Paradise Found

February 17^th, 2013

Paradise Found

I will skip to the end of the story first – Camarones was awesome and we had a world-class camp spot.

But first I need to make a confession and apologize.

When we were in BA at the supermercado getting supplies, the lady checking out our groceries must have used 50 plastic bags. I besmirched her badly. What a waste. Since then, I have been grateful for her foresight. Every market we have gone to since then gives you no bags and the one thing I have discovered about RV’ing is that having plastics bags to put trash, shoes, and whatnot into is a really good thing. So, Consuela, I am really sorry for besmirching you and promise to never do it again.

Ok, back to the day.

It had rained really, really hard the night before and we were grateful for our genius to figure out the great leak problem. Our bed in the van is really comfortable and the weather was quite cool, so I had a great night sleep. When I started to wake up, I heard it was still raining. Gak. I was really hoping for a beautiful day at Cabo Dos Bahias.

I didn’t feel like getting up.

Susanne encouraged me that it might be a good idea to get up. We got up, made some coffee and saw that the sky was clearing and the day was going to be fantastic. Yeah!  We had a lazy morning enjoying the incredible view from the van and at about 10, we decided to walk out to the penguin colony.

The night before, we had come to the guard house and almost blew right by it before the dude flagged us down and informed us we couldn’t camp out there. So when we came traipsing by on foot, he was a bit surprised……and disappointed, because he had to charge us 10 pesos less. We walked the 3 km on the dirt road out to the penguin colony. There was no one else there. It was pretty cool. There was a trail/boardwalk that took you right down to the penguins. They were maybe 4” away from you. The guanacos were grazing right along with the penguins. The babies were all molting and looked pretty funny.

We walked back to the camp and Susanne was quite happy because her foot passed a big test for our soon to come hike in Torres Del Paine. We spent the rest of the day just lounging and enjoying the piece and quiet. It was truly an isolated and gorgeous Patagonian experience.

We were both wishing we were back in Las Grutas.

The sunset was spectacular, but some clouds rolled and it got chilly so we didn’t get to enjoy the stars. Tomorrow night they should be great when we get to the petrified forest.

We have decided to stay on plan. A day off and easier driving now makes the original plan look pretty good with a few modifications. We are now more than 2000 km south of BA. The first 2 days were really tough (and I knew it going in), but now we made the big investment and it was worth it.  We are in an area that is really nice. No more camping at YPF gas stations that smell like cows. Susanne is much happier.

Ciao for now! (pics later)