Peninsula Valdes y Busceo con Lobos

Day 102 – February 8

Today we got the 5:30 am bus to Rio Gallegos (after our alarm did NOT go off…. and we only got woken up when the hotel owner rang our room at 5 to say the cab was there!! Darn alarm clock! So Murray hurrily packed the last few things we needed in our bag, and I ran out to make sure the cab driver didn’t leave)! The bus took 12 LONG hours!!! It actually isn’t that far of a distance – but we had to go through immigration 4 times!
1. To exit Argentina (after we crossed into the Chilean part of Tierra del Fuego)
2. To enter Chile – just a short drive after exiting Argentina (*sigh*)
3. To exit Chile again (why oh why can’t they just sort out some sort of immigration thing for people just driving thorugh Chile for a few hours I do not know)
4. And of course – to enter Argentina again – fun fun fun (that’s 4 stamps in our passports in just a matter of hours)!

Also the bus played Shakira videos over and over and over – I can pretty much say I have seen ALL of her videos now (in English AND in Spanish) *sigh* - nice to a point…. But not after MANY hours! However, her ability to move in some ways are still a mystery.....double jointed or something....

Eventually we got to Rio Gallegos and booked into our pretty nice hotel in the middle of a not great town…. We had a triple room (all they had left) which worked fine. After freshening up we had planned to go straight out to eat – but we got stuck in the room after the movie Zoolander (IN ENGLISH!!!) came on. I did go ask at the desk if there was a pizza place that could deliver – she (oh so helpful and in a lovley surly manner) said no, but I could go down the road to order one which we could only eat in the front lobby area. Umm ok – no thanks. So we just watched the movie, THEN headed out to dinner. Had a nice pizza and some Quilmes beer, before back for an exhausted sleep (day buses are SO exhausting)!

Day 103 – February 9

Since we had booked a night bus (to save on accommodation costs – and cause it’s just easier to travel long distances during the night) we had all day to kill in Rio Gallegos.
We ended up in a café with wifi in town – and pretty much stayed there all day…. (we felt like we should have paid them accomodatino costs by the time we left – ha ha). We did order food and drinks all day though. (we were there at least 6 hours....)

Murray enjoying his submarino just a BIT too much, making diving noises.....chocolate heaven!

Then it was off for a quick dinner (kabobs – yumm) then it was time to get back to the bus station! Surprisingly our bus was NICE!!!! Best bus we have taken in Patagonia for sure! Nice big roomy seats with lots of leg room, flat screen tvs for movies, decent hot meals, etc etc. (YAY it’s about time)! (Via Bariloche really IS the best company around - they have SUCH nice new buses)!

Day 104 – February 10

We arrived in Puerto Madryn at 1pm, and set off to find our hostel El Gaulicho. Got checked in, and then we went off to find some lunch (we had a terrible fish meal – I must learn my lesson not to eat fish here …. even towns by the sea manage to cook the heck out of fish – yuck), visit the tourist office for advice on tours to Peninsula Valdes, and then went back to the hostel to think over the options and take advantage of the wifi (pretty much all car rental places, activity booking offices, etc. were closed because it was Sunday). Then we just had a nice early night.

Day 105 – February 11

We decided to rent a car – it worked out about the same price as the three of us booking a tour, plus that way we would have the freedom to go there, come back, stop for pictures, etc as we wanted. The boys went off to rent the car while I blogged. They also stopped by an office that sells tickets for the train we wanted to get to Bariloche (I had been emailing a guy about it for over a week - in Spanish as well– but he still hadn’t confirmed that our tickets were booked….). They told us prices, but since they were just an agent they couldn’t see whether our names were down against cabins or not. SO I tried to call all three of the office numbers we had for the train. I eventually got through and had to explain (best I could all in Spanish) our situation. Eventually she got through to me that they cannot book tickets on email or via the phone, so no there was nothing booked for us!!! Ahhhh! So I called up the ticket office the boys had stopped by earlier in town, and asked if there was camerote (sleeper car) spots left. They said yes there was, but that we would have to come into the office to confirm them and pay. So we quickly loaded up the car, got into town, and FINALLY booked the train tickets (whew – after all those emails and phone calls I was worried it would never happen)!!

Then it was time to finally head off to Peninsula Valdes!

