Peurto Madryn

If i remember correctly I left off at the end of our stay in Calafate.We had arrived back from Chalten after hiking the Fitzroy range late in the nite and woke late enough the next day (most hostels have you check out by 10am, so late would be 9 or so).We had nothing much to do but pack our gear and saunter down to the mainstreet to do some souvenir shopping.Janelle picked a hat and a fleece but I wasn´t too bothered, though her stuff was quite nice.Anyway, we had nasty day of travelling ahead of us; a 4 hour bus ride to the port town of Rio Gallegos on the east coast of ther country and then a short stopover before an 18 hour ride north up to another port town on the coast, Peurto Madryn.So all in all, 22 or so hours of butt numbing boredom.Now, as I´ve said before, these buses are equipped pretty well, with plush reclining seats, balnkets and pillows, tv´s, and snack/food service.But no matter how you try to soften the blow, its still 20 hours sitting on a bus.In Argentina they break down the seats according to comfort (and respectively, price); semi cama, which is a bare bones seat, much like you´d find on any airliner.These do recline but they´re quite cramped, so sleeping on them can be very difficult.Then there´s cama, which are much wider and softer.These do the same but that extra width makes ALL the difference.And then there´s cama total, which are as wide as cama but recline 180 degrees, fully horizontal.These are the ones you want!But, of course, at a price.We tend to stick to cama if its available because as backpackers its hard to justify the luxury of cama total )tho we did splurge once before).
Anyway.I won´t bore you with the details of the journey, long as it was.We made it to Peurto Madryn about lunch time the day after we´d set out.This resort town is, in itself, not anything exceptional, but its popularity owes much to its proximity to the nearby wildlife sanctuary of the Valdes Peninsula.The main attraction here are the southern right whales, which make the sheltered bays around the peninsula their home for up to six months between june and december.This is for the express purpose of birthing their calves and nourishing them in relatively safe waters, before returning to the Antarctic for the rest of the year once their young have gained enough weight.Its an amazing spectacle, as up to 1200 whales a year can make the area their home for the time and sightings are almost gauranteed.
Once we´d found our hostel and checked in (very nice, The Hi Patagonia;double room with a fridge AND a tv), we set about......chilling out.Tired as we were we took it easy, did some minimal exploring of the town and booked a tour for the next day.We were picked up along with a group of other backpackers and driven straight to a lookout point about 20mins from town.Right there, not 30 feet from shore were between seven to twelve of the whales, playing around in the sea sticking their fins and tails out of the water and whatnot.They´re quite ugly beasts actually, the traditional whalelike shape in apperance but they have a very blunt front end that is usually covered in stone looking crustaceans that attach to the whales for life.Difficult to get good full shots of the creatures bar the usual half fin or tail sticking up.That or their continous blowhole expulsions.Once we´d all taken our fill of photos we were herded back onto the tourbus for another 40 mins of bone jarring driving to the actual park entrance, where we disembarked again to pay our entrance fee and had a quick look around at the few exhibits on display, including a complete reconstuction of an entire young males skeleton, that had washed up on shore intact a few years ago.
We left soon enough and drove further into the park, which covers almost the entire peninsula.Our guide pointed out a few of the other animals on offer, roaming freely through the grasses; tall elegant guanaco, a distant relative of the llama and some large Patagonian hares, the size of dogs, squatting in the dirt.By this time we´d arrived at Peurto Pirimide, the only town in the park.This is where we donned bright orange lifejackets and headed out to sea in the hope of catching some more whales in their element.It took some time but once we´d motored out past the sheltered bay and hit the choppy open seas, we weren´t long in sighting some whales.Our captain took us in as near as he could without disturbing them too much, while everyone clambered over to the side of the boat that offered the best view, snapping away like mad.But what with the movement of the sea and the whales breaking the waves at inconsistent periods, it was, again , quite difficult to get that perfect shot.We lost sight of these ones as they dived to lower depths and caught track of a few more and powered over to their location just in time to watch them dive.Foiled again!At this stage we headed for shore and ate a quick lunch before continuing on to another location;the elephant seal colony.
Again, once we´d arrived we trailed off the bus and headed down the wooden steps to the beachfront, where, behind a low protecive barrier, lay maybe two dozen elephant seals, all in various stages of lazing around.I mean these things are chilled out!They lay there enjoying the sun, the males the biggest, up to 2 tons, while the smaller females fed their small dark pups from their exposed underside.They were pretty impressive, but you couldn´t help just wanting to get closer to them, or to see them move around a bit.The most they´d do was flip some of the gravel up from which they´re lying on onto their bodies with their fins, or maybe let out an occasional high pitched yelp.These southern elephant seals are the biggest in the world, and come to the Valdes peninsula for the same reasons as the whales.But we left them feeling little underwhelmed.
Back at the carpark however we noticed a commotion and hurried over to check it out.A group of tourists had formed a circle around something on the ground and peering between them , we saw a hairy armidilloe being fed scraps from a Japanese man.The armidilloe was entirely unafraid, scuttering between the legs of us while he chased bits of food around.I suppose he was used to all the attention as tour after tour would turn up here daily.We took a few pics and boarded the bus to head to our next destination; the penguin colony.
Just a few mins up the road was a stopoff where a relatively recent penguin colony had arrived only seven years before.Up to two thousand of them live here, the Magellaninc Penguin, which is small by Emperor Penguin standards measuring only a foot and a half off the ground.They were again cordoned off by a low fence but luckily their burrows were only a few feet away which made for some excellent close ups.We even caught one guy sleeping standing up!Very, very cute.
With that last stop under our belts we headed back to town, another hour and a half away.We had considered going on another tour, to a place called Punto Tombo which is apparently the biggest penguin colony outside of Antarctica, with 700,000 in all.But money and time conspired against us,and we were told that one tour was much the same as the other.So we decided aginst it and bought our tickets for our next port of call, Bariloche.Unfortunately the bus didn´t run til the next evening so we spent the next day downtown, killing time window shopping and drinking coffee.We did see more of the town itself, which wasn´t so bad and we also had time to check out the seafront´s boardwalk, a pier which stretches out far to sea.But we were lucky enough to catch some whales coming right up to the end of the pier, so close you could touch, a mother and her calf I think.We got better shots then than we had on the boat.In fact, the whole seafront was full of whale activity, fins and tails everywhere you looked it seemed.We counted at least 12 of them.Oh well, we had to leave and catch a bus.Another overnighter to another destination, Bariloche, 17 hours away.