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Published: November 30th 2010
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Whale watching
A calf very close to the boat Before returning to Buenos Aires, I had time for one more stop after Bariloche and the Lake District. Puerto Madryn, 13 hours east of Bariloche, sits on the Atlantic coast close to the Peninsula Valdes, which is one of the most important marine wildlife reserves in South America. Puerto Madryn, as well as the nearby cities of Trelew (pronounced Trelee-oo) and Rawson were all founded by Welsh settlers in 1865, though these days they have all lost most of their Welsh characteristics and more or less feel like standard Argentinean cities. Puerto Madryn was a nice enough place to stay, with a lovely coastline, but besides that, not much else to see. In any case, the wildlife around the area was the main attraction. The Peninsula Valdes, just north of Puerto Madryn, is a reserve where elephant seals, penguins, sea lions, guanacos (relative of the llama) and southern right whales can all be seen. The 12 hour tour I took from Puerto Madryn covered more than 400km, so I actually ended up spending most of the day on the minibus. Without a doubt, the highlight of the trip was the whale watching trip which left from the only village on
the peninsula, Puerto Piramides. The Southern Right Whales, which live just off the coast of the peninsula from June until December, are very social and like to get close to any nearby boat, meaning they’re one of the easiest species of whale to watch. During the 90 minute boat trip, we came across a mother and calf which swam around and under the boat until we had to leave. Even then they started to follow us. It was unbelievably surreal to see these 22 metre giants swimming in the clear water so close to our small boat. An experience I will definitely never forget. Compared to the whale watching trip, the rest of the peninsula was definitely not as interesting, even though we did see plenty of wildlife. A colony of sea lions, a colony of elephant seals (only the small adolescents – the 4 ton adults are at sea at the moment), a small colony of Magellanic penguins, rheas (a smaller relative of the ostrich), guanacos and a mother maras (Patagonia’s equivalent to the hare) with 2 babies. The only animal which we weren’t lucky enough to see was the Orca, but the likelihood of seeing a killer whale
was never that great. The trip was amazing just because of the whale watching in the morning; the rest was still interesting, but nowhere near as captivating.
The other trip I did from Madryn was to South America’s largest Penguin colony at Punto Tombo, where over 800,000 Magellanic penguins nest. Punto Tombo is some distance from Madryn – 165km in fact, so once again most of the day was spent in the minibus. But it was definitely worth it. The colony was not at all as I had imagined – I envisaged a densely populated beach full of penguins, but in fact the 800,000 penguins nest over quite a wide area – up to 3km from the beach. There are walkways for the many tourists through the colony, and the penguins seem so used to people that they have no problems with you getting incredibly close to them. At present, the adult penguins are taking turns guarding their nests, where they either have eggs or recently-hatched chicks, and hunting for food. So there was a constant stream of penguins coming out of the sea and heading to their nests, with others going in the opposite direction. Seeing so many
penguins so close up is another experience that will live long in my memory. After the visit to Punto Tombo, I was dropped off in the nearby city of Trelew, from where I headed to the small town of Gaiman, which is one of the best-preserved Welsh settlements in the area, and famous for its Welsh Teas (which have attracted the likes of Princess Diana). Gaiman was a nice village, but besides the odd sign in Welsh (and street names such as “Juan Evans” and “Miguel Jones”), didn’t feel Welsh at all. I didn’t stay that long before heading back to Puerto Madryn.
After Puerto Madryn, it was sadly time to return to Buenos Aires from where my flight back home leaves. Buenos Aires is 1500km to the north, so it was yet another long journey (21 hours), but luckily this was the last long bus ride. Buenos Aires at the moment is experiencing lovely spring weather, making it much nicer to visit then when I was last here in July. I had a few days in the city before my flight, and besides going back to places I’ve already been and last-minute souvenir shopping, I had a couple
of day trips out of the city left to do as well. The first was to the city of La Plata, 60km to the south of Bs As, which was built to become the capital of Buenos Aires State after the city of Bs As became the national capital. As South America’s first planned city, it has an unusual layout and feels like a smaller version of Bs As (though with nearly 1 million inhabitants it is hardly small). The grandiose French architecture and the leafy plazas strongly replicate Bs As, although the imposing neo-gothic cathedral on the main square (which took nearly 100 years to complete) does give the city an individual identity. The city also boasts the continent’s oldest and supposedly best museum (a natural history museum), which was reasonable but not outstanding.
The other day trip from Bs As that I did was to the town of Tigre, which is an hour away from Bs As by train and sits on the delta of the Paraná river, South America’s second longest, as it enters the Rio de la Plata/River Plate. The town itself was quite nice, but the main reason was to explore the delta. As
this is a trip most tourists to the city do, there were a plethora of companies offering river tours, all more or less seemingly the same. The delta was not at all what I had expected it to be – the hundreds of islands created by the many rivers and channels have been built on, creating a network of small neighbourhoods linked only by the channels, of which most contain large and upmarket houses, some dating back to the colonial period. The boat tour was very scenic and made for a pleasant final trip in Argentina.
And so my 11 months of travelling in South America have come to an end. It is a stunningly beautiful and diverse continent; even nearly a year was not enough to see everything I had wanted to. The areas that most stand out are Patagonia, Peru and Colombia, and these are my favourite highlights:
1) Ciudad Perdida, Columbia
2) Iguazu Waterfalls, Argentina and Brazil
3) Whales and Penguins at Puerto Madryn, Argentina
4) Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Choquoquirau and Machu Picchu, Peru
5) Huayna Potosi, Bolivia
6) Sugarloaf Mountain and the Statue of Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
7)
Sucre, Bolivia
8) Ouro Preto, Brazil
9) Piedra de El Peñol, Columbia
10) Perito Moreno Glacier, Argentina
11) Canaima, Venezuela
12) Tyrona National Park, Columbia
13) Ushuaia, Argentina
14) Paragliding over Iquique, Chile
15) The Cordillera Blanca near Huaraz, Peru
Many thanks to all regular readers of the blog and I hope that you've found most of it interesting.
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Henry & Agnes Wiebe
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South America
Your blogs on your visit to South America are terrific! Since we are planning a trip to Paraguay and Bolivia in November/December the photos and commentary have been great as an introduction. Thanks for your detailed information and positive comments. Henry & Agnes