Our bus journey wasn´t as comforable as previous ones as all the good seats had been booked but we wanted to travel. We arrived in Puerto Madryn a bit tired but ready to get out and look at some tours. Puerto Madryn is the jumping off point to the Valdes Peninsular - an area of one of the most important marine reserves on the planet. This is place where Orcas have been filmed beaching themselves and grabbing a tasty seal to eat. Our hostel gave us great information and for all the tours we could get a discount so we booked one for the next day which would encompass whale watching and visits to elephant seal and penguin colonies - exciting. They also suggested we go to an eco centre for some in depth information. Walking along the beach was quite pretty and the town really looks like an English seaside resort. The walk takes quite a while and we arrive at the eco centre a bit early so have a couple of drinks in a nice bar overlooking the beach and city. The eco centre is just shit. There´s nothing in it apart from a couple of touch screens and a pool with starfish - thankfully we´re a little drunk which helps spice it up.
The evening was pretty quiet spent eating good food which was nice and different to what we´d eaten already. We also got a nice bottle of wine and ended the evening drinking it up and playing cards.We got up early and a scary lady came to pick us up the tour bus. It turned out she was lovely with great knowledge and care of the wildlife. The tour didn´t have a huge amount of people on it which was good and no big groups of people. The only annoying person was a girl who when passed any information, would not pass it to us but would pass it to her new friends behind us which she had recently accosted. Colin and I decided that if the opportunity arose, we would play a practical joke on her or push her over a cliff. We drove about an hour through what is basically a desert. This area receives almost no rain due to Andes to the west. The landscape is flat and bleak. We get to the boat for the whale watching an have a nice dutch girl for our guide. We have taken our full wet gear as previous experiences of company given stuff is dire. So everyone else in their big orange and yellow ponchos and lifevests look like Oompa Loompas and for once, we look good in fitted black and orange. The dutch girl comments on this and then shouts at everyone else, "sorry guys but you all look awful". We are in the good books. The boat is set up pretty well and there aren´t too many people which is good. The boat is sailing along nicely and the sea is not too choppy. In the distance we see something moving and then lots of big splashes. The boat races towards it. We find not one, but three Southern Right Whales: a mother and two calves. This is unusual as they only give birth to one so the mother of the other one has either abandoned it or died. The calves seem to be playing - diving over each other. They then start swimming very close to the boat. For the next hour we are treated to the whales swimming so close to the boat we can see all the barnacles on their bodies. They are extremely graceful and beautiful and we feel privileged to have seen them so close.
Back on dry land we head to the north of the peninsular to see the rest of the animal circus. On the way we rheas (similar to ostriches), grey foxes and guancos (similar to camels). The landscape is pretty boring with lots of dry shrub. Our first stop is an area with elephant seals. They don´t do much apart from lay around looking fat. It looks like Benidorm with a load of fat, Essex girls sunning themselves. In the car park we spot an armadillo running around looking for food. It is very cute, running to people trying to find food. Our guide informs us that they are here a lot and soon there will be an accident - not cute! Our next stop is a small penguin colony. There´s not a huge amount of them but they are all cute nonetheless and you can hear their chicks that´ve just been hatched. Both parents take turns to look after them. For lunch, we arrived at another elephant seal colony which was basically the same setup. Again, the seals were lying around lazily with a couple moving around. It was pretty boring actually. We did see a huge spider here and everyone was taking photos of it walking around. It was so close to the paths, eventually a man had to scoop it up and put it in a bush far away from potentially squashing feet. We´d had a great day and headed back home, finishing the day off with awful pasta a good bottle of red wine.
armadilloooooooooooooooooooooo!
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