Tuesday, bit of a late start. Dropped laundry at a local launderette and set off to find the wild life. It’s quite a drive of just flat sandy scrub nothingness in every direction! About an hour and fifteen minutes on good roads to the main park entrance, paid $850 pesos each and $120 pesos for the car – currently around US$30 total. Fifteen minutes later we stopped at the excellent park visitors centre. Well worth the stop, interesting local history and great advice from one of the rangers about where to go and what to do.
Another thirty minutes and we arrived at Puerto Pyramidies. A small town in the middle of nowhere that originally was founded by salt miners and whale hunters. These days primarily appears to thrive on the tourist industry, taking people out on small vessels to watch whales in what is now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
After a brief snack we headed of out in the Bay to find the Southern right Whales that migrate each year between July & December to this area to breed and then head South again to Antarctica. We were fortunate to spot 3 sets of Mother & Calf and managed a few photos, but it was really the spectacle of being within a few metres of these magnificent creatures that kept us enthralled. A school of dusky dolphins Mesmerised us for five minutes darting around the boat, we were told this was rare. We returned to shore after about 90 mins.
Having befriended two young European ladies on their travels, we agreed they could join us for the 2 hour ride to see Penguins, Elephant Seals and hopefully Orcas on the far east side of the Peninsular. So having been told the best time to see these Orcas would be at high tide (7pm that evening), we set off. It was 100 km of hard driving on gravel roads but the reward at the end was worth it. More Magellanic Penguins and a very large colony of Elephant Seals from large Alpha males to many small pups. It was a long and dusty ride, alert to the odd Guanaco crossing our path, we started spotting them and other wildlife as we trundled on across the massive flat land mass of desert scrub and big skies.
At one main visitor area close to a huge population of elephant seals, we stopped for a loo break, hot chocolate and snacks. We were down to our last pesos but the cafe owner said he was happy to take dollars. Offered us a terrible rate but when he eyed my 100 dollar note, said he would be happy to change all of it at 60 pesos a dollar – a fair rate. I mentioned that I had another hundred if he was interested, beaming he agreed and rushed off to find the cash. As mentioned it’s super tough for the Argentines as their currency is so weak and unstable. Through the banks they can only buy US$200 a month.
One of the girls with us, Ronja, from Germany had an amazing camera, she very kindly sent us a few pictures from our day trip, you can probably guess which are hers 😦 Her real job is in film production. Ronja was staying in Peninsula Valdes so we dropped her there on the way backbone Puerto Madryn. Laila, from Switzerland (a social worker, working with disabled children) was staying in town, so we dropped her back at her hostel. An interesting young lady who loves traveling and had a host of interesting info to share. We finally made it back to our hotel at around 22.00. We were exhausted and slept like logs but not before the obligatory glass of Malbec at the bar!
Argentina Travel Log 2019 