Hitting the home stretch

So as of writing this, I have almost exactly one week left in this trip, which is pretty sad, but I´m also looking forward to seeing everyone.

I think I left off in El Bolsón, where I was able to get some great souvenirs, which will only be given out based on good behaviour of course (that means you emily). From there it was a long night bus across the country over to Puerto Madryn, on the atlantic coast. The beach was pretty gross, as it was cold, covered in seaweed and basically smelled like fish barf, but still, the weather was nice and it was a nice place to chill out for a few days. The first night I got there, I went out with a few people from the hostel who had heard about a jazz night at the town margarita bar. But when we arrived, the entertainment was not a live jazz band, as promised, but rather a demonstration of arabian dance. Go figure.

The next day I had a tour booked to go to Punto Tumbo, a national park about 3 hours south of the town which is famous for its permanent penguin colony. Saw a ton of these magellenic penguins, a lot of whom were just finishing the moulting stage of juvenilehood so that made for some very ugly looking birds. Becky, you would most definitely have been cringing the entire time. But mostly they were pretty cute, and they covered the tundra. Apparently there is a permanent colony of about 8000 or so, and even more at this time of year, but our guide didn´t know exactly how many that was. It was kind of cool because in the park there are a few other animals, including guanacos, which are a llamalike animal so some of my pictures with both penguins and these llama things seem very posed.

From there it was a rather long and dusty bus ride over to Gaiman, a nearby Welsh colony, for tea time. I had promised some of my welsh friends that I would order some baked stones on their behalf, but unfortunately it was a set menu and no baked stones appeared. I sort of think that just means that this supposed delicacy actually fails to exist. But nevertheless, had a very lovely high tea with some argentinian ladies and then it was back to Puerto Madryn for another couple nights. Ran into another friend from earlier in the trip, so it was nice to have a little catchup on all the gossip from our other friends who had headed in the opposite direction haha.

Then on Saturday night I got on another night bus, this one to Neuquén, which has no attractions in and of itself but it was sort of in the direction towards Santiago so I figured I´d go there and try to make it on another bus. Which was what I did, eventually, after arriving very early in the morning on Sunday and realizing that I had to wait approximately 10 hours before the first bus going that way. I was too cheap to pay for a taxi into the town which the lonely planet described as "forgettable", so instead I spent the entire day shacked up in the bus terminal. I tried to go outside and lay on the grass to read, which worked for all of about 15 minutes before one of the security guards yelled at me and made me go back inside. She may have mentioned something about the sprinkler system, but I was feeling bitter and chose to think that she was just on a power trip and not actually looking out for my best interests.

So anyway, passed the entire day milling around the same little convenience and magazine shops, checking my email incessantly, going to the cafe, reading a horrible Stephen King novel, counting floor tiles etc. I had the further disappointment of choosing a seat directly beside the out of order dance dance revolution machine, which did nothing to improve my spirits. But anyway, it may have seemed long enough but not really 10 hours worth since I more or less managed to entertain myself, so was feeling not too bad. That was until I actually got on my bus, and we started to pull away from the back of the terminal, where I saw a HUGE CARNIVAL right behind the bus station. Seriously, I was soooooooooo dejected that I spent the entire day just pissing around, when I could have been enjoying cotton candy and the scrambler, south american style.

But other than that, the bus was uneventful. One of the cheaper (ie grosser) bus rides I have had since leaving bolivia, but it was fine. And I´ve adapted so well to the nighttime bumpy rides that a stranger in a nearby seat actually had to shake me awake when we arrived at the border crossing into Chile. I was OUT, to the point where I think I may have been drooling at little. Gross but true.

and it was possibly the longest border crossing I have been through so far, where I think they were training a new drug dog because it was definitely not interested in doing its job. I think it´s handler was actually kind of embarrassed because all it wanted to do was nose around in a woman´s bag which ended up not to have drugs in it, but dirty diapers from her screaming baby. Very entertaining.

So then it was into my very last country of the trip, and I had booked my ticket straight to Valparaiso, a city a few hours west of Santiago on the coast. I had planned on staying only a couple nights here, and then heading north up to La Serena to a famous observatory for a last "activity" type thing before going back into Santiago for a final hostelling weekend. But ever since the moment I arrived at my hostel here in valpo, I have just been enthralled. It´s possibly the coolest place I have ever been to, with crazily haphazard houses thrown up all over these hills overlooking the port (which is actually a working one, very interesting to go down to the harbour and see all the huge cruise ships, fishing boats, and naval vessels). Everything is painted these bold, bright colours and there are all sorts of back alleys and twisting staircases that lead every which way, down to funky shops and tiny little cafe slash art galleries, and above all, everything, literally EVERYTHING is covered in graffiti. Some of it really good, and some of it amazingly horrible, but it doesn´t seem to matter because it just all works together to make this really bohemian, cool atmosphere out of something that in and of itself isn´t really all that beautiful.

So I loved it so much that now I have scrapped going to La Serena altogether and am staying here straight until Santiago on Friday (already have made reservations there, otherwise I would probably wander around these streets taking pictures of random artwork indefinitely). So yeah, am enjoying these last few days- today I went on a long walk around many of the nearby neighbourhoods with a middleaged american couple and a canadian guy, went and saw Pablo Neruda (the poet)´s house, or one of them, and then wandered around some more on my own. Am currently burning a cd in the internet place because I ran out of memory on my camera´s card, and nearly had a panic attack thinking about all the things that I might see and wouldn´t be able to photograph. I already have some art projects in my head to use all these photos for, so if you see them up on facebook and are bored by their seemingly limitless quantity, I apologize.

Other than that, down to the last little bit and just trying not to spend all my money so I´ll have enough left to enjoy in Europe!!