Punta Tomba

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The wind is still blowing a gale but we are on a 4 hour round trip bus ride to see the penguin colony in Punta Tomba to the south. We are not here at exactly the best time but close enough to see tons of birds sitting on their eggs in little scrubland hovels. In a couple weeks little chicks will be running around getting underfoot and breaking things. The male penguins arrived in September and made the nests or redecorated last years nest. You see this is the attraction for the female. Kinda like when you were in high school. The guys with the best looking cars got the girls. Then after laying the eggs the females convince the guys to sit on them while they go shopping. But some guys have poor construction skills or they don’t know the first thing about real estate. (location, location, location) and live a celibate existence in the hermit district about a kilometer from the sea. Then in March everybody heads north to Rio and parties.

We are moving into the heart of Welsh country now. The little village of Gaiman has several “casas de te” where you stuff yourself with cake, toast, scones and homemade jams. The torta negra (black fruit cake) has a secret preservative ingredient but I am not sure I would keep it around a year or so just to test out this concept. Like all the rest of the immigrants down here, the Welsh have assimilated into the diverse Argentinean culture. They arrived looking for their Promised Land back when we Americans were involved in the Civil War and like early North American settlers they too wanted to escape cultural and religious oppression in Wales. I am working on that connection…Wales/whales. England must have been one hell of a place to produce such migration. It was no picnic back in the day but they stuck it out with some help from the Argentine government and the much more altruistic Tehuelche Indians. After a too quick stop in Trelew to see one of South America’s most important paleontological collections we then proceed VFR direct back to Puerto Madryn.

Had read about the “unquestionably best seafood restaurant in town” in two guide books so we headed over for our Patagonian finale. We met up with “El Negro”, the chief cook and bottle washer, at Taska Belze who proceeded to cook us up a hake served family style. That means this huge fish for 6 is served up in toto on a platter with spuds and veggies. I didn’t eat the eyeball this time but John got the lion’s share of the taters and enhanced by a couple bottles of wine, an enjoyable time was had by all. If you are ever down this way stop by and tell ‘em “Danny sent you.”

Had to pull out all my coins to tip the baggage handler when we got on the bus back to Buenos Aries. Our bags are stuffed with tons of wonderful memories of this Patagonian adventure. Now to get down to business and do some school work. The lithosphere is calling along with K’s analysis of her favorite Argentinean movie. I don’t know if I can come up with anything more exciting to say in these blogs as the rest of our stay will be a postscript…but I will try.

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