Day 153: January 15, 2008 Gallegos to San Julián
Trip Start
Aug 15, 2007
1
156
202
Trip End
Mar 01, 2008
Puerto San Julián,
Argentina
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
I hate traveling with all of this equipment. It beats carrying rocks, though. I have all of the drilling equipment, my camping gear, and my personal stuff. That's three bags plus my backpack. One bag is half-filled with the 20-liter jug, so its more the bulk than the weight that is annoying. The jug will be abandoned after the Rada Tilly project. I'll send the drill back to Salta, along with my tent and abandon a lot of my clothes, many of which are starting to look pretty ratty. That should get me down to one bag for the remainder of this journey.
After breakfast, I got a cab to the bus terminal at 8:15. The cause of incredible loose trash problem in this dumpy town was evident at the terminal. The people who live here just don't care. The Tramat Bus guy who put the baggage tags on the luggage, stripped off the backing of each tag and threw it on the ground where the wind carried it away. The 53-passenger bus was full so that means he dropped 75-100 of them. That's for one bus on one day. Keep Argentina trashed and ugly!
I sat next to a family from Salta. I chatted with the daughter. It turned out that I've seen a lot more of her province than she has! After we got underway, we both dozed off. I awoke 20 minutes later when one of the police guys from the Güer Aike police control came onboard and methodically took the document or passport number of all 53 passengers. Why was this necessary? Hasn't anyone told them that the dictatorship was abolished 25 years ago? It took nearly an hour. It was so aggravating.
We finally got going again and crossed the seemingly endless flat mesetas that comprise the eastern 2/3 of Patagonia. This vast flatland fascinates me for some reason. I saw hundreds of guanacos along Ruta 3. We finally reached the Río Santa Cruz, the river on which the Voice of the Rivers 2001 traversed Argentina. After we made a quick stop at Piedrabuena, on the north side of the river, we continued on to Puerto San Julián. I've been here a couple of times before. We made a brief food stop in 1989 and I spent a night here with the Dupont geologists in 1997.
The town is rich in history. Magellan spent a 5 months here in 1520. The first mass in Argentine territory was celebrated just north of town. Three of Magellan´s five ships rebelled against him. He quelled the uprising and put one of his captains to death; exiled another as well as the priest; and sentenced 40 of his men to death. That last sentence was not carried out. Some of those 40 mutineers were among the 18, out of the original 265, who made it around the world and back to Spain. One of them was actually in command of the only ship to survive the journey, the Nao Victoria. It was on Bahía San Julián that Magellan met a "giant" Tehuelche Indian who he called Patagón, which means "bigfoot". The region has been called Patagonia ever since. The Tehuelches were, apparently, big people with an average height over 185 cm (6'). The average Spaniard was about 160 cm (5' 3").
Sir Francis Drake entered the bay to hang a couple of mutineers on his round-the-world voyage. Charles Darwin was the first person to describe the geology around the bay, in "Voyage of the Beagle", when HMS Beagle dropped anchor here. Another interesting historical snippet is that the first air mail to arrive at the port was flown in by Antoine de St. Exupery, author of "Le Petit Prince".
A pleasant woman at the bus terminal tourist information desk got me a room at the Hotel Ocean and told me about a driving tour around the bay that is available. I took a cab to the hotel, which is much nicer and cheaper than the Hotel Alonso in Río Gallegos. My first action was to take a siesta. When I awoke, I inquired about two local excursions, one by land and another by boat in the bay. I will try to do them both.
I found an internet place and spent a couple of hours with blog and emails until I got hungry. It was 9:30 and the sun was still out. I found the Chechu restaurant near the hotel and had rabas (squid rings) for dinner. Afterward, I returned to the hotel and watch CNN in Spanish before going to bed.
