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Published: October 13th 2010
As I noted in my last posting, our next stop is 300 km south of Puerto Piramides to a place called Punta Tombo which is the largest penguin colony in South America. They estimate that there are a total of half a million Magellanic penguins that come to this spot to lay eggs and raise their young. They build small burrows under bushes or on this surrounding hillside and remain there until around March when they swim north for warmer water in southern Brazil. We spent about 2 hours walking along the point and watching the penguins travel back and forth between their burrows and the water, where they take turns catching fish.
It was amazing to see how many of these little guys lined the surrounding hillsides, but the funniest part is just watching penguins walk. Their bodies clearly weren’t engineered for traveling very far on land and they just waddle around waving their wings from side to side as they try to climb the hillside. Its also amazing how they aren’t afraid of humans and will often pass right in front of you while you are walking by. It’s as if they could care less that we could
easily stomp them if we didn’t see them pass. And with the amount of penguins at Punta Tombo, its easy to miss one.
Besides the penguins, we also saw some Guanaco (the Patagonian llama) up close, which is somewhat rare because these animals get really stressed out when they feel that they are in danger, so much so that they often die when another animal chases them. Anyway, they were mixing in with the penguins to eat some brush and neither seemed to care that the other one was there.
After Punto Tombo, we headed to the Chubut river valley to a small farming town called Gaiman. The town actually has a really strange history because it was established about 130 years ago by Welsh settlers that attempted to farm the land. As I noted in my prior posting, this land resembles what you see on the road to Mammoth, so needless to say it’s not ideal for farming. But after nearly starving to death they found a way to farm the land and have been doing so ever since. Apparently Argentines also celebrate Christopher Columbus day so we didn’t have a place to stay in Puerto Madryn, but
I found a farmhouse outside of Gaiman that would also take in travelers into their ranch, which is a popular way to visit the country in Argentina. We ended up staying with a family and they cooked us an awesome dinner and let us roam around their farm and check things out. The family was really nice and it was really cool to check out the farm.
In the morning we are heading about 1,400 km further south to El Calafate to do some hiking on glaciers and around Mount Fitz Roy. Its been cool checking out all of the wildlife that Patagonia has to offer but I’m ready to move on to some bigger adventures including ice hiking on glaciers!
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Aaron
non-member comment
Lots of animals
Are you sure you didn't take this at the zoo? So. Many. Penguins.