Left Ushuaia on a spectacular takeoff Monday morning to Trelew, which is about an hours drive from Puerto Madryn. First time we have been on a commercial flight where they boarded everyone by 10.10 and whilst the scheduled time of departure was 10.55 and we left at 10.30. Got an upgrade again too!
Arriving early at 12.30, picked up a hire car and with some advice from the AVIS guy we decided, rather than head to the hotel where check in was at 3pm, we would go to Punta Tombo, a Magellanic penguin colony, about 2 hours drive south from the airport.
Utterly totally amazing! After a 100 km drive ( 22km on gravel) we arrived at the Punta Tombo Penguin colony. A structured path of about 3km stretched before us with little penguins everywhere, approximately 1.2 million of them. Nesting season. Mixed in with these little guys, who seemed totally unfazed by human visitors were Guanacoes, members of the Lama family, armadillos and various bird life.. Apparently the penguins can move as fast as 50km an hour on the ground, but saw no evidence of that. They also swim up to 600km in search of food. Once the eggs are laid, dad sits on them for 42 days, whilst mum is tasked with providing the food. We witness fornicating penguins, those sitting on eggs and indeed some newly hatched chicks. These national Parks are so well organised, maintained and ensure that wildlife comes first, it’s very impressive.
After we had seen Penguins from just about every angle, we headed to Puerto Madryn probably somewhat faster than we should have done, getting to the hotel at around 7pm in 2 hours, a journey that should take a good while longer. The last 22 kilometres to/from the penguins, is a good dirt track road and the rest is tarmac, better in some areas than others. Checked into the very acceptable Hotel Territorio on the seafront with lovely views of the Bay. We followed the lonely planet advice and booked a beachside restaurant for dinner. Nothing special but we were hungry and so we endured some overcooked fish, ok Chicken Milanese but very nice wines. Long day ended with us crashing at 1030 exhausted!
Argentina Travel Log 2019 