish.

Go Taylor!

Early on, we were wandering around town and found a running track.   Well, sort of.  It has lots of activity – mostly walkers, but also some serious fast runners.  It’s busy at all hours, and we’ve joined the fray in an effort to be outside and active.  Pretty, it is not!  Taylor’s our happiest camper, testing his abilities, ignoring the glaring sun, and running both long and fast.  He will shortly overtake his parents.  Abby is happy to have her Audible.com recordings to pass the time while she runs (clever girl!).  Will and I are just desperate to exercise, so we’re just giving ourselves credit for showing up. The surface is uneven asphalt, but the esprit de corp of running with the locals somehow adds to the scene.  

Will does sit ups in the dirt.

Hot and tired and happy.

Ring Ring!!

Anyone want to call me up?

         Here is a old fashioned phone at the Welsh tea house we went to. While there we stuffed our selves with cakes and bread, drank tea, looked at the beautiful views and worked on our English accents!

Gaiman

Yesterday, my family went to a quaint little town, a few miles outside of Trelew, called Gaiman.  It was settled by the Welsh, so naturally there were a lot of Welsh tea houses. We went to one and here are  some pictures.

A giant tea kettle in the garden.

Yummy food and tea!

The fountain and tea house.

Us at the tea table.

The big room full of tea tables.

A "shrine" to Princess Diana of Wales (who visited years ago).

Huracan Game

Yesterday we went to a Huracan game and it was awesome! They played a team named Monte Hermaso (MH basket), they won 86 to 70.  There are two Americans on the Huricans and one on MH basket, two of the Americans were unfortunaly hurt, one on the Hurican and one on Monte Hermaso.  The one on MH basket was named Terrell Taylor (sweet name).

Both teams played very rough and were really competitive, there were billions of fouls!
Here are some pictures!

Huricans (in red) celebrating with injured American player

Huricans on offence

#10 wide open!!!