Punta Tomba - Ppppenguins!

---

Talal and I took an organised tour to take us to Punta Tombo and to a few other places along the way. In the mini-bus there was an Argentinean couple, two English girls as well as a Mexican girl called Anna. I spoke a little with the girls. I noticed Talal listening to our conversation. Talal of course concentrated all his efforts into acquainting with the Argentinean couple, who spoke no English and he speaks no Spanish. Later on, having read the book on drinking mate that the guide gave me at the start of the journey, I went to listen to their conversation as I could not really participate. They offered us some mate, which was a bit too strong to my taste. In Wikipedia mate is described as: Mate (pronounced /'ma.te/) is a highly caffeinated infusion prepared by steeping dried leaves of yerba mate in hot water. I'd add that it can be drunk cold as well.

We headed directly to Punta Tombo, the most important Magellan Penguins colony within Patagonia, situated 180km away from Puerto Madryn. One of the greatest features of this Reservation is that you can literally walk among the penguins (as long as they are on the designated for pedestrians footpath), observe how they feed their babies and even the fights for the defence of their territories. We saw two little ones fighting for food from their mother.

The penguins make very funny high pitch noises. They are kind of cute. And what surprised me, but that's down to not having educated myself enough prior to coming to the reserve, was that the Magellan penguins were no taller than 45cm or so! I don't think I had seen a penguin out in nature let alone so many! Apparently, half a million of penguins arrive at this place every year in order to breed!!! Apart from the thousands of penguins, we also saw several guanacos.

For a late lunch we went to Gaiman, a Welsh village, where were could go for some Welsh tea and cakes, but Talal, Anna and I opted out and went to a restaurant that, to me, felt like going to someone's backyard! I had a Milanese, which was nice.

We went into a small museum in Trelew afterwards. It was quite impressive to see the massive bones of a dinosaur! Too bad that most of the explanations were written only in Spanish and few of the very general onces were translated into English.

Over lunch, Anna questioned Talal's French nationality. She told him that he did not look French. This set off a fire... and led to tears in her eyes or very close to them. Anna later asked me how I could stand travelling with him. Well,...

Once we returned to Puerto Madryn, I felt that I needed to do some exercises since I had spent the whole day on a bus and had not walked. I waited for Talal to come and we walked along the beach together. Once we reached one end, I left him to walk back and run on my own to the other side of the beach and did some exercises. It was a nice workout even though the weather was kind of chilly.

For dinner we went to a pizza place. Talal was a bit of a gourmand and asked for a large rather than a small pizza, which was so rich and every slice had a whole burger on it as well as the masses of cheese and red pepper. He hardly ate two of the 8 slices! I did not help. I was quite happy with my salad.

---

Photos

Yep, they are even more on this photos!
No wonder that Punta Tombo is the largest penguins' colony in South America

The path...
People are forbidden to walk outside the path and had to give way to any penguins crossing the path.