Puerto Madryn & Gaiman

Having left the Ruta 1 and made it back to civilisation, we blatted along to the tune of only one silencer. It was a Sunday and so, even though we drove past a few likely looking shops, none were open to repair it.

In what would become a habit over the next six months, we chose our campsite based on whether or not it would have wind protection. We opted for a spot just outside Las Grutas, tucked behind the sand dunes on the beach. We had a nice quiet night and in the morning it was time to do a few routine jobs. I did an oil change while Lee emptied out the toilet. We spent another night accompanied by the usual stray dog from the village that had wandered our way.

The next day we set off to Puerto Madryn to get our exhaust fixed. It was a three-hour drive and boy was it noisy. Cruising at 60mph with only one bank of the exhaust was absolutely deafening. We arrived, of course, just before siesta time. In Argentina, this lasts for at least three hours. We just about managed to get a quote before the shop shut. He wanted $80 to weld us a new flexible section, cash only. That was crazy money really, considering it’s a half-hour job, but what can you do. We couldn’t continue on and arrive in Ushuaia utterly deaf, so while we waited for the garage to reopen, we went to get cash. As it’s Argentina, this involved messing around with bank transfers and Western Union. One does not simply go to a cashpoint here.

Still, we had plenty of time to do it.

We showed up when he reopened at 4pm with the usual ridiculous wad of notes. Half an hour later, we were poorer, but at least we could hear ourselves complaining about it as we drove off.

With that sorted, it was time to park up for the night. We first headed out to a spot on the coast, but this didn’t look great. It was mainly filled with large campers who clearly lived there permanently. There was very little space and no wind protection. So we headed back to town and opted for a large free car park which is another popular spot with the overlanding community. Surprisingly for a city centre car park, we had a lovely peaceful night and were glad we’d chosen it over the beach.

Now we had to decide whether or not we wanted to visit the Valdés Peninsula. This was about the only place we stood a chance of seeing killer whales, as we were nearing the end of the season. We spoke to a Canadian couple who had just come back from there. They said they had indeed seen them, but honestly didn’t seem overly impressed.

The tickets are quite expensive and, on top of that, it’s a long two-hour drive out to the point once you’re inside, on very bad, slow roads. When you get there, you need to sit and wait and hope to see whales. A cold, boring wait with no guarantee. We read several miffed comments from previous visitors who had sat in freezing wind for five hours and seen nothing. Of course, that’s nature for you. Not only that, but we weren’t allowed to stay in the park with our cats, so we’d need to drive all the way back out and then back in again the next day if we hadn’t got lucky. That’s several tanks of fuel and was shaping up to be rather expensive.

We decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, we’d try the free park much closer to the city, and if we got lucky that was great, and if not, never mind.

We were all set to head out when I happened to glance at Ruby’s front tyres and saw the inner rubber wall dripping with brake fluid. Guess we wouldn’t be going anywhere today then…

I stripped down the brakes in the car park after seeing a large amount of brake fluid leaking past the piston on the caliper. I assumed that, for the third time, our piston seal had failed. So we pulled off the entire caliper, jumped on our bikes, and headed to a brake shop.

In a matter of minutes, they popped out the piston to reveal huge gouges down its side. It appeared the caliper itself was still OK, but it seemed a small stone had got in there and ruined the piston. And now you know what happened… siesta time.

After what seemed an age, the shop next to the garage opened. We spent a while hunting for an appropriate piston replacement. I wasn’t overly optimistic, but after a lot of catalogue checking and measuring, we had a close match. Same bore, just a little shorter. That shouldn’t really matter. We got a new seal kit and took it back next door for them to refit. Happily, the parts were quite cheap; the labour, however, was not. He wanted $50 to put the piston in. Now, I’m not used to paying for car labour, and I’m probably out of touch with going rates, but $50 to put a piston in a caliper seemed a lot. I considered doing it myself, but without a vice it’s a bit difficult. So I grudgingly agreed and spent ten minutes staring fixedly at the guy as he did it. Perhaps that was off-putting, or maybe he realised it was indeed a bit of a ridiculous price. In the end they only charged us $35, which helped. It’s crazy how quickly you burn through money. Two little jobs in two days had cost us over $150.

All the holdups and extra costs reinforced our plan about Valdés. The next day we drove around to Playa El Doradillo. It took a lot longer than it should have as the road was closed, but it was still a lot quicker than going all the way to the end of the peninsula. It’s a beautiful, remote and wild coastline here. It would be great to spend a night, although it’s not allowed. We decided we’d stay the day and if no one kicked us out, we’d try to stay overnight. We spent several hours sitting on the beach and periodically scanning the water for fins.

As much as it looked remote, the rangers still came. They saw our cats, who were fortunately inside at the time, and told us that while this was OK, they couldn’t come out. We had, for once, stuck to the rules just in case. They said there hadn’t been any whale sightings here for about three weeks, despite all the tourist boards insisting December was the month. Then they told us we had to leave at sunset, or sooner if a storm was coming. The sky behind was ominously black and the road was not surfaced either. So we packed up. As we put the last few things in, the rain hit—a torrential downpour as we began to climb the rapidly worsening track to the main road. Ruby slid around a bit but kept going. We reached the road covered in mud and shingle, but victorious. At least we had a drive back to our car park to let the rain wash most of it off.

With whale hunting a bust, the next day we headed on. We’d put ourselves under a bit of time pressure as we were trying to arrange a tour to Penguin Island. It’s cheaper if you can come with six people, so we were trying to coordinate a group. It was quite a drive down the coast to get there, and to sync up with everyone else we needed to keep moving.

Our next port of call was Gaiman. We stopped on the way to visit the giant dinosaur statue near Trelew. Here in 2013 they found the fossilised skeleton of a dinosaur believed to be the largest ever discovered. After further research it turned out it was similar to others, but at an enormous 31m in length it’s still not something you’d want to come face to face with—unless of course it was just a life-sized model.

Not only is Trelew famous for its dinosaur, but as you may have noticed, that name doesn’t sound very Argentinian. This is actually a Welsh settlement, and it’s not the nicest place. If you want to experience Welsh cream tea in Argentina (which of course you do), it’s better to go to the neighbouring town of Gaiman.

Here there’s a lot less crime, so you can park up at the cheap campsite in town run by the local firefighters and go for a little walk around, just like we did. Around every corner was a Welsh flag. Welsh is also still taught in the schools here.

Of course, we also went and sampled one of the cream teas this place is famous for. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a cuppa and a scone after all.