No orcas, but penguins penguins everywhere!
Trip Start
Dec 30, 2007
1
11
50
Trip End
Jun 22, 2008
Puerto Pyramides, Argentina
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Getting out of Torres del Paine is not exactly easy. The options are either to take the very expensive ferry for three days north to Puerto Montt (which lots of people do), or go back to Argentina. We choose the latter, both because it was cheaper and because it gave us some time to do some wildlife spotting which we had omitted earlier as it was too early in the season.
So that gave us a day to kill in Puerto Natales, as the buses back to Rio Gallegos are not frequent. We got the last two tickets on the next bus out. Then we spent a day travelling back across the continent (admittedly itīs quite narrow down here) back to Rio Gallegos, where we were able to get a pretty good connection to take us up to Puerto Madryn, the entry to Peninsula Valdez.
We got to Pen Valdez mid-afternoon and promptly decided that it was not worthwhile taking tours to see the wildlife
Shrine to Gaucho Gil
. The key attraction (for me anyway) was the remote possibility of seeing orcas. This is the spot where film crews come to see them stalking sea lions and taking pups off the beach. I knew it was a long shot, but the 40 mins that the tours spend at the site would seem to make it almost impossible. So we tried to hire a car. This was harder than you would think, because every car hire company takes about a five hour siesta in the afternoon. The one that didnīt turned out not to be able to get me a car. But we did end up with something in the end. A Suzuki īFunī, a 2006 model with the least technology of any car Iīve ever driven.This was the bit of the trip I was most nervous about so far. I was not entirely sure about the legality of driving on my licence (although more than one rental place assured me it was fine), wasnīt keen on driving on the wrong side of the road, especially given the kamikaze nature of some of the driving around here, and didnīt want to have to navigate conversations with the police. All these fears came to naught, although I was stopped at two checkpoints, and I have to confess finding Argentinian traffic signs extremely confusing. One problem seems to be that they never take them down. So on a new, straight, flat motorway there was a sign declaring the speed limit to be 40 km/h because of roadworks, which had obviously finished. I guess in time you learn which signs you can ignore.
Peninsula Valdez
We camped at Puerto Pyramides, a little settlement with a very busy campground and almost as many diving operators as corner stores. We had been told by the information desk that high tide was at 9.10am and that the orcas would only be seen two hours either side of this time
Sealions just after sunrise at Punta Norte
. So we arrived at the site as early as we believed we were allowed, getting up at 5.30 to cover the 85 km on gravel roads. This had the advantage of allowing us to watch a beautiful sunrise and a glorious moonset. The moon turned into a huge orange ball, as big as a setting sun, as it dipped below the horizon. When we got to Punto Norte we discovered that high tide was actually not until 10.48 am so we had plenty of time. We spent it watching the sea lions and hallucinating dorsal fins, and thinking that the pups were perfectly big enough to tempt any self-respecting orca. We were not encouraged when we found the sighting board reporting that the last sighting of orcas had been on 1 February (18 days earlier) and they had been 800m off-shore. Did that mean that they were due? Apparently not. The most exciting moment was when an armadillo turned up and headed straight for our breakfast. He didnīt quite get it, but a bit later when we were not paying such close attention he came back and started to make off with our plastic knife. He was an adorable little creature, reminding me of a hedgehog crossed with a tank, and he seemed not the least bothered by people as he trotted around the sand dunes at a pretty good clip, making the occasional exploratory excavation in the dunes. Still the sea lions were fun to watch, and the pups had a great time romping around in the sand, picking up sea weed and experimenting with waves, while the adults lolled around on the sand, in the surf zone and in the water
Apparently armadillos like peanut butter and bread
. They were obviously not worried about orcas.We gave up on the orcas around 1 pm and headed back to the car-park where we found another armadillo wandering around completely oblivious to the risk of being squashed, and two young foxes hanging around, also quite undisturbed by the people.
Our next stop was a small penguin colony, with close up views of Magellanic penguins, who for some reason climb a very steep hill and then sit out in the hot sun, very close to tourists. Very obliging of them, but why bother?
Then we finished the day off at an elephant seal ground. The only seals out were females and pups, but they are still very big animals. I donīt have the figures for them, but males get to 5m long and 4000kg. So the species is well named. It was interesting to observe how much less agile on land these creatures are than sea lions, and how much more placid they were in the water. They seem to be much less boisterous animals altogether.
So that was a pleasant day, but not exactly sensational viewing
He didn´t get the bread
.Punto Tombo
The next day we headed back down south to visit one of the largest penguin colonies in the world (in fact, I believe the largest outside Antarctica). It is a very large colony but you donīt get the kind of massing that you see on tv, presumably because it is not cold enough to require it. They spread out all over the countryside, and mix with guanacos in a very strange looking sight.
The best viewing is from a low cliff over the beach from where you can watch the young ones walking into the water and back out again, doing a bit of swimming and then heading further out. A few pros can be seen surfing back into shore inside the wave, and the water was clear enough to allow good views of them flying underwater. Their tails poke up like little dorsal fins and I wonder if they serve the same purpose.
Gaiman
Gaiman has somehow managed to put itself on the map as a stop-over. The key is its tenacious hold on its Welsh heritage and some shrewd marketing which allows them to offer expensive īWelsh teasī. We stopped in for one at a place that had been recommended to us, and which was pretty ordinary (but enormous). It was quite good fun, but mostly represents a triumph of marketing I think.
