A sleepy, little town, Neuquen has little to do except visit the dig sites and museums around it where lie a plethora of fossils. Thanks to rich sedimentary rock formations at the site of a water body which receded, there are enough fossils for you to practically crunch underfoot. Neuquen's moment in the sun arrived when the bones of largest carnivorous dinosaur (the aptly and imaginatively named Gigantosaurus Carolinii) were discovered here.We hopped on to an overnight bus from Mendoza, on which we were promptly offered a rather ham-y "vegetarian" lasagna for dinner, and arrived bright and early to find no one who could understand our broken Spanish. Finally, we were aided by a lady at a car rental booth, who spoke a smattering of English and was kind enough to excuse the brutally murdered local tongue. She pointed us to a hotel in town, told us where to go and find out more about the dig visits. The hotel we decided upon looked neat and clean from the outside and for the most part was pretty clean but seemed to be run by a clutch of grumpy, old ladies who seemed set on scowling the joy out of you.
We of course set out for lunch in the middle of siesta, but managed to locate a cafe with a warm and gregarious waiter, who insisted on repeating whatever we said punctuated with a si at roughly five times the decibel level. Some rather large humita and spinach empanadas made for lunch. After this, we headed straight to the tourist office in Neuquen to inquire about trips out of town. At this point, we must commend their patience since we went back repeatedly for various bits and pieces of information that we thought about after leaving the office (also, they spoke English! Hallelujah!) before we were fully satisfied. After gathering everything and speaking to a couple of agents we landed at the offices of Quantum Tours to meet the mind-boggling Pablo Daniel Gonzalez.
Pablo speaks in rapid, loud and expressive Spanish regardless of whether you understand it or not or even have a chance to respond much. Pablo wants to know everything about you and he laughs a hearty laugh every time he feels like it. Especially when he knows neither side understood what the other just said. Pablo was overjoyed that our last stop was going to be Buenos Aires, since he is a porteno. Pablo highly recommended our next stop, San Martin de los Andes, and said that it was muy muy muy muy muy (lost count after a while) muy lindo. He also insisted on an "OK" based rating system for hotels there. There were a few which were "OK OK OK OK OK ... OK" but muy caro. There were a few which were barato but just "meh". And there were a couple which were "OK OK OK" and apparently reasonable. Pablo made no promises but still got us a room at one of these. Pablo also got us the best rate for a cab to Proyecto Dino, an active dig, and warned MFTree to keep an eye on me 'cause there was going to be a woman driving it. Pablo is awesome.
As promised, we set off early next morning with the cheery Reina at the helm of our cab. Driving through some stunningly desolate and rambling red-sand-and-stone scenery, Proyecto Dino was upon us, on the banks of the Lago Barreales. After the initial welcome by a sunny Italian researcher, dressed like a twenty-first century Indiana Jones, we were passed on to our guide - a travel-industry trainee nervously eager to show around her first tourists. The project has a fairly neat demonstration of fossil formation and some garish neon-coloured plaster of paris models.
Along with that we were upon some real-
life archaeologists mucking around with their spades and brushes around a rather large looking, emerging skeleton. The site also has a slightly decrepit but fascinating museum containing fossils found around the area - ranging from the Gigantosaurus to dinosaur eggs. Our lunch had been arranged at one of the local wineries (of course) - it was delicious (of course) and led to a winery tour and tasting (of course!) The lazy afternoon was completed with a visit to an idyllic little picnic spot where the locals were hell bent on fishing with makeshift lines.
We headed back to Neuquen to spend a couple of hours at the local annual fair. We'd roamed around it the previous evening as well and tasted the most delicious candied strawberries (shame on you candied apples, you pretender, you!) We pigged out on some more of those, learned how they were made, bought some accessories for MFTree and made our way to the bus station to catch our ride to San Martin de los Andes. It is muy muy muy muy muy lindo or in Pablo-English - OK OK OK OK OK OK!
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