Happy Birthday, D!

So we left Tierra del Fuego, after 4 amazing days in Ushuaia, and had to choose our next stop.  I knew it wasn't going to be anything compared to where we just were, but the 5th of January is Danica's birthday, so we had to choose something...

Puerto Madryn sounded great in our Lonely Planet book, so we found a connecting bus there, from Rio Gallegos.  Overnight, and we actually slept pretty well, and arrived in Puerto Madryn at noon, on her birthday.

We checked into "Tosca" hostel, only about 6 blocks from the bus terminal, and set out to enjoy the Atlantic beach town as much as possible...

Had lunch right on the beach, at "Lizard's" cafe, where the Pizza was delicious, but the waiters were idiots...We ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, which sounded great in the hot summer sun, and after 20 minutes of waiting, a waiter comes out holding a bottle of Malbec, and starts to open it...I quickly said, "Este no es vino blanco, es tinto!"  (Meaning, this is not white wine, it's red!)  He tries to convince us it's white, and I told him to send it back and bring the white...I mean, come on...First of all, I'm from California, where we too, have delicious wine, and lots of it.  He disappears with the Malbec, and another 15 minutes later our female waitress comes out and apologizes, saying they don't have white wine.  I walked 2 blocks down the road, and bought a bottle of champagne from a kiosk, for 5 dollars.  Worked out better in the long run!

Our day continued, as we spent a couple hours on the beautiful, vast beach just in front of town, and watched thirsty Argentinians sipping boiling Mate in the hot sun, while we continued our Champagne binge, on our second bottle, on the sand.  I cooked her a nice dinner, parilla style, with steak, corn, roasted red pepper, and zucchini and onion.  Visited with some guys from Buenos Aires for a bit, before retiring for the night.  Long day, but we had a blast, and 25 only comes once in a lifetime.  Happy birthday Babe!

At this point in time, looking back, we've done over 8,000 miles, or over 13,000 kilometers, since we started in San Jose, Costa Rica in March.  Wow...Ushuaia was the furthest south we'll get, and now we officially begin our ascent of the continent, where we ultimately will find ourselves back in Lima, to fly home...