My next destination was supposed to be peninsula Valdez after I decided to not go to El Calafate and El Chalten the supposedly best places in all of Argentina. I left them for a future trip where I could come a bit earlier in the year because I already noticed that it gets below freezing temperatures at night so I wanted to go there when it is a bit warmer.
Puerto San Julián
Here I made a short stop for some coffee while I downloaded all the photos from the national park to my laptop. It is the closest town to the Falkland Islands (they call them the Malvinas) so this is where the Argentinian air force took off in the Falkland war. The Argentinians still seem very pissed about that war. Almost every town has a sign somewhere saying: “Los Malvinas son argentinas!” (The Falklands belong to Argentina!)
Comodoro Rivadavia
Comodoro Rivadavia is the regional capital of the Chubut province. I only stopped here for a snack and a coffee and wanted to get to Puerto Piramides the same day.
The trouble started when I went back to my car and found a parking ticket. Apparently I had parked my car just inside a bus stop that I did not recognize. Whups. Luckily the ticket contained instructions on how to pay it so I drove to the place that it said I needed to go to pay the ticket; the tribunal de faltas.
When I got there they were already closed for the day. Fuck.
So I needed to cancel my hostel on the peninsula valdez and find a place to stay for the night so I could pay the fine tomorrow. So far I did not know the price of the ticket by the way. In a small town next to Comodoro called Rada Tilly there was a lovely hostel called Roots Backpackers where I booked a stay for the night.
At the hostel I was initially one of two guests but he left the next day. Apart from that there were only the owner, Lao, and 4 volunteers that were at the hostel. It was obvious that it was the end of the season here.
One of the volunteers, Mercedes, had been staying in Germany for 3 years so she spoke very good German and was eager to practice. I told her about my situation and she suggested that she came along the next day to the tribunal de faltas to help me out with the communication. I was of course very happy about that and so we went there the next day.
We got there very early so there were not so many people although we quickly realized that none of the people waiting were actually being processed. There was a power outage. While we waited for the power to come back online I was already picturing us sitting here for the next 4 hours and they would close shop before I got to pay my fine. Luckily the power came back after 15 minutes or so and it did not take long for our turn.
Unfortunately I still did not get to pay my fine. Apparently, the officer who created the ticket had not yet come in to enter it into the system. They told me to come back in 2 hours. They should have it then.
They didn’t. They were not even allowed to tell me how much it cost.
I spent the rest of the day strolling along the beach, working out and processing my videos to kill the time.
In the evening, when the volunteers were back from helping out on the owner’s garden, we cooked together, enjoyed some wine and played some rounds of rummy. We finally drank the wine that I had bought in Malargue two weeks prior. It was definitely a good wine.
I went to the tribunal de faltas a fourth time the next day and was finally able to pay the ticket. It turned out to be 16.000 Pesos (~33€). Had I payed only after a week it would have cost double that. Locals can use an app to pay these fines but because I have a Chilean car, it is not in the system.
Finally relieved of that burden I continued my journey to peninsula Valdez. Although I have to say that I did enjoy my stay at the hostel so much that it might just have been worth it.