Even though our bus ride was a nice, long and uncomfortable time, we managed to have a bit of an adventure! As Luce paid a visit to the toilet she got stopped by the young man working on the bus, he asked her if she wanted to join them for some Mate. Mate is a drink they have here, made from Yerba leaves. It´s traditionally used to greet guests in to your home on arrival. So the three of us ventured down to the front of the bus to try some of the renowned Mate! We were all squashed in there with the 2 drivers and the attendant, we must´v looked pretty funny. They drink the tea like drink out of a little cup, usually wooden or metal, and a metal spoon like thing with a filter on the end. We all tried some, and weren´t too fussed either way. As if the situation wasn't odd enough, sitting in the front of the cabin listening to Kylie, we approached a level crossing and Rach 'choo-chooed' loud enough for all to hear and the bus crew thought it was hilarious. After, we were approaching a terminal so we had to return to our seats. Shortly after departing they asked us if we wanted more but we politely declined in favour of reading.

Eventually we arrived at a sunny Puerto Madryn and headed to the hostel we had booked in to, Hi Patagonia. It´s a homely hostel, and the two people that run it are really nice! We decide to just relax for the rest of the day, having a bit of a wander around the town before cooking ourselves some dinner!

The next day we headed to Gaiman, a little welsh village about an hour and a half away from Puerto Madryn. We had to first get a bus to Trelew, about an hour away. We stopped here for an hour or 2 and grabbed some lunch ( bad move). There´s not really much in Trelew except a dinasour museum which we opted not to visit, but were later told by the irish lads in our room that it was pretty impressive!

We arrived at Gaiman just after three, knowing that the teahouses and welsh museum didn´t open until then. We were still shocked as to how dead the village was! We wandered around all the teahouses but only one was open, Case de Te. It was 40 pesos for all the tea you can drink and cake you can eat. We were shortly joined by the 2 irish lads from the room, and started to make ourselves fat! They gave us 7 or 8 types of cakes and scones, but we couldn´t finish them all- and they asked us if we wanted more! Luce managed to have 7 cups of tea in the hour or so we were there! Well done!

Shortly after stuffing ourselves we headed over to the Welsh Museum. It was in the old train station, and featured many pictures of old classes at the school and old welsh artifacts. It was pretty interesting to see, and there was an older lady there who spoke welsh, spanish and english. Her great grandparents had moved over to Gaiman back in 1865 when the settlers moved over. She said now there were only two people there who actually moved from Wales, everyone else had grown up there.

The next day the weather was pretty bad so no boats were going out to do whale watching and all the buses out of Puerto Madryn were full so we had another day to wander around the town and generally do nothing. The next day however, the weather had improved and the boats were running again so we booked ourselves onto a tour of Peninsula Valdes that included a boat trip to get up close to the Southern Right Whales that pass the coast here each year. They come here to mate! Despite getting soaked on the boat and it being freezing, we got really close to several whales, including a mother and her calf and watched them for over an hour, flipping their fins and raising their tales out of the water. In the distance we saw several whales breaching. They were amazing to see, such huge powerful creatures!

Once back on dry and stable land we pilled back into the minibus and drove to a sealion colony and then onto a colony of elephant seals. These were pretty cool, just lounging around all cuddled up in defence of the cold! The peninsula itself is very barren and desert like and we saw a lot of patagonia lamas running around, at one point a whole load of them ran out in frount of the bus!

The hostel we stayed in here was great and the 2 guys that work here, Roy and garston are fantasic! When we left the next day we felt like we were leaving home as they{d made us so welcome. We were almost sad to leave as they waved us goodbye in our cab!