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Penguins on the Atlantic coast

Day 94, Thu Dec 2 El Chalten/ Rio Gallegos

Almost all day on the bus. El Chalten to Puerto Madryn.

El Chalten to El Calafate: 4 hours; El Calafate to Rio Gallegos: 6 hours; Rio Gallegos to Puerto Madryn: 21 hours. The one thing I remember from the busride from Gallegos to PMadryn is the amazing colours of the sunset. I could still see the sun on the horizon at 23:00.

Day 95, Fri Dec 3 Puerto Madryn

Arrival in Puerto Madryn around 15:00. Went for a walk and cooked dinner with a couple of folks from the Navimag.

Puerto Madryn seems to have a lot of stores named after ballenas (whales) and penguins. A lot of tours as well. The town is not very pretty or enticing, but is the place most tourists arrive to go on tours to see sealions, seals, penguins, whales. Peninsula Valdes and Whale-watching tours being the largest draw.

Day 96, Sat Dec 4 Puerto Madryn

The weather forecast was a lot of wind, which meant that tours to Peninsula Valdes were probably not going to run since the boats couldnt get out. We ended up renting bicycles to ride to Punto Loma (17 km each way) to see sea-lions. Had a nice dinner.

Day 97, Sun Dec 5 Puerto Madryn! Bus to BA

Off on a tour to see Magellan Penguins. I arrived at the time of the season that they set up nests and rear their young before heading up to Brasil. It was a grand hour and a half! Enroute to Punto Tomba, the guide stopped whenever he noticed an animal that would be quite unusual to tourists. Ostrich-like creatures and Lama-like animals galore…

Lunch was an apple. However, the treat of the day was tea in a Welsh village called Gaiman, set in a valley. They served us various cakes, sandwiches and some tea, all for an overly exorbitant price. However, the Welsh town was extremely pretty and being on water, an extreme contrast to the stark dry surrounding area!

The tour guide was very intelligent and knew a lot of things: we had some interesting conversations.

Another long bus ride after dinner – sigh, I am a broken man. Argentina is too beguiling and quite big.

About 17 hours to Buenos Aires.



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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 21st, 2010 at 03:22 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “Penguins on the Atlantic coast”

  1. Ruth Rosen Says:
    December 21st, 2010 at 22:38

    Penguins! I LOVE penguins! I have always wanted to go to Antarctica just so I could stand amongst thousands of penguins. When you return from your travels, remind me to tell you the story of when I stood in the penguin exhibit at the Steinhart Aquarium in San Francisco.