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Published: December 19th 2008
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Looking back at the beginning of our planning of this crazy adventure, Kati told Mark she had three goals of things she wanted to see in Patagonia - whales, penguins and glaciers. In the first week of December, we accomplished all three. We are on a 30-day dash through southern Patagonia - classic backpacking style - before we stop in Bariloche for the month of January. This means lots of one-night stays, transportation of every variety, packing and re-packing our trusty and hated
mochilas, and always planning, booking, calling, reserving, haggling our way from hostel to campground or hospedaje; gambling on the bed (bunk or regular, 2 or 4 or 6), the shower, the kitchen. It is for the youth, not these old fogeys. If we play our cards right, only about two months of our trip will be this crazed. But the reward is the sites along the way, and the people you meet and hang with - if even for a night of
vino tinto and
bife de chorizo.
Our first stop was the city of Puerto Madryn, on the Atlantic coast. The town is surrounded by nothing; it sits on the bay as a battlement against the
Whale and sea lion
Kati meant to shoot the sea lion but the whale jumped up in the background endless scrub and pampas that stretch for a thousand kilometers to the west, with few neighbors save the towns along the Chubut River to its south by 60 kilometers - which are odd in that they are populated by many Welsh (with names like Trelew and Gaiman). Hanging out in Pto. Madryn in the sun we felt like we were on a desert island beach, except we were in mainland Patagonia.
Madryn’s special appeal is that it abuts the Peninsula Valdez , a UNESCO World Heritage Area for the immense amount of sea life that use its calm, cool bays for relaxation and the occasional mating. The stars of this show are the Southern Right Whales, so named because they float when harpooned, making them the “right” ones to kill These whales can grow to be 18 m long and love to hang out with boats in the bay. Because of human interference the whales are endangered, but the Southern Rights are making a much quicker comeback than their northerly neighbors that travel the Atlantic coast of the US. This was Mark’s first specific whale watching excursion—he usually avoid these out of respect for the whales and expense, but
Whale
Beautiful creatures! succumbed here because the whales are everywhere and the excursion was cheap and in a tiny boat. And there they were, no less than 6 whales in an hour, including a mom and her pup, tail slapping, breaching, and a bonus of a sea lion colony. Simply awesome.
The next day we rented a car shared with a couple of recent Harvard grads we met in our hostel studying Spanish and tango in BA - Noah and Nick. We drove down through the Welsh heartland, complete with the tourist attraction of high tea, and past the river 100 kilometers to the ocean. Where, at Punto Tombo, half a million penguins make their summer home in the dense scrub and have their chicks. The quaint park there is quite extraordinary - just a simple trail that winds through the colony to the sea. There is no border between trail and colony, so you simply walk amongst the penguins and spy on their life, with bridges over their “roads” and a chance to view hawks grabbing the odd chick, guanacos (an Andean cousin of the camel) oblivious to the colony, and half a million pounds worth of penguin scent in the
air.
Of course all this costs money, and ours is slipping away like the Patagonian breeze. We held back on cold water diving, seeing the massive elephant seal colonies, the other penguins, seals, possible orcas and ostrich-like ñandús (though we later saw these from a bus). Even with 6 months down here, we still don’t have the time (or cash) to see it all. We had to make a 13-hour bus ride to catch a plane from Bariloche to Southern Patagonia, the most scenic plane ride we’ve ever witnessed. We were lucky to be seated on the west side of the plane on a clear day, so we watched the snow-capped mountains try to reach their way up to us for the whole 90 min plane ride (that saved us from having to spend 3 days on a bus). Several of the mountains had the distinctive volcanic cone shape, and most had turquoise lakes surrounding. As we finally approached our destination, we began to see glaciers. We had arrived in touristy (read: expensive) El Calafate, a rather large town for these parts.
From that town we took a tour to the most famous glacier in Argentina—the Perito Moreno.
Crabby
We walked along the beach and found all kinds of life in tide pools. Famous because it has a road right up to it, it calves like crazy, it has a peninsula directly across from its snout for easy viewing, and it sits at the confluence of two bays it has created. At the time we visited, it had once again successfully blocked the two bays. This is because it is one of only 2 glaciers in South America that is advancing. A rarity indeed. It also has 10 gorgeous shades of blue, with birds chirping and mountains and forest all around. We took a boat ride to its snout, which rises like a 20-floor building in front of you—knowing that almost 3 times that is submerged beneath the water. We heard it crack and pop like gunshots or a canon, and we couldn’t take our eyes off for fear of missing anything.
Stay tuned for our next installment to find out how we fare backcountry trekking in the Southern hemisphere!
And, of course, Feliz Navidad! Feliz Hanukah! Feliz Ano Nuevo! Salud!
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Allison
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Penguins!
So cute! Can you bring one home? I like the blue glaciers - very extreme.