Argentina and Uruguay (February 2005)
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Panoramic view of Cabo Polonio, Uruguay

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!

My new Argentinian friendsBut 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!

The beach at Cabo PolonioWe 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.

I´m back in La Barra now, and the boys went to Montevideo but I should meet up with them in Buenos Aires. I´ll go to Montevideo on Monday.

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!

Lots of love, hi to J.

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.

Patagonia's flat expanses 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.

More of Patagonia's flat expansesI 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?

Playa Union, where the dolphins areEven 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!!

The car I rentedActually, 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!

Sunset in GaimanI 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.

A flower made out of recycled junkNearby 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.