The waters that surround Patagonia’s most spectacular wildlife reserve are so brimming with marine mammal and bird life that to visit Peninsula Valdes is to experience the ocean world’s answer to the African savannah. This truly wild ‘Serengeti of the seas’ is home to the fearsome killer whale (Mar, Apr), over two thousand southern right whales (Nov, Dec) and tens of thousands of elephant seals, sea lions and Magellanic penguins along with millions of marine birds. Peninsula Valdes is 3,625 square kilometers (1,400 square miles) of parched dry land which is also home to guanacos, rheas and other dry-land fauna.

About an hour drive from Puerto Madryn you come to Puerto del Control on the Isthmus Ameghino where we paid our 40 pesos each for entry into the park. Then it was on to Centro de Interpretacion – an information center where we got great maps and had a look at displays on the wildlife that exists on the peninsula.

Then it was on to laid back Puerto Piramides, the only village on the peninsula – and where decided to stay! I found a cute little posada (Posada Piramedes) on the internet which ended up being just fine. It was at the far end of town, and we were in quite a large dorm, but it was more of a family place rather than a backpacker hovel – so we were happy enough to stay for two nights.

After a nice lunch at the posada’s restaurant (with one of the best non salad bar ‘completa’ salads that I have had in south America….) we went to check out the town.


The tide was quite low – so there was a LOT of the beach showing!


We saw this little guy up on the cliff – he looked like an early adolesant (due to the fluffy feathers) who somehow got stranded by the fast retreating tide.


We sat down to watch him, and he came waddling over to us and laid down RIGHT by us. I think he was scared – poor thing. We didn’t know what to do – we couldn’t exactly pick him up and put him down by the water (he had a super sharp beak) but he looked so scared and alone that we felt bad just leaving him there. Thankfully on our way down we saw a local police guy go by on his quad bike and we told him about the little guy. We watched from the beach as the guy went up there (we think he had had other people tell him of the penguin as well – since he knew exactly what we were talking about). He took a look, then left – but we hope it was just to go get help (I guess we’ll never know – I hope so though).


Then we hopped back into the car and went off to check out the nearby sea lion colony at Punta Piramide.


Murray and I checking out the sea lions (it was SO super windy that we didn't stay for a super long time - the dust was whipping up like you wouldn't believe)!


They were a long way out (we were looking down over a steep cliff)– but you could see them pretty well with binoculars. However, you could hear them eaily. The parents make grunty pig noises, the infants make noises like lambs...almost like lambs throwing up.


We were amazed by this graphic

Then it was back to the hostel for a MUCH appreciated hot shower (they restrict showers to be taken only between 7 and 10 pm due to the lack of fresh water in the town – it has to be piped in from Puerto Madryn).

Then it was a FABULOUS cold beer AND frosted glasses (a South American first I do believe)

We decided to have dinner again at the posada – the boys ordered squid….

For some unknown reason I ordered the seafood crepe – unfortunately this was what was inside when I cracked it open….. (I was expecting other kinds of seafood I think – I really don’t eat most of this stuff…)

Steve loved his flying squid

So did Murray, they called the winged heads, "Guidance Systems" and joked about eating them was like the toasted bat wings in the Three Amigos movie....

And a nice up close pic…. Looks good huh?


Day 106 – February 12

Today was our big 'see all of Peninsula Valdes' day! We left the posada at about 10 (the first view point doesn’t open until 11) and headed out on the all dirt roads! The lady at the car rental point had warned the boys that a LOT of cars flip over in this area because the dirt road tire indents can sometimes grab your tires and flip you into the ditch. She even had a little play car on her desk that she flipped over to show them just incase her message was lost in translation (ha ha). So we were warned time and time again to not go more than 60km per hour and to be careful!!!

We still had to laugh a bit when we saw this sigh though! Road looked harmless enough, but she was right as soon as any bend appeared....

The landscape was PRETTY sparse – very desert like (can you spot the ONE tree?)

We spotted some rheas along the side of the road

There was a whole group of them – tons of babies!!

This little guy seemed to be having some wing trouble, the wind was blowing like a hurricane was coming, the little ones couldn't seem to hold all their feathery limbs intact.



Cute bum fluff

Our first stop of the day was Punta Delgada which is about 70 km from Puerto Piramedes via a bumpy gravel road. This viewpoint was also from a cliff – but we could see TONS of sea lions (the males really DO look like lions) and tons of babies (so cute)! Sea lions are polygamous (each male has from 2 to 150 females each in his harem). They arrive first to the area each year to set up territorial boundaries for their harems, with the females arriving later on.

