Give way for the penguins!
Trip Start
Nov 13, 2005
1
38
72
Trip End
Jul 13, 2006
Puerto Madryn/ Penninsula Valdes,
Argentina
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
We spent our time here visitng two national parks in the vicinity - punta tombo and penninsula vales.
Punta tomba is a 500,000 strong magalatic penguin colony (30cm high!). After meeting up again with our favourite french couple, we hired a car and Humbert chauffered us 200km south to the land of penguins. The reserve itself is built quite smart. So as to not interfere with the penguins, 1m high fences are built to restrict us from walking freely around the site. However since the penguins are so small, they have the choice to walk through these walkways to get to where they want to go. Surprisingly these penguins, although completely wild, have no fear walking side by side with us, letting us meet them face to face from 30cm away. The rest of the afternoon samson and humbert spent chasing penguins down roads whilst alix and I strolled around peeking into penguin nests and admiring the little chics that were struggling to walk. It is so amazing how on the entrance road to the park, you need to drive at 20kmh to stop for the groups of penguins to waddle past you on the road.
The second reserve that we visited was Penninsula Valdes, famous for its whale watching, however unfortunetly for us it wasnt the right season. Instead we opted to perve on sealions and elephant seals. Hundreds of them lying on the beach, all the males physically fighting with each other for females and territory. It was actually quite frightening at times watching them fight, since the sealions would often squash pups and pick up female sealions (literally kidnapp them), leaving the innocent hurt or dead.
tomorrow we leave for buenos aires. looking forward to a few days of relaxation, good wine and food.
