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Published: March 7th 2011
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Day 42 & 43
The 30 hour (3 seperate buses) trip to Puerto Madryn was ok as Si had treated me to cama (bed-style seats) so we actually managed to sleep for 7 hours which was a result, particularly as the Patagonian Step wilderness is dull, dull, dull to look at. We amused ourselves by trying to spot anomalies in the landscape – which were in no particular order a) a bend in the road, b) a slightly taller telegraph pole (you get the picture). Arrived in Puerto Madryn - not much happening (everything closes on Sunday) but we wandered round town and booked a tour to Peninsula Valdes for the next day.
Day 44 & 45
The tour to Peninsula Valdes was fun... although it was a 400km+ round trip through Patagonia step style landscape(again) the stars of the show were the various wildlife we saw (unfortunately no whales as it was out of season). First stop was the museum and then onto Puerto Piramides, a small village on the peninsula. We had a walk on the beach and then bumped into a couple joining our tour, who had been unlucky enough to have all their clothes
stolen from their tent while they were sleeping in the tiny village campsite (a daily occurence which the campsite owners had not seen fit to warn them about).
Then onto the sea lion colony where we got to see (and hear) lots of baby sea lions – they make a noise which can only be described as a vomiting sheep (bleughhhhaaa). Then we saw 2 male sea lions having a fight over a harem. The biggest harem we heard of was 150 female sea lions (Si- this can’t be good for your health or nerves?!). But the best bit was seeing several armadillos in the car park! They were totally unfazed by all the people crowding round them and me chanting, ‘Armadillos, they’re crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. Armadillos!’ Apparently this sea lion colony is one of the places in the world to see orcas plucking sea lions off the beach for a snack, which unfortunately we didn’t see (you have a less than 1% chance of seeing this and apparently National Geographic camped out in this spot for 3 weeks one year and didn’t see it... so we didn’t feel too disappointed!)
Fourth stop
was the penguin colony, watching the Magdalene penguins climbing up the very steep slope was funny, and we got to see them from about half a metre away. Final stop was the elephant seal colony... only slight problem being that they had all decide to migrate, leading one girl in our group to name this ‘the great elephant seal let down!’ There were actually about 5 left (too far away to see) but the beach was covered in elephant seal tracks so we could look at the informative posters, squint and pretend...oh well. We were then able to see some Nandu (like ostriches/emus) and more Guanacos (wild llamas) which are as common in Patagonia as sheep in the Wales.
Lovely day all in all followed by another 24 hour bus journey to transport us to Mendoza for my birthday!! I am not sure whether it was being stuck on the bus for 24 hours, or that we watched 5 rom-coms in a row but when Marley and Me came on (the dog dies) Si broke down and had to resort to wearing his sunglasses and looking out of the window...
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