We also THINK we may have spotted Orcas..... maybe. We could see flocks of birds WAY out at sea and black 'fins?' that were popping in and out of the water. I'm not sure - but I'm going to just go with it and say that yes we did see them (this is the time of year when they start coming back to this area to feed on the sea lions and seals).

Then we headed North to Punta Cantor – where there was a huge elephant seal colony

Seal poo in the water…… ewwww

It actually was an AMAZING view point – we were able to walk down quite close to the beach, and because it was high tide we were only about 15 meters away from them!

There seemed to be a singing audition for American Idol going on….

This gigantic male wasn’t interested though....Randy Jackson perhaps?

You can totally see his elephant like trunk here as he moves his blubber up the beach

Another competing group in the Idol auditions, with their Bohemian Rhapsody rendition,

"Easy come, easy go, will you let me go Bismillah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let me go.) Will not let you go (Let me go.) Will not let you go. (Let me go.) Ah No, no, no, no, no, no, no. (Oh mama mia, mama mia.) Mama mia, let me go Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

One guy was suddenly thrown out of the group for hitting the wrong note...competition fever can really be a wedge between friends in the heat of the moment!
Failing to capture the attention of the judges, they patched up any differences, all bad notes were forgiven and the difficult task of sunbathing dominated their thoughts and actions once again. Dreams will be just that, dreams.

With just one guy reaching up to scratch his ‘neck’
Yep, this group is officially a wash out.

Meanwhile, another solo contender attempted the dizzy scale heights of "I Will Always Love You", the Whitney Houston version....you can imagine the cringe factor when the notes fell around the sand like broken dreams....Why oh Why do they always try on Whitney???

Anyway, enough Idol, here's me checking out the elephant seals – you really could watch them for hours

After watching the elephant seals for AGES we hopped back in the car and stopped at a view point near Caleta Valdes. Caleta Valdes is a spit of land sheltering the bay that draws a variety of marine and bird life.

We thought this guy with his yellow head fluff was awfully cute, the only one different from the other Magellanic penguins.

These two penguins seem to have……

‘fallen’ on each other…..
The Magellanic penguins really are lovely looking, ...I'm sure those are natural....

Next we headed up to the final wildlife viewpoint on the peninsula – Punta Norte which is about 45km North.

This cute little ‘longer haired armadillo’ was hanging out near where we parked

He was awfully cute

The sea lions at this beach were AMAZING (check out the big male in the middle with the ‘mane’ – doesn’t he look like a lion??)

I had the binoculars out RIGHT away (it was warm out – but the wind made it kinda chilly, thus the jacket)
Two females down in the water keeping and eye on the group (all the little black ones are babies!)

One poor guy who didn’t make it….. the other one looks like he might be next...

The males were VERY protective of their groups – check out this guy yelling at the male intruder who came up from the water (the babies sound like lambs and the females and males sounds like cows mooing or grunting pigs, depending on the message I suppose)!

Steve taking a break at the whale viewing office (the last sighting of a killer whale was 1 February)

You can see why the killer whales come here to feed – there are SO many elephant seals!
As you look down the beach you can clearly see each group (each headed by 1 male)

Me & Murray at Punta Norte

After watching the elephant seals for ages we had a lovely te con leche at the restaurant, and then headed back to the car.

We saw this guy in the scrub close by......

Gray Fox (zorro in Spanish) on the move

Me with an armadillo

Cute little orange bum, our farewell view....how rude

Lovely couple

The only bad thing about Punta Norte? That silly people (kids old enough to know better…) were feeding crackers to the armadillos and the foxes. I was getting so angry – I just think you should NOT feed wild animals! Then they will keep coming back looking for food, they could bite people – or even get run over! Bad bad bad. I tried to get across in Spanish ‘Where is the park guide? Bad to feed animals.’ I think they knew what I meant, but they just ignored me *sigh*.

We also saw some Guanacos on the way back to Puerto Piramide
Taking off running! They risk all against the speed of our little hire car!

Lots of them around
It was JUST a bit dusty (we seriously had the most dust I have EVER seen inside a car - yuck so gross) Here a car heads off into the distance leaving another fine layer of dust on us.
Our cute (VERY) little car
We saw this truck on the road JUST after it had flipped - then we saw it later on back in town where they had dumped it!
And these cars are from previous days! They say there is at least one flip a day (surely not because the Argentineans were speeding SO much????)

That evening (after washing the TONS of dust off ourselves in the shower) we went down the street to 'La Estacion Bar' for dinner. WOW was it good! Steve had an amazing steak with fabulous pepper sauce and Murray and I shared a wonderful home made spinach pasta concoction. Yummy. The place was packed, the music was good, and the wine of course was FAB!

