Some things just don't go as planned...

During the Fitz Roy hike we met an awesome couple from Canada. We decided to meet up back in town for a famous Argentinian BBQ dinner. It was great! They seemed just like us, they were taking some time off from real life to do some traveling and were planning to settle down somewhere in BC or Alberta in a few months. They had also just got back from studying and working in New Zealand for a few years, so we were picking their brains about that since it is high on our lists of places to go visit (and also ranks high in my dream world - I would go there to obtain my PhD on seabirds and become a leading expert on some fabulous species and live happily ever after in my beach side hut/ research station while Ryan runs his river rafting business in the mountains out back!) So we had lots to chat about, had some laughs and ate some great meat!

We also obviously had to have a bottle of the Pinguino wine that came in a penguin jug that poured out of the penguin mouth! How could we not?! And once that was gone we had to have another one! So we had such a great time we decided to continue the party at our hostel. We loved these guys! They were just like us! Definitely will be friends when we get back to Canada. But, 4 bottles of wine later we had to go to bed. But those guys had to go catch a bus! I wonder how they made out...

In the morning it was time for us to go to the bus station to start our long journey for the day. I had wanted to go to Puerto Deseado to see the Rockhopper penguins, but it would have taken 2 full days to get there. So we opted for the closer town of Puerto San Julian since it also had penguins and a nearby place to view cave paintings. Sounds pretty good right?! Well it didn't turn out exactly as great as I hoped...

I thought I felt fine in the morning after our party, but after getting on the bus and riding down the bumpy road for about half an hour, the bun and oj I had for breakfast just wasn't sitting well. Soon after I knew what was coming. I knew I wouldn't make it to the bus bathroom on time. So I looked at Ryan, and he recognized the greenish tinge of my face and quickly handed me our little backpack and I immediately puked right into it! Ugh so gross! All the people on the bus were giving me dirty looks for sure! And to make matters worse, I didn't even have time to empty out the backpack of our sandwich and snacks for later and my extra pair of socks. Oh well those were all a write off, as was the backpack. And we still had 2 more hours before changing busses! Ryan nicknamed me pukey and then I sank down into my seat to avoid eye contact with any of the other passengers. Not fun!

Puerto San Julian was a nice little coastal town, but not really a tourist destination. Finally our lack of Spanish crept up on us because no one there spoke English either. We could barely understand the directions from our hotel person to get to the waterfront. Plus it was Sunday and everything in town was closed. We eventually made it to the booth for the penguin tour, but they had a minimum number of passengers. There were definitely no other tourists around so it didn't look good. She also told us that there were no tours to the cave paintings because they were on private land... Travel planning FAIL! Anyway we told her we would check back later about penguins. So we hung out on the dock for a while, got an ice cream, and hung out some more. Finally we just decided that we might as well bite the bullet and just pay for the minimum number on the tour so we could at least do something interesting in this town!

So thats what we did, and it ended up being pretty cool. We had a private 2 hour tour on a giant zodiac to see the Magellanic penguin colony. We actually got to get off the boat and walk with the birds too! They were mostly just hanging out on the beach and swimming in the water, and we saw a few of them going into their nests under bushes. The way they waddle when they walk is just so cute! I was able to crouch down and get pretty close to them too. I'd say about 2 feet (although Ryan would say about 8). Still, so close!!! I was so happy to finally realize my dream of seeing penguins! It was a great experience and a beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. Amazing!

So since there was really nothing else to do, we decided to take off a day early and head straight to our next destination, Ushuaia. But the bus left at midnight that day and all our stuff was still at the hotel. So we ended up having to pay for 2 nights at the hotel even tho we were only there for 24 hours, which kind of sucked.

We got to the bus stop expecting to get on the bus pretty much right away. All our buses had been right on time... Up till now. We waited as buses came and went, each one not ours. About an hour passed and I tried to ask the girl at the ticket booth what was going on, and she said (i thought) that the bus was an hour late. Ok, great, it was 1 am at this point so the bus should be here any minute!! But we kept on waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Soon it was 2 am... WTF?! We were getting really tired and fed up. There were some sandwiches in the window of the snack bar that started looking more and more delicious as we sat there. So at 2:15 am we gave in and got one. We figured the bus would come for sure if we started eating. And that was the best decision ever! The sandwich was giant and  was stacked high with a breaded steak, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a fried egg, all on freshly baked flatbread. It was absolutely delicious!

And then just as we were taking our last bites, the bus finally came!!! It was about 2:30 am at that point. We climbed on the bus, and first someone was sleeping in our seat. So we had  to wake her up and kick her out, and then there was some kind of horrible high pitched noise coming from the air vent, and it even changed pitch with the speed of the bus. All I wanted to do was sleep FML!! It was horrible! We were so frustrated by the lack of communication (we should have learned more Spanish!!) the bad travel planning, spending too much money, a painful sunburn I got while staring at the penguins, and now not even being able to sleep on the freaking bus! Ugh!! Take me home now!!

But we were able to pass out after a while to get some sleep and we were glad to finally be on our way to our next stop, the end of the world, Ushuaia.