Author: marionvermazen

Today was a relatively easy day. Our drive to Tandi as we head towards Buenos Aires, was about three hours. We couldn’t check in before 3 pm so we stopped whenever we saw something interesting along the way.

Our first stop was at a dairy store we just happened to see.

A bit farther down the road we stopped for a picnic.

We’ve seen lots of wheat farms and cattle today.

It’s obvious from the amount of standing water that we have seen that they have had a lot of rain here lately. When we finally got close to the place we are staying tonight we followed Google’s directions ( big mistake!) and about a quarter of a mile from our hotel we got stuck in a giant mud puddle. We almost made it but them we slid backwards and there was no way we were getting out on our own.

Duke stayed with the car and I walked to our hotel. Using Google and my limited Spanish I was able to communicate the problem. A young man walked back to the car with me and he and Duke pushed the car out of the mud while I drove. It turned out that there was a much better road on which we should have a approached our hotel.

We went into the town of Tandi for dinner and had an excellent meal at Bodegón del Fuerte.

Today was a lovely rest day. We went for a walk on the beach. We were the only ones there.

For dinner we stayed in and had cheese and crackers with chocolate for desert. It was a great day!!

Today was another very long day of driving. We started out driving through boring pampas.

About half way through our 390 mile drive the terrain started to green up and we began seeing lots of wheat fields.

At one place where we stopped to stretch there was a memorial to the fallen in the Malvinas war. (The British call it the Faulklands war).

Not far from out destination we saw a lot of horses so we stopped to check it out.

We are staying in a very nice apartment right on the beach. For dinner we had fantastic fish at a nearby restaurant.

We are making our way north, back towards Buenos Aires. Today we drove three and a half hours north to the coastal town of Las Grutas.

It’s been very windy along the coast for the last four days. It was windy when we arrived in Lass Grutas but a couple of hours later when we went out for a walk the wind had dropped and it was 77 degrees.

We had a great walk along the beach. The cliffs above the beach are full of burrows built by burrowing Parakeets. The birds are raucous and very loud. There are hundreds of them. It’s cool to watch them.

For dinner we walked a couple of blocks inland from the beach and had an excellent meal at Del Azul Bistro and Sushi Bar.

Today was a rest day, but we still saw some very interesting things.

We went for a walk up to the headland east of our hotel. The first Welsh settlers landed here in 1865. There is a monument and a small park where they landed.

On the way back to the hotel we were lucky enough to see Orcas feeding in the bay. They were quite far out but it was wonderful fun to watch them. Orcas are the one animal we didn’t get to see when we visited Puerto Valdés yesterday. So we were very excited to see them today. I took about a million pictures, mainly of tails. But Duke got one really good picture of one out of the water.

For dinner we went to a bar across from the hotel and had empanadas.