Day 107 - February 13

We left the hostel early (8am) because we had to drop the car off by 11, and because we had diving booked at 11:30!! We dropped off our bags at the hostel, Steve dropped Murray and I off at the diving center, and he went to return the car.

We filled out all of the necessary forms, with our dive numbers, health history, etc. Then it was time to wet suit up! When they gave us each a long sleeveless wetsuit AND another wetsuit with half legs and full length arms (and a hood) we figured WOW it must be cold water!

We hopped into a small dive boat and headed out to a nearby platform where everyone on the boat who was doing first time dives got off. The only ones to stay on were Murray, Me, a young guy to help with the equipment, the dive master and a guy who would film our diving. We were PRETTY darn excited when we saw that it would just be the 2 of us diving with the dive master - WOW that has never happened before!

They said - ok first we will do the wreck dive and then the sea lions. Wreck dive - huh? Lost in translation I guess! We had signed up for diving with sea lions, and we DID think that the price was awfully expensive for just one dive, but the lady who booked it assured us that yes it was just one dive. Whatever works - we were more than happy to do a wreck dive too! It was quite a deep dive - down to 22 meters. The rope that was connected to the ship (an old fishing vessel) though wasn't great for holding onto as we went down. At first it was fine - nice and taut (which is what you need so you can control your descent). But once the other dive boat that was doing the wreck left, the rope went all lax and we went down WAY too fast! That messed up Murray's ears - so he had to abort the dive. I went down to the wreck and looked around with the camera guy and the dive master (once he got back from making sure Murray made it back to the boat ok). It was - ok. The boat wasn't THAT old - but old enough that it did have a lot of interesting sea plant life growing on it. We saw some quite big fish as well. It was REALLY cold - but because we were constantly swimming around looking at things I didn't freeze.

When we got back up, it was time to hook up the BCD's to the new tanks and head over to the sea lion dive spot.

When we arrived Murray and I got just - giddy! It was AMAZING! As soon as the boat stopped a group of about 20 sea lions came out and started circling our boat. One big curious guy got WAY out of the water and pretty much peered over the side of the boat! It was all the guys on the boat could do to get us to sit down, stop taking pictures, and get our dive gear on.

Murray was first into the water (also this was the first time we had to sit in all our gear on the side of the boat and just fall backwards into the water - kinda scary to go in that way)! As soon as he got in he started being circled by TONS of sea lions - his excited face made me SO excited to get in!!! They were bumping into him and checking him out, making all sorts of noises, and barks.
This is our dive master with sea lions all around him
Murray with sea lions just behind him (and tons back on the shore)
They were just everywhere
We were instructed to just sit on the bottom (on our knees) and to keep our arms and hands close - but we did manage a quick pet here & there.... (that's Murray)
It's so hard to see in these photos (they are from our old digital camera which we have an underwater case for) but they were SO beautiful - so graceful - amazing shiny gold in colour.
They were quite curious of the camera - it must have been shiney! I took this photo! This guy totally freaked me out when he came up and bumped his nose to the front of the case.
Flipper feet made for swimming!
For some reason they kept nipping Murray on the head - he didn't know what it was at first - didn't hurt though - just felt like a pulling sensation with teeth, like a puppy (I suppose that is because we had diving hoods on)
An even clearer up close photo taken by Murray - this guy was trying to EAT the camera! They have eyes like huge golf balls!
They were pretty gentle though. Every time i tried to reach out and touch them on their bellies(AFTER their heads had passed....) they would flip around super quick to look at me like 'what was THAT?'
They played around us for about half an hour - just circling and circling
It really was just - amazing
We got out of the water after about half an hour - it was just SO cold in the water (more so when you aren't moving - but just sitting on the bottom). We were completely numb - but WOW was it worth it - really one of our most amazing experiences - ever.

Here is a video of a sea lion nipping me on the head - and I didn't even notice.

And a longer video of them swimming around us

We spent the rest of the afternoon back at the hostel just relaxing. That evening we bought stuff from the grocery store and made a fab steak dinner. Murray was the main cook - he made steak with pepper sauce that had onions and mushrooms in it, as well as yummy cooked red and green pepper slices on the side. Only problem was he used WAY too much pepper powder in the sauce - um WOW - hottest thing EVER! We couldn't even give the leftovers away! Too hot! It was still really yummy though:)