Visiting the neighbourhood
Trip Start
Mar 01, 2006
1
276
551
Trip End
Dec 01, 2007
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Puerto Deseado,
Argentina
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
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We woke upand called Hector, the diving operator that Fanbio had contacted before. He told us that the day was ugly and that we could not go to the isla de los pinguinos. We had to get up anyway to check out from the hotel, because the landlady was anything but a nice person, even though she was trying to look sweet at times. We moved to the camping, where we left our bags, and then headed into town to have breakfast, and share and save pictures, and do a bit of interneting. We found the bike rental place, but it was closed... we were hoping to rent bikes to go cycling along the shores of the Ria Deseado, and along the coast as well, where there were caves to visit.
Back to the camping, we moved into our "trailer", a converted container divided into three rooms, of four beds each. The lady gave us an electrical heater, and there was light. Stepping out from the trailer we were 30 meters from the shore, across the road. It was the mouth of the Ria, and the ocean was just a kilometer on the left.
After a few rainy clouds had passed by, we decided to go walking along the coast of the Ria, to the Ocean. The first part was a bit filthy, but then we arrived on a nice "beach", that is a flat rock formation and a gravel beach. Lots of birds. We carried on, visited a few small caves, and then climbed to the top of the small cliffs, from where we had a beautiful view of the coast and of the ocean.
Further north, we made it to the piletas, which are natural pools left after high tide. A couple of Argentinians were there, around a sea mamal that we thought was a sea lion. It looked very weak, almost did not move even though we were only a few meters away. We thought it might be hurt, and it was alone, which is not normal at all.
We spent a little time admiring the animal, and then started to walk more, thinking about going back because we wanted to ask if anybody could help the sea lion.
A 4WD arrived towards us, I was thinking about asking him to take us back into town.... but when the guy stepped out, he asked for Fabio! It was Hector, the diving operator, who Fabio had told to that we were going for a walk along the coast, and he had come to meet us.
We took him to the sea lion, and then headed back into town, talking about the diving. We told him we were thinking about going cycling along the Ria, and he drove us all the way for an hour and showed us a lot of places, up to a canyon that fills up with water at high tide, and it was great. He also proposed thatwhen we went to the isla de los pinguinos or diving with the lobos (sea lions), we could make an asado (big barbecue, an Argentinian tradition and specialty), which we agreed upon immediately.
Back into town, we paid a visit to a small antenae of the university of patagonia. We talked with a marine biologist we had met before about the kayak at the nautical club, and after trying for a good time to give him as much info as possible, I showed him the pictures of the sea lion on my camera: it was not a sea lion at all, but rather a sea elephant.... of course! now I can tell the difference. Everything looked much more normal then, as sea elephants come ashore to change their hair (la mue, donīt know the word in english), a process that can take over ten days, during which they don't eat and become quiteweak. From what we had seen, that elephant was near the end of her "mue".
The biologist said he would go to have a look anyway, and we went back home relieved that it was not a dying animal that we had left there.
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