Friday, Puerto Madryn and Gaiman

The day was partly sunny and warm (70's) so we're thawing out! We slowly approached Puerto Madryn at 9 am (after a very calm night) which is an Argentine city on a huge bay with miles of sandy beaches. It's a resort town for them which you see from all the beach toys available, etc.
We had a ship's tour ("Puerto Madryn and Gaiman Welsh Village" for those HAL folks who are reading this) that showed us a bit of the city (by bus) and then took us to the Welsh village of Gaiman, about an hour by highway through parched land that looked like west Texas. Boring! The village was one of the first settlements in this area and is now pretty much falling apart. However the draw was the Welsh Tea Room that served an outstanding tea (fabulous sweets) and had their local chorus sing typical Welsh songs for us. (They were excellent.) It was a very enjoyable stop...but all things considered, I wish I had booked the tour to the coast to see the sea lions and elephant seals. (Note to HAL CC watching here.)

We set sail tonight at 6 heading for Montevideo, Uruguay which we will reach on Sunday. We have a "special dinner" tonight in the gourmet restaurant (The Pinnacle Grill) which we should enjoy...it's usually excellent food.

I checked and they are allowing us off on Monday at 7:30 so we will make our plane to Iguazu...a worry to us when they (LAN airlines) switched us to an earlier flight (10:20) and the front desk said we might not get off the ship until 9 am.

Have to begin thinking about packing tomorrow...think about it...not do it!
Photos of the Welsh Tea Room with the chorus in the distance and the city of Puerto Madryn with the Veendam in the distance...the ship on the right. The scrub in the forefront is what we drove through for an hour.