The adventure starts....

OMG!! Patagonia is so not what you expect - green fields, lush vegetation, lambs skipping across the hills - noooo - as we circled above the dirt strip all we could see was bleak, bleak, bleak! Miles and miles of scrub and not a lot else - why did the Welsh ever settle here - big mistake - HUGE! We can't believe we are only 48hrs out of the UK and have already flown half way around the world - we have gone from flat beds in business to hard beds in a youth Hostel - yes a youth hostel (they take OAP's now - and that's Gill not Ant!) A real first for Gill - the discovery that you can pay less than £200 a night and get somewhere comfy and clean (although we haven't actually slept there yet..) We are now embracing technology and writing this blog entry in a bar - how cool is that - (well it is us 2, there had to be a bar involved somewhere) but Mum, for the price of a beer you get free WiFi so it's a bargain ! Our Spanish is improving by the hour, although the Spanish phrasebook is being well used and is something of a disappointment after Ant's 3 months of private tuition and Gill's 3 months of the Daily Mail Learn Spanish in a week CD's - they say a week is a long time in politics, but a week of Daily Mail CD's is obviously long too... We are also just realising that the siesta is alive and well (well sleeping!) - we thought that Puerto Madryn was a sleepy (for sleepy read really boring....) little town until we noticed that after 5pm it suddenly livened up and is now buzzing. But we noticed that last night - at 11 pm there were still lots of children in the restaurant , so assume they had a little sleep in the afternoon. Today we have achive 2 firsts:
1. Gill driving in a left hand drive car on the right hand side of the road (tomorrow, she's taking it off road - more of that later....)
2. Anthony has kissed a blowsy 60 yr old shopkeeperwith bright red lipstick due to the excitement of finding (in a ships chandlers ) a charger for the camera battery that he omitted to pack, and is still plugged in in Clapham...
One piece of sad news, Derek's mum is not well and there is some question of whether he is going to be able to come - we hope so and are in constant touch by text.
We have also had an educational day today. In Trelew (like going back in time - albeit a time you wouldn't want to live in.. a combination of Freemantle, New Zealand, Broken Hill, Coober Pedy- sorry Indochina crew!). We visited the museum of the Welsh settlers (at least 5 minutes...) and then the fossil museum with actually a really good exhibition of dinosaurs for which Patagonia is famous. Strangely it was reminiscent of the era from which the local hairstyles and fashion originate. But perhaps it's us that is strange - when we walked into the local restaurant last night everyone went quiet as we were assessed by the local populace... quite unsettling but the pizzas were good so all was fine.
Shopping forecast - current conditions = poor, forecast - poor. Will keep you updated
Gill & Ant
xxx