Trelew Hotels
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Peninsula Valdes and Trelew welsh style
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Another horizon chasing endless Patagonian scrub while on a bus journey which took us from Rio Gallegos in Santa Cruz province up to Trelew and the heart of the "Welsh" settler collony of Argentina. One of our reasons for stopping off here was to experience the parts of Argentina where Welsh is still spoken and full high teas are found in many quaint "Cassa de Te" (tea houses).
More specifically however this area of Argentina is renouned for it´s incredibly rich marine wild life and whale watching.
Trelew was our chosen launch pad to hire a car from and head off on excursions to the Chubut valley where the Welsh settled in the 1830´s. The town also offered us easy access to the 500 000 strong breeding collony of Magalleans penguins; a day trip to see some of the smallest and cutest dolphins and our 5 day retreat to the wonderful Peninsula Valdes for it´s host of marine inhabitants and fossil rich beaches.
A mandatory whisky in the "Hotel Touring Club" in Trelew - reported to be a hang out of the outlaw "Butch Cassidy" and his parter in crime "The Sundance kid" was a memorable event. Some of the bottles of spìrit here, not to mention some of the patrons looked as if they may well have shared the company of the outlaws themselves probably even taught them a thing or two!.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Gaiman, an agriculturally rich valley full of welsh flags, galic signs, welsh choirs, red heads and tea houses offering visitors the finest cakes, fruits, music and history lessons we had yet experienced in Argentina!
As per our Christmas e-card, we had so much fun wandering and waddling among the cutest penguins at Puenta Tomba. Ambeling around their protected collony area was strange - almost as if we were the first people these fish-like birds had seen.
Their inquisitive and fearless examination of us was full of child-like intrigue and magical fascination. Even the penguins with young chicks or eggs didn´t appear too affected or upset by our sensitive exploration and photographing of them.
Then again we had ventured, with a handfull of other humans, fairly far off the main drag - once again braving challenging dirt roads in our hire car. We have attached our Christmas greeting pic because we loved creating it. We truly did want to soak up and share these marvellous birds with each of you. South Africa´s jackass penguins are truly hostil by comparrison with these cute dosile and inquisitive creatures.
Our trip to Puerto Rawson really was a gem of a trip. We were seeking a sighting of the tiny Commerson´s dolphins - real minkies with adults measuring only 1.5m. We were amazingly fortunate to see a few bottlenose dolphins en route to the Commersons sighting locations - a good sign as these bottlenose dolphins are far less common here. Imagine our joy at not only seeing but having a family of these black and white beauties frolicking with the bow of the boat we were in.
Their swimming under us, jumping and diving around us went on for 40 minutes giving us a great opportunity to admire and enjoy them. Sarah got some amazing video clip footage on our little camera and I managed to get some pictures. Commersons dolphins truly are cute creatures.
Our longest stay in this area was saved for Peninsula Valdes.
Some of you may have seen pictures of this 100km long peninsula in wildlife documentaries. David Attenborough did a series on Orcas (killer whales) beaching themselves in their persuit of young seal pup prey - all this footage was taken on this peninsula. While our search for the mightly Orcas was unsuccessful, we had some gorgeous days watching sea lions, elephant seals (each with pups), patagonian armadillas, guanacos and .....southern right whales with calves.
We were on Peninsula Valdes at the "end" of the whales watching "season", so were uncertain of seeing any whales. But as with so much of our trip thus far we had some marvellous (and very close) exploration opportunities with 2 southern right whales and their calves (who are born weighing a cool 3-4 tonnes!).
Seeing these vegetarian titans was a delightful first for Sarah and wow her smile and gleeful exhuberance made this evident! Sadly the worlds population of these whales was bludgeoned by whalers in the 19th and 20th centuries to 10000 in the 1970s. The population is apparently on the rise again at around 30000, albeit slowly. Their name in fact originated from the fact these were the "right" whales to try to harpoon, owing to the confident and inquisitive way they approach vessels. Let´s hope the ban on whaling continues.
We arranged a day sea kayaking to get closer to the elements on Valdes. This is a fairly new and novel persuit on the peninsula, but was a great outing. Our guide was so knowledgable on the marine and land fauna and flora giving us ample explanations and tours of the host of birds, animals, vegitation and fossils found there. While this land mass is so rich in marine life, it is virtually dessolate of land plants and animals, so exploring it by kayak gave us greater insight into the fragility of this microcosm, and the thundershower we were caught in gave us first hand experience of the influence of the endless winds which rage against these shores.
Feeling refreshed, enriched and rejuvinated from our stay here, and with our hire car still upright (unlike the poor Argentinian travellers we came across on one of the dodgy dirt roads on Valdes)
we headed back to Trelew to catch a bus to Santa Rosa in the Pampa where we spent in the Pampa on an Estancia called La Holanda.
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