12 February 2008 (Tuesday): Colon
We arrived at Retiro Omnibus Terminal at 06.30am and there were already loads of people around – I don’t think this place ever stops, it is just mind blowing the amount of people that travel through here. Our bus was, as usual, fashionably late but only by 1/2 hour which isn’t too bad.
We slept a fair part of the way as there wasn’t much to see except fields and fields, as far as the eye can see of corn or potatoes, which is very weird as you only see potatoes cooked as chips and you don’t see that much corn on the menu here in Argentina, so not sure where it goes.
We made a couple of stops along the way at some very small towns which were unnamed, or at least we couldn’t see any town names and the bus terminals were just a shed.
We finally made it into Colon after about 5 1/2 hours. The bus station is quite large and has a tourist office which was actually open and more bizarrely had a map (something quite unusual we have found). So we headed off to the thermal springs.
The roads here in Colon aren’t paved, just sort of flattened mud, so everything is dirty, even us now.
The thermal springs here are as far removed from the thermal springs in San Pedro de Atacama as you can imagine and look nothing like the photos on their website. Here they are like actual swimming pools of varying temperatures. We tested out a few over the afternoon, but as the day got later and siesta time kicked in they became very busy. So you are just standing there in a a swimming pool with no room or move or even float. So we sunbathed for a bit and then gave up and headed back into the town centre for a look around. There are loads of people around in the thermal baths and along the rivers edge probably because everything in the town centres is closed, including the restaurants for siesta time which appears to be from 1pm to 7pm. We have begun to wonder how any actual work gets done here.
The town isn’t very big but along the river there are lots of camp grounds with activities and a lot of people have speed boats, or as Scott calls them stink boats, as the only boat you can have is a sail boat!! This is obviously a very popular holiday destination for Argentinians.
We made it to the bus terminal for an icecream, I am still missing my Biltzy Pops from Chile and have yet to find a substitute. Our bus arrived on time, so we boarded and headed off, to break down and then get going again and then to pull into a bus station and have to change buses, but at least this new bus works, so off we headed back to Buenos Aires.
It was a very long day and a tad disappointing, but it was interesting to see the differences in thermal springs.