Piren Hotel and Apart Puerto Madryn

... a bus to Puerto Madryn.
The little town is on the east coast of Argentina in a little bay protecting it from the elements of the Atlantic Ocean - at this time of year it provides a sheltered spot for the whales to rear their young, and they don´t seem to mind us lot being there too.
We arrived very early in the morning, just in time to see the sun rise over the ocean as we looked for a place to stay. On finding this great and ...

... just given over half the shop to storing people´s bags, talk about spotting a niche market, would make them a hell of a lot more money than selling sweets). Anyway, with about 8 hrs to kill we headed into the city centre to explore. Hmmm, there´s not really much for the casual tourist to do in Bahia Blanca as far as we could see, pretty boring, so after a few hours of wandering around we decided just to head to the cinema and kill a few hours with a film instead ...

... a day of rest we decided to visit a nearby Welsh village (well 3hrs away via more scrub land!) that were founded by missionaries in the eighteen hundreds. What an experience to put it politely! Apart for Welsh sounding street names such as JC Evans street it was a hole. We did stop of at a Welsh tea room; it was like stepping back into the 1960's, very twee with an Aled Jones soundtrack on a continuous loop and tea towels with maps of Wales on the wall ...

... the glaciers, the snow capped mountains? They are certainly NOT here. The one thing that is here are the PENGUINS! LOADS and loads of peguins! My friends and I rented a car today and drove down the National Park called Peninsula Valdes. Lots of driving today- and not much hiking... so it was sort of a lazy nature day- which was great! :) We saw countless sea lions... a few elephant seals, although I didn't get any good photos of them. :( My favorite ...

... Gaiman is a Welsh settlement. Lonely planted recommended stopping in an old welsh tea house. We chose the house that was written about in LA times and other famous news papers. For 40 pesos each we got tea. Along with the tea service come all sorts of baked goods. Take a look at the pictures different types of breads, pastries amazing. Mom you would have truly enjoyed the setup. The tea was amazing. We didn't have a ...

... vu le beau temps, la plage est assaille de baigneur locaux ou venu des environs (ou de l'autre côté de la planête, c'est selon). Comme première impression, l'ambiance me plait beaucoup plus que Buenos Aires je dois dire, mais je n'ai jamais été un grand fan de grosse ville. L'auberge est très sympa, très sociale et organise pas mal de circuits de découvertes dans les environs, ce que je vais faire demain!

... doing a countdown cinco, quatro, tres . . . . ). Lots of kissing, hugging and dancing followed, as well as silly hats being handed out to everyone. And a nice touch at the end, perhaps to make Lorraine and I feel at home, a fight broke out and the waiters literally dragged some bloke out and threw him onto the street - Its not New Years Eve without at least 1 fight!!. We eventually left just after 1:30am, and made a way back through packed streets ...

... their breathing out, but mostly they just seem to laze around - no sign of the orca killer whales, which I have to say was a bit of a relief - I wasn´t keen to see them picking off any seal pups - David Attenborough has that well covered. We ended the day with some magellanic penguins and chicks, nesting in some cliffs above the Atlantic - it was an excellent day out. To add to the wildlife list ...

... up with old friends sometimes too From the city of Puerto Madryn, its fairly easy to get to the Peninsula Valdés which is a wildlife sanctury for birds and marine species but my focus was to see the whales and the elephant seals. On my second day, I went off to see the whales. It was quite a big boat that I went on and was rather full but they were very good about making sure that everyone could see clearly. We spent about 2 hours out on ...

... tour at 8am the next day!!!! Almost missed the tour and the owner of the hostel had to wake us up. The tour was great and we got to see lots of Penguins (at last) and sea lions etc. But we were in the bus for hours on end. Also did a boat ride which was a waist of money.

Went back to the same bar and got the bar man to name a drink after Liverpool. Spreading the word!!!!