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Published: January 6th 2006
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The past couple of days have been spent in Puerto Madryn. On the outskirts of Peninsula Valdez this town was originally settled by Welsh immigrants last century.
My brief experience in Buenas Aires was brief, to say the least. arriving off the plane i proceeded to get lost in the airport looking for immigration. fortunately i was not the only person, so it didn't look bad for me. At the airport, the customs officials waved me through without any looking or inspection of my baggage (nor stamp on the passport). i just dropped my card off and left. hopefully this will not come back to bite me in the ass when i try to leave the country. I then went to the areoparque de Jorge Newbury (the domestic airport) where it was a zoo.
In Pto. Madryn, i found out the hard way that i booked the wrong dates at the hostel i was staying at. That being said i was still able to get a room. for the next couple of days i got aquainted with the town, experiencing New Years Eve with the locals. Fireworks were set off until 2 in the morning.
The next couple
of days everything was shut down for the holidays leaving me for more exploration.
This is the centre of all diving in Argentina, however it (diving) depends on several variables:
1. tides
2. winds
3. rain
Rain has turned out to be the biggest factor of them all, with most of the diving being just off the shore and the runoff creating poor visibility. Normally it rains only 50mm in January, with the time i've been here it's rained every day making diving near impossible. The travel gods giveth (with my reservations) and they taketh (with the diving).
In the absence of diving i´ve done several excursions to the surrounding attractions.
Peninsula Valdez. Classified as a UNESCO world heritage site is spectacular. the entire peninsula is covered with stunted trees and bushes sutible for an arid climate. Also the only roads on the peninsula are gravel, making travel in a minibus interesting with the bus slowly sliding out of control in the mud momentarily. kudos to the driver for a safe journey. The first stop was kind of abrupt as the driver suddenly braked on the road, pointing out the biggest spider that i've ever
seen was crossing it. The fact that the road as gravel and we were travelling a quite a clip, only added to the excitement of suddenly stopping and fish tailing in the mud. in punta norte i saw the sea lion colony and apparently there is a pod of orcas that hunt them by beaching themselves between the colony and the sea. it is only one of two places in the world were this behavior exists. Sadly i did not observe this behavior. we then traveled to punta elvira were a large colony of elephant seals reside. the males can reach over 7m in length and weigh up to 2000 kg (the size of a small whale if you ask me). All i saw there were the leftovers of the males and the breeding period (pups and females). Also there was a small colony of magelenic penguins. what was really funny was there was a seal asleep at the base of the colony which all the penguins avoided. After all of this, I then went to Puerta Pyraides which is named after this big rock formation on the coast that looks like, you guessed it, a pyramid. i then observed
sea lions from the water on a big catamaran which took about 1.5 hours.
Yesterday instead of diving which was originally planned, i traveled to Punta Tombo which is the site of the largest penguin colony on continental south america (because of this last minute change of plans all i had for breakfast was ´10 olives and a glass of orange juice´ - that´s a new saying for me). penguins everywhere. crossing the road, under cars, across the paths, checking out the tourist who were checking out the penguins. did i mention that penguin colonies stink like feces and fish. the rest of the day was spent travelling to other tourist locals such as Gaimon (a welsh town), where tea is served at 5:00. The Argentinians that were on the tour fell for this hook, line and sinker as it's unique in Argentina (having been to tea, this held less appeal for me), so i instead spent the time exploring the small town. English / welsh gardens dominated the landscape, so it was kinda pretty. i guess. after Gaimon, we then went to the Trelew museum of paleontology. not as grand as the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, it was still interesting with exhibits of the various fossils found in the province of Chubut.
I just booked my bus back to Buenas Aires leaving on saturday, so hopefully i have some time left to do some diving.
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Lauri
non-member comment
Just How Big?
Just how big was the spider -- 2 feet - 3 feet??? Glad to hear you're having fun! We've been thinking about you.