An Adventure to Nowhere

Hola todos,

It has been forever since I last published a post! Between school and traveling nearly every weekend, time is flying by faster than I could have ever imagined. I promise to try and be better about posting more Argentina fun facts or information about my adventures, and I hope the following post makes up for the recent drought.
This past week, I had the extraordinary opportunity to travel to the middle of nowhere in Patagonia. Other than the clothing brand, Patagonia refers to a geographical region in southern South America that encompasses, more or less, the bottom triangle of the continent, including Chilean and Argentine territories (the orange-ish region on the map below).

A group of 21 Pepperdine University students, including myself, got together with about 10 students from the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) and flew about two and a half hours from Buenos Aires to the Comodoro Rivadavia airport, from which we took a four hour bus ride to Puerto Desado. Below is a map of our travels: we flew from the blue dot in the upper right corner to the white circle at the bottom, and then drove to the end of the red pin.

Puerto Deseado is a small beach town that never receives tourists, but has some amazing sights and animal-watching to offer. Here are some things we did in Puerto Deseado:

Saw dolphins and penguins

We saw some beautiful sights of the ocean

And scaled the face of a cliff to get even better photos

A fellow student and I also appeared on the Puerto Deseado radio show. The town almost never receives visitors, much less foreigners, so our group was quite a hit. If you would like to hear me stumble through a radio interview in Spanish, click here!

We next traveled to Cabo Blanco, a two hour drive from Puerto Deseado. The only thing in Cabo Blanco is a lighthouse, a rugby field, a stone house, and a metal shed. Oh, and perfectly picturesque beaches with stunning sunrises and sunsets and clear, unpolluted waters.

We painted the shed, reconstructed the rugby field fence, and slept on the beach one night (strongly NOT recommended unless you have a tent or a million socks...) and I saw more stars in the sky than I even imagined could exist.

Jaramillo is a small town of 400 Argentines and was our next stop between Cabo Blanco and the Comodoro Rivadavia airport on the day of our return. Here, we sanded and stained an old railway car and ate a lamb asado (cookout).

Finally, we drove back to the Comodoro Rivadavia airport, only to arrive as our plane was taxi-ing on the runway. As it was 10 pm, the next flight to Buenos Aires was at 5 am the next day, so we pulled out our homework and sleeping bags and spent the night on the airport floor.

 Somehow, the 5 am flight had 21 open seats, so our entire group was able to make it back to BA by 7:30 am- many of us arrived to campus just in time for our 8:45 am classes. (Mind you, we hadn't showered for 4 days.)

Summary:
In case this post was too long for you and you skipped to the bottom, just know that the 5ish days that I spent in a little-known area of Patagonia with 20 classmates and about 10 Argentine students was one of my most memorable experiences in Argentina thus far. If you ever want to take some time to backpack through a foreign country or region, don't go to Europe. Everybody goes to Europe. Come to Patagonia and see some of the most breath-taking views of nature! And make sure to drop by Puerto Deseado and Jaramillo and tell the locals that Pepperdine says hi.

Besos,

Tina the Exploradora