Meanwhile, we have been enjoying an intermezzo between desolate Tierra del Fuego and overflowing Buenos Aires: Argentinian Patagonia on the Atlantic coast. We have been staying in Puerto Madryn - a small coastal town conveniently situated between Ushuaia and Buenos Aires. We found a small, family-run hostel that we mostly had to ourselves. But there was another reason we decided to come here. Puerto Madryn lies exactly between two nature reserves: Reserva Faunística Península Valdés and Punta Tombo.
We visited Punta Tombo first. We did this by rental car, because the idea of spending another day on a full tour bus with a group of other tourists didn´t appeal to us very much. We rented a small, red Volkswagen and drove ourselves to the nature reserve. Punta Tombo has the largest penguin colony outside of Antartica. Between September and April thousands of Magellanic penguins breed here. When we arrived, the majority of the colony had already left the nature reserve in favor of the Atlantic ocean, but there were still many penguins to spot. The great thing about this nature reserve is that you walk through the colony and can get really close to the penguins. And penguins are just so cute - it´s hard not to cuddle them when they walk up to you and tilt their head, as if to figure you out. The weather was also working in our favor so we had an amazing day.
Before returning to Puerto Madryn we decided to make a quick stop in Gaiman, a small town in rural Patagonia. Many Welsh people settled in Gaiman, so driving into town is quite a shock, since everything looks so European. We came here to visit one of the many famous Welsh tea houses for unlimited tea and pastries. We arrived quite annoyed with each other, for we had just had that classic argument about how Jochem can´t drive a car, and how I can´t read a map (I believe that we called it even in the end). However, when we entered the tea house, we were so overwhelmed by the Alice-in-Wonderland-ness of it all that we couldn´t help but giggle. Here we were: sweaty, wearing hiking boots and carrying a Lonely Planet, in a world where everyone was dressed in their finest, sipping tea elegantly, while being served by old ladies in black-and-white costumes. It was surreal. We stuffed ourselves with English tea and fatty, sugary pastries until we almost burst and then took the leftovers home. Needless to say, we didn´t need dinner after that.
The next day we drove our rental car to Reserva Faunística Península Valdés. There are many places to visit on this peninsula, all teeming with wildlife, but we drove straight to Punta Norte because this is where orcas are sometimes spotted. We have seen a lot of aquatic wildlife already, but orcas are difficult to find. The nice lady who welcomed us at the entrance to the peninsula warned us that the orca season was almost over, that they´re difficult to see, that there was a north wind today that would make it virtually impossible. But we are nothing if not stubborn so we went to Punta Norte anyway. We planted ourselves in the sand near a group of sea lions and waited. Tour bus after tour bus came and left and we continued to wait while scanning the ocean. Orcas hunt during high tide, which, in this case, could mean anytime between 2 and 8 PM. We waited for 2 hours when we finally saw them: a group of elusive, wild orcas swimming close to shore! We followed them until they disappeared behind another bay. We waited for 2 more hours, hoping that they would come back to hunt the sea lions, but they didn´t. That was a shame, but on the other hand, I didn´t have to see an innocent sea lion puppy being eaten either. So we drove to Caleta Valdés to admire the fat elephant seals sleeping on the beach and then we went home. It was a great day!
Our time in Argentina is almost over. Stay tuned for tales of Buenos Aires!
If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!
2 comments:
So jealous of your wildlife extravaganza!
unlimited tea and pastries????
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