Wildlife galore! This is the place to be for all sorts of marine animals. Penguins, elephant seals, sea lions and whales. I flew because the bus ride is 17-20 hours and I'm done with that nonsense. The flight was two hours, that gives you an idea of the distance to cover, 700km.
Arriving in Puerto Madryn is like arriving in another world. The land is so flat and dry. There is only bushes and scrub as vegetation. There are no buses, the town is geared to tourism. Everything is expensive, but that's how it goes sometimes. The first day, I walked out and turned left to the Atlantic ocean and saw two whales sticking their head up and down out of the water! It was amazing. I stood and watched them for half an hour.
I ended up taking one tour and joining a couple of girls who had rented a car. We drove for 2 hours to Punta Tombo, the "famous" penguin colony of Patagonia. There are thousands of penguins here. And they aren't afraid of humans. We are supposed to stay 2 meters away from them and stay on the paths. But of course, no one does that!
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| P-p-p-p-p-p Pingu! Pingu! |
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| We had a fight... |
After the penguins, we were hungry and ended up going to the small town of Gaiman, only 5000 people live there. A lot of them of Welsh descent and that's why there are so many English tea houses. Who would've thought that after a day of waddling around with penguins, I'd end up having a full English tea service! The pastries were really good.
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| I like cake! Yummy Yummy Yummy! |
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| That small blue speck close to the horizon is a whale...I swear! |
Before heading back to the hostel, we went to a beach that is famous for seeing whales. And we saw them smacking their tails against the water. One even did a full breach of the water and came down with a huge splash! They are enormous and tranquil and fun-loving at the same time.
The second day in P. Madryn was for the elephant seals. A 4x4 picked us up from the hostel with two other people from France and our guide. That was it. After an hour and a half drive, we were there, Punta Ninfas! And the beach was ours. No one else goes here, because they prefer going to the more popular Peninsula Valdes where there is a greater variety of wildlife...but you can't get anywhere as close. Elephant seals are interesting creatures. The mothers raise the young only for 20-25 days, and then they are on their own. They have to live on their own and learn what they need to by themselves. The alpha males have a harem of varying sizes and there are peripheral males who try to sneak in and mate with the females when the alpha is sleeping or not paying attention! Pretty sure that's a crime in the human world.
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| Start of the Elephant Seal Adventure |
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| Our guide helping the French ladies climb down |
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| Halway down |
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| Ahhh, that's why they call them elephant seals... |
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| 6 metres long! |
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| What up seal? |
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| Baby seal |
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| Sea lion!!! |
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| The long walk back |
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| So tiring laying on the beach all day! |
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| Last look |
We descended down a 40m tall sandstone cliff to the rocky beach where there were loads and loads of elephant seals. We were really lucky and even saw a sea lion and his wife as well. We were so close, we could literally reach out and touch them. But we didn't bother the animals. This is an unprotected area and soon enough the Argentines will start charging for this too. But for now, it was just us and the seals. Amazing.
