Slowly struggling
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
327
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Neuquen - El Chocon,
Argentina
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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Yesterday I ended up with:
"So tonight I'm off to Neuquen on a comfortable cama night bus. There the weather is meant to be good, and I expect to engage in a few interesting activities... wait and see!"
I arrived in Neuquen in the morning, after not sleeping a lot in the bus. The good point though is that I finished my first book in spanish!
So were left... the expected good weather and interesting activities.
The weather was great: blue sky, not too hot, really good.
Now for the activities: I had to wait till later in the morning to manage to get through with someone from my first intended activity: dinosaur hunting. There is a posibility to go and work on a paleontological search site: www.proyectodino.com.ar. The money goes to the non-profit organisation running the search field.
Once I got through I got the prices: 190 dollars for one day, or 240 dollars for two days.
Expensive.
There is also another place to visit: El Chocon, where are exposed the biggest ever dinosaur, and the biggest ever carnivorous dinosaur. There are loads of fossils here.
My other option was the skydiving club in Neuquen, but I could not get through.
So I decided I could find a room and then rent a car, possibly with other travellers, to go around these sites, before deciding if I wanted to stay at the search field.
I did all that planning/calling from an internet cafe at the bus station.
At around noon I took a bus to the city center, not too sure if I was right to stay. But hey, you have to keep going, and things come your way: someone you talk to, or just a place you walk in, that just end up making that place an unforgetable moment.
Not quite for this time. The city is very wealthy, oriented on the oil production of the region. The city center is modern, it looked really nice, for a city.
I went to a hotel, found in the guidebook and at the tourist office. First, the listed price was very high, but I could not get cheaper. Second, the listed price was wrong: it was in fact 60 pesos, not 40. But anyway, they had no vacancies. finding the "cheap" (40-60 pesos) hotels in this city was not the easiest of things. I found another one. Full. And another one. Full too. Anothe one. Full for now... oh yeah, maybe there could be people leaving soon? when would it be possible? not before friday....
At this point I decided I was not staying in that city that night. I still stayed a bit to have lunch.
I wanted to check out the museum, but first I thought I had to get something out of the day, and so I headed to the airport to see the dropzone. I got there not so easily. There was absolutely nobody (maybe that was why they did not answer my emails and phone calls...), apparently they operate only on weekends... great.
I was now 5 km from town. I went back to the bus terminal (still 3 km from town). And stayed there. I decided I would go to El Chocon, the place with the Dinosaurs Museum.
The day was brilliant and I had done nothing of it. But there are days like that, and anyway I checked the weather on the Andes, where I came from: absolute shit!
The good thing came up as I was on internet waiting for my bus, in the person of Jessica (the spanish girl from Pucon) who will arrive around here tomorow night. She will stay at a friend, amd we have planned to go together with a car on thursday to see the dinosaur excavation site.
A bit complicated, but that's how it is. And no doubt it will change again shortly.
Off to my bus now, we'll see if I can find a room tonight when I get in El Chocon.
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