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Patagonia,
land of weird and large animals (con't)
Sat Aug 24, 2002 12:09 pm
When we awoke on the bus, the landscape was totally different. The Pampas are a flat grassland, but Patagonia, while still flat, has strange hills and buttes and scrub brush all around. In Puerto Madryn, we were convinced to stay in another hostel, and booked at trip out to the Peninsula Valdes the next day. The hostel sucked, so we thought that we would take our backpacks with us and sleep in the little village on the penninsula. That afternoon, in Puero Madryn, we saw our first whale as we walked on the beach in the late afternoon. He was feeding, and would leap up from the water. Very magical.
Our trip to the penninsula was amazing. First, we took a 2 hour whale watching trip out in Golfo Nuevo. The southern right whale comes there from June - Dec to give birth and breed. We saw an uncounted number of whales. They would come up to the boat and look at us, then sink back down. Their size was incredible. The absolute highlight was when we came upon a group of four whales breeding- one female, and then 3 extra guys. They were in a weird writhing motion, and moving erratically around through the water. At one point, all four came straight at our boat and it semed that they would hit us they were so close, but they dove at the last mintue. It was so exciting I was shaking.
Once that was over, we looked for a hotel with no luck, then headed out with the group to see elephant seals and sea lions on the other end of the penninsula. The elephant seals, which were all males, were at the bottom of a sandy cliff that we had to walk down. They looked like giant boulders- they are about 7m long and weigh over 3500kg. We had to walk crouched on the beach so as not to upset them, and we sat down about 10 yards from them. They were pretty lazy, which was good for me because they would have scared the crap out of us if they moved a lot. VERY HUGE ANIMALS. Our photos will definitly not do them justice.
From there, we saw a colony of sea lions. Luckily, we couldnt get close to them (they were at the bottom of a big cliff) because they were very active and there were babies and protective males, etc.
That night, we decided to return to Puerto Madryn. Our backpacks seem to have gotten diesel fuel on them in the back of the bus, and we spent the next day trying to clean them and our clothes, which also stunk. Well, we learned a lesson, anyway.
From Puerto Madryn, we took a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia, also on the coast. The big highlight here is a museum about petroleum, which we´ll see tomorrow, I guess. Then we are off to Rio Gallegos, where we fly south to Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego!
That´s all for now... PATTY and ALISON
ps Thanks to the Wilkinsons for the answer to our Uruguay question. Seems FDR protected Uruguay from invation in 41. We´ll find you a nice souveneir.
Sat Aug 24, 2002 12:09 pm
When we awoke on the bus, the landscape was totally different. The Pampas are a flat grassland, but Patagonia, while still flat, has strange hills and buttes and scrub brush all around. In Puerto Madryn, we were convinced to stay in another hostel, and booked at trip out to the Peninsula Valdes the next day. The hostel sucked, so we thought that we would take our backpacks with us and sleep in the little village on the penninsula. That afternoon, in Puero Madryn, we saw our first whale as we walked on the beach in the late afternoon. He was feeding, and would leap up from the water. Very magical.
Our trip to the penninsula was amazing. First, we took a 2 hour whale watching trip out in Golfo Nuevo. The southern right whale comes there from June - Dec to give birth and breed. We saw an uncounted number of whales. They would come up to the boat and look at us, then sink back down. Their size was incredible. The absolute highlight was when we came upon a group of four whales breeding- one female, and then 3 extra guys. They were in a weird writhing motion, and moving erratically around through the water. At one point, all four came straight at our boat and it semed that they would hit us they were so close, but they dove at the last mintue. It was so exciting I was shaking.
Once that was over, we looked for a hotel with no luck, then headed out with the group to see elephant seals and sea lions on the other end of the penninsula. The elephant seals, which were all males, were at the bottom of a sandy cliff that we had to walk down. They looked like giant boulders- they are about 7m long and weigh over 3500kg. We had to walk crouched on the beach so as not to upset them, and we sat down about 10 yards from them. They were pretty lazy, which was good for me because they would have scared the crap out of us if they moved a lot. VERY HUGE ANIMALS. Our photos will definitly not do them justice.
From there, we saw a colony of sea lions. Luckily, we couldnt get close to them (they were at the bottom of a big cliff) because they were very active and there were babies and protective males, etc.
That night, we decided to return to Puerto Madryn. Our backpacks seem to have gotten diesel fuel on them in the back of the bus, and we spent the next day trying to clean them and our clothes, which also stunk. Well, we learned a lesson, anyway.
From Puerto Madryn, we took a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia, also on the coast. The big highlight here is a museum about petroleum, which we´ll see tomorrow, I guess. Then we are off to Rio Gallegos, where we fly south to Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego!
That´s all for now... PATTY and ALISON
ps Thanks to the Wilkinsons for the answer to our Uruguay question. Seems FDR protected Uruguay from invation in 41. We´ll find you a nice souveneir.
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