Travel with Indigo

We arrive in Mar del Plata on refreshingly blue seas, a nice change from the brown of the Rio de la Plata.  And the day is glorious with blue cloudless skies, warm sun and calm seas, the same conditions that lure thousands of Argentines to the beaches.  Packed together like the proverbial sardines but on dirty brown sand rather than in mustard sauce, there is hardly room to move among the hordes.  This place is a combination of Atlantic City, New Jersey and Coney Island, New York, and its city life matches up well with the beaches.

A “beach” here is a place on the sea with a large strip shopping mall-like structure housing a bar, restaurant, restrooms, tourist shops and the like.  Out front, along water’s edge, is the real dirty sand beach, and just landward of it are acres of canvas cabanas, about 100 square feet each, rented by the day, called carpas.  In these, the sunbather can change clothes, be served food and drink, nap, and entertain.

One day, I take a taxi and ride 120 kilometers north to Pinamar, arriving at 7PM, just in time for the legal closing hour of the beach bars.  Thousands of people, who had just spent the day on the beach–the sand even browner than Mar del Plata–now evacuate all at the same time.  It’s a traffic jam and with the beach road parallel to the water, there is no place to escape it.  Instead I hike to a restaurant for a few beers, dinner and then return to Indigo.  What is now obvious is that in Argentina, as well as in much of South America, the summer holiday is much like that in Europe: it all takes place mostly in the same month–August in Europe, January in South America.  The result is a crushing load of humanity descending on small places.

Finally departing Mar del Plata, we have a storm-tossed cruise to Golfo Nuevo, a nearly perfectly round gulf, and drop anchor at Puerto Madryn, an evolving eco-tourist town, but discordantly with an aluminum plant nearby.  The town has grown up so quickly tht it lacks the disheveled appearance of many South American towns.  It’s clean, has wide streets, painted and tidy homes and a few fine shops.  Horatio, my English speaking driver, takes me on a day tour to Puerto Piramides, a tiny village about 100 kilometers away, with a fine beach, nice restaurants, and a nature exposition center.  Along the way, we spot several herds of guanaco, cousins of the llama, and a few rhea, cousins of the ostrich.

One afternoon I wander into a local bar and, impromptu, am entertained by a guy with a simple acoustic guitar singing traditional Argentine songs with a few of his buddies.  He has a terrific voice and command of the music and is clearly the star of the town.  What luck!

Leaving Puerto Madryn, Indigo cruises along the desert coast, still in the Pampas, to a small bay called Caleta Hornos.  The day is utterly perfect, with low humidity, azure skies and a calm sea.  Water temperature has dropped now to the mid-50s, and the wildlife reflects this.  In no time, we are now seeing penguins, seals and a variety of birds we have not seen before.  The captain and I go for a spin in the tender and I ask him to put me ashore for a hike.  The terrain is gently sloping but the ground is rough, broken shale spotted with thorny bush and mesquite-like plants.  I spot a herd of guanacos and flush a Pampas hare from his hiding place.  The bones of sheep betray the presence of wolves in the area.  The whole place resembles the Asian steppe or southern Utah or Arizona.  Dry desert, scrawny plant life, all inhospitable to humans.

Our next stop is unplanned.  The weather services we consult regularly warn that the balmy seas we are presently enjoying will soon turn to storm tossed with waves to 12 feet.  Prudently, we turn into the industrial port town of Commodoro Rivadavia, the oil center of Argentina and also a major fishing port, none of which suggests a fine time is in store.  Tied up to a commercial concrete dock, we wait out the storm in cold winds and rain.

After a few days of Rivadavia, everybody is anxious to get the heck out of there and, with a break in the weather, we do.  Over the next few days, we make our way south toward Tierra del Fuego in generally calm seas, watching dolphins play in our wake, penguins diving alongside and for the first time, the mighty albatross soaring gracefully around the boat in search of prey.

At about 7PM on Saturday, January 20, we arrive at the eastern entry into the famed Straits of Magellan.  But as fog has set in, this for the first time since leaving Florida, we see it pass by on the radar screen.  Still, foggy skies generally mean calm seas, so there are few complaints.