Exciting Start to 1st Tour

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DAY 4 Jet lag kicked in today with 1 hr sleep before midnight only to get back to sleep for another hr before our alarm woke us again at 5 am to catch a taxi to the airport. Meet our fellow travellers at Trelew airport after a 2 hr flight from Buenos Aires to start our tour of Patagonia. Dynamics seem ok. 3 other couples (I Anglo/French, 1 Canadian & 2 Aust all similar to our age). Boarded our own mini bus with guide (Marta) and headed 110 km south to Punta Tombo Reserve, the largest Magellan penguin colony on the continent. It was amazing to be able to walk through the trails and around the nests of the more than five hundred thousand Magellanic penguins that gather each year in the colony along with many other species of seabirds. A close glimpse of a rarely sighted juvenile eagle was a treat.

The landscape is vastly different to what I expected. Firstly it was hot (30 c). The whole region is vast, flat, dry with hardy salt bearing scrub which supports guanacos (type of llama), rea's (emu like), Mara (rabbit like) & armadillo amongst others as well as introduced merino sheep grazing on vast estancias (ranches). This environment is due to all the moisture winds hitting the Andes on the Chilean side with only dry wind reaching the Argentine side. This environment meant that viewing the penguins was also not as expected. Burrows are well spread-out, dusty & lifeless in the hot conditions & not the sight of mass numbers in icy conditions like the king penguins we have all seen huddled together in Antartica. Nevertheless it was a great experience.

Bus back to Puerto Madryn for 2 nights.

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