YES!! Time for a burger and fries!!

After we left the little town of Fitz Roy (and yes the dogs did stop barking by 10pm :) we are heading to a larger city to get propane and now are also having to find a welder again!  But this time it's a bracket for the rear suspension that needs welding. Broke, guess from all those damn gravel roads!! Will be missing those from now on it at all possible.  Yesterday's 100km on gravel washboard just about drove me wacky!!

Finally the scenery gets better 😁

We get to the next city and I see a billboard for Mostoza - a burger chain we haven't seen for a LONG time. I really need a burger and fries, getting tired of my cooking LOL!!! So we stop and I order a bacon cheese burger and Dwayne has bacon mushroom and cheese and fries for each - comes to 1000AP!!! That's $22C!!! Crazy but I gotta have it - guess it will be weiner and beans now for supper to stay within budget! LOL!!! NOT!!  Anyways it was a nice change, it seems other then the lamb dinner we had a week ago, we've being eating "in" for weeks!  Now I should be good for awhile 😂 especially having to spend that much for a mediocre burger - Dwayne's didn't even have cheese on it, he went back to complain but girl just pointed to picture and blah blah blah, so he came back. Of course the picture doesn't look ANYTHING like the burger we actually got - go figure, but it was tasty to me 😋

We stopped for propane in Comodoro Rivadavia - a large petroleum based city.  But they couldn't fill the take. Took them 1.5 hrs to figure that out!! But since Dwayne paid when he dropped off the tank he had to wait until they finally decided they couldn't fill it! How can one place fill it in Argentina and then not here?? Anyways we're good for awhile. Then it was off to the grocery store. Once that was done Dwayne figured since we've wasted most of the afternoon might as well look for a place for a oil change.  So found that and when they were finished I asked the guy if he knew someone who could do welding for us. Well seems there is a guy in their shop that can do that :)  So got both jobs done for 4500AP ($100)  Now we are good again - for awhile.

monument in the centre of the roundabout dedicated to the oilman

I then found us a spot to camp right on the beach - ahhh 😁  We we got there it was just paved parking along the beach, where lots of people are walking by or riding their bikes. Busy place, not somewhere that Dwayne can bring out the bbq and cook supper, so I guess I'll make jambalaya inside. We'll save the steaks for another night when we get a quiet spot on the beach.

The beach is huge here, especially when the tide is out

Saw one parasailer come off that cliff and land on the beach

Sunrise at 7:05 - haven't seen a sunrise on the Atlantic coast for quite awhile 

Sunrise 7:10

On our drive saw this "actual replica of a dinosaur" 

It was pretty big because saw a guy standing under the belly and there was still lots of space above him - not sure if it beats Drumheller's dinosaur :) 

Next stop was Puerto Madryn, a nice large city right on the coast.  We wanted to take a private tour to see the elephant seals instead of driving the 160Km return trip on gravel roads! But it seems that most of them have already left to go further north :(  And since we had already seen the penguins we couldn't justify spending $165C EACH to see them again and maybe a whale if we are lucky.  

We then find a spot to park for the night near the ocean and Dwayne did repairs on the water tank again, since we lost all our water last night. So he'll scrape off the old epoxy and apply some new stuff he bought today.  And I made pizza dough for tonight's supper. Getting tied of the bought pizza crusts I've been using. I'll just have to make 2 single pizzas to get the crust thin enough that it will cook in the frying pan.  Have some nice jarred  preserved eggplant, red peppers and artichoke for toppings, plus some Italian salami and fresh tomatoes. 

Puerto Madryn is a very nice place, other then being windy!! The beach area is beautiful, very nice malecón to walk along.  Cruise ships come in here once a week, but not expected until Wednesday. After we had supper - the pizza worked out and was very tasty 😋 we went for a walk along the malecón for 2kms and back. Nice seeing all the people out with their families enjoying the parks. The sun goes down much earlier now that we are heading north, it's dark by 8:30 instead of 9:30 as in Ushuaia.  We also got to watch a beach wedding on our way back to Vanna. 

Almost a full moon

The malecón

one of many works of art on the malecón - speargun diver

Flower girl for the wedding - since it was getting dark my picture of the bride was blurry :( She had on 3" platform shoes that were quickly removed once she starting walking in the sand

All over Argentina you see people caring a thermos of hot water and a cup with tea leaves and a metal straw. The put tea leaves in the cup add water and use the straw which has a strainer at the end. They don't go ANYWAY without their thermos and cup of leaves which they use over and over.

This is the cup and straw for sale in the store

Worked on our expenses for Feb and they were a little high! $4155 but that includes repairs to Vanna for shocks and also oil change - the synthetic oil here cost $250C for 8 litres!! So total with shocks $600. The one week trip into Chile was also expensive. But was still fun 😀  Drove a total of 7200kms.  Jan expenses were only $2580 and we drove 4365kms in Peru and Bolivia.

Today - Sunday is going to be a rest day. We might go rent some bikes for a few hours and ride around here. Or just do nothing! LOL!!! Guess everyone is going on to Daylight Savings today - except Saskatchewan.  Maybe this will be the last year for the change :)  Only Paraguay in South America is on daylight savings, but it goes from Nov to April.  Brazil was but for the 2019-2020 season it did not change. They may stop using the DST all together. 

Time to go out and find a cafe and have a latte 😎