Journey to the end of the world 4

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Wednesday 1st April

We woke early with a view to reaching Puerto San Julian by this evening. Bleary eyed, I was horrified to discover that my Granola box (containing my favourite cereal in the whole world) was empty. I was about to start slinging accusations around the hostel, when I noticed Tom's impish grin. "April Fools!" He sniggered, and promptly produced my missing granola. Ha ha. When we left the hostel, the car was not where we had left it. My heart was in my throat. Yet it turned out to be another hilarious April Fools prank, engineered by Tom of course. Thankfully, it was nearly midday.

Before continuing on our journey South, we could not pass up the opportunity to visit Punta Tombo, and a colony of half a million penguins (the largest outside of Antartica). The journey there was long, and Punta Tombo embodied the typical lonesome and arid landscapes of the Patagonia plateau. But its emptiness turned out to be an illusion - as well as the mind-bogolingly huge number of penguins, we discovered a wealth of life hidden in the bushes and under the seemingly endless sky. As well as maras (Patagonian hares) we were thrilled to encounter choiques (ostriches), who ran stupidly across the road, causing us to break more than once in a storm of dust and laughter. The beauty of Punta Tomba was in the fact that we could walk freely amongst the penguins; somehow it didn´t feel right that tourists should be allowed to disturb their community in this way, but it was an amazing experience nonetheless.

On the way back from Punta Tombo, we gave lift to a couple from Madrid and had a good chat... it was so nice to have a conversation based on topics other than "where are you from...?"

The rest of the day passed with long winding roads, strong winds and, of course, the Rolling Stones. We arrived late in Caleta Oliva and collapsed exhausted into bed.

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