After spending an hour an half in the bus terminal, Meredith and I boarded our luxurious cama bus for the 18 hr bus ride to Puerto Madryn. I had been forewarned of the poor quality of the bus food and avised to bring our own sustinence. Boy am I glad we did. If you think airplane food is bad, just imagine bus food. I am still not sure what exactly it was they fed us for dinner. I can only describe the meat as ´grey and a mystery¨. The bus ride was pretty uneventful. Crappy movies, bus attendants being WAY to attentive to our needs, and sleeping most of the ride. We arrived in Puerto Madryn the following afternoon to cloudy and rainy skies. After checking into our hostel (my very first hostel stay I must admit) we rented bikes to ride down to a beach where we were told we could see the whales during high tide. I´m not sure that we ever made it to the actual beach we were supposed to; however, the spot where we finally stopped did have a fantastic view. The whales were very rowdy, jumping all over the place. As exciting as it was to see them jumping like crazy, before long Meredith and I decided to head back instead of being caught riding our bikes in the rain.At the hostel we met two Swiss girls who had been traveling the whole of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia. They asked if we were interested in renting a car with them to drive to Penisula Valdez the following day to see the assorted marine life. Naturally, because it would be cheaper and more personal than going on a bus tour, we agreed. After going to bed early, we set out the next day with our new Swiss friends, Victoria and Sophie, for Penisula Valdez.
Penisula Valdez is a national park in Argentina. Aside from the few estancias (sheep ranches) and the tourist stops, there is NOTHING and I mean NOTHING. The landscape reminded me a lot of Eastern Arizona/Wester New Mexico. All around the penisula there are only gravel roads to get from one lookout point to the other. We managed to see a lot of sheep (which is a Patagonia specialty and delicious I might add) along with some of the unique Patagonian wildlife (the names of which I can´t remember right now and pictures I will have to get from Meredith). After making reservations for our whale watching tour in the afternoon, we headed out to see the penguinos, elephant seals and sea lions (or lobos).
Our first destanation was to see the penguinos. We almost missed the small sign for Punta Valdes and the penguinos. Arriving at the spot, I began to wonder where exactly would we see them, since the beach was so far away. No sooner than I got to the small fence did I see the about 60 or so Magellenic Penguins in the colony. It was amazing how close we were to them (although we could not touch them and who would want to get penguin bird flu anyways?). They were just hanging out in their little burrows, skwaking away and enjoying the penguin life. After taking a hundred photos, we were off to see the elephant seals.Unfortuantely we could not get as close to these guys as we were the penguins. And the most exciting thing they did was occasionally try to move their huge blubbery bodies only to quit after about 30 seconds. The most exciting thing that happened when seeing the seals was the fact that I slipped and almost fell down a cliff/ravine towards the beach where I could have been eaten by the elephant seals. Okay so I just lied right there. I did fall, but they don´t eat people so the only real danger I was in was a result of my own clumsiness.
Then came what was to be the best part of the day- seeing the whales. The whales in this area are the Southern Right Whale, a protected species of baileen whale. We went on the last boat tour because we did not want to be with as many tourists and we were told that the whales would be more active. At first all we saw was a mama and her baby near the harbor, not doing much, just floating. The same with the next two we saw a bit further out. At this point I was not sure if we were actually seeing whales or hippos or maybe even loch ness monsters. We had some excitement when we ran across another mama whale smacking the water with her tail. Our guide informed us they did this as a signal to get their babies to come to them. The most fun happened when we encountered a group of male whales and one female whale. For censorship purposes, let's just say you can imagine what was happening. I have pictures if you are really interested. Our guide was pretty excited for all of this. Since each whale is only in heat only every three years and only for about 2 or 3 days at a time, I don´t think it is something many people see. That pretty much concluded our whale watching experience.
The following day Meredith and I walked around the city/town of Puerto Madryn, walked along the beach collecting shells for our friends and went out to the pier. The owner of the hostel informed us that you can see the whales from the pier and we had hoped that because it was once again windy and rainy that the whales would be rowdier than they had been the day before. Our guide explained that the whales behave according to the ocean waters. Therefore, if it is rough, they will be more active than on tranquilo days (like the day we were out). We did see two whales hanging out in the harbor, the most action we saw though was one sticking his nose out. We did see the other jumping a bit when we were walking on the beach but other than that, they were still taking it pretty easy.
Another 18 hour bus ride (all in the rain mind you) and we were back. It went pretty fast (since we slept most of the way again), but I was a bit sad to not see more of the Patagonian and Pampan country side. It amazes me how sparsely popluated Argentina is outside of Buenos Aires. They really are not lying when they say they have a LOT of land.
To see all of my photos (and some of Meredith´s) here is the website:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2203441&l=3035c&id=10101590
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