Penguins, tea and cakes
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2005
1
10
35
Trip End
Mar 19, 2006
Comodoro Rivadavia,
Argentina
Monday, October 10, 2005
A quick 1 hour in the bus and I arrived at the town of Trelew. Its not a very exciting place, but the weather was nice and I had a couple of days before I needed to be down here in Comodoro Rivadavia, so I thought I would stop and see some penguins!
About half a million burrowing Magellan penguins live in a colony in a place called Punta Tombo, almost 2 hours by gravel road from Trelew. And when I say gravel, I donīt mean regularly shaped driveway-type gravel, but gut-rattling impacted stone type gravel with assorted cattle grids to rearrange your innards every few kilometres when you bump over them!! Anyhow, I joined a mini-bus from a travel agency and off we went early yesterday. The penguins are so funny! As soon as we entered the protected area, you could see them waddling about all over the place, crossing the road in front of the bus and heading down towards the sea. There were lots of them flopped on their bellies having a snooze, and lots standing by their burrows half-asleep in the sunshine. Quite a few were pulling bits off the bushes to make their nests cosy for the chicks which will be hatched in a couple of months.
I couldnīt believe how close you can get to the penguins. Its kind of hard to be wandering about in the colony and not wonder how the Argentine government can allow this kind of thing. It was really interesting and great to be able to get close-up photos, but the fact is that all the people were walking right in amongst the penguins and sometimes are in between the penguins and the sea (they waddle quite a long way from their burrows).
01 Cute penguins!
The penguins didnīt seem at all bothered about the fact that we were all walking within inches of them and their burrows (there is a fenced off trail) but I do feel really ambivalent about having visited, as it surely canīt be a good thing in the long run. Better was the bit where you could stand on top of a cliff and see the penguins in a natural pool that the sea had formed. They are much more elegant (and about 20 times as fast!) underwater. They didnīt seem to spend that long in the sea, just waddled in, did a few turns, get washed about by the tide a little bit, and waddle out! Anyhow, photos to come when I next get some downloaded.The afternoon before I had visited Gaiman, about 30 minutes from Trelew, which is a little Welsh town. This whole area was settled by the Welsh in the 1900s, and you can still see a few vestiges of it. In Trelew, for example, the notice board at the church had info in Welsh as well as Spanish! Gaiman is a kind of touristy place but I went to have a poke around for an couple of hours, and stopped and had tea and cakes in a Wesh tea house. Well it was bizarre, red Welsh dragons everywhere and family trees pinned up to show the ancestry of the owners! They asked me hopefully if I spoke Welsh but I had to disappoint them! The cakes were about as Welsh as I am, but it was the first cup of tea I had had in 3 weeks mind you, so I wasnīt complaining!
I am now in Comodoro Rivadavia, Patagoniaīs most populous city. The first thing a couple of people in Buenos Aires said when I mentioned I was heading to Patagonia was 'Oh, thereīs not many people down there'. Well, they are right! In the between the towns, out of the bus window, there is absolutely nothing to look at! Really. You might be lucky and see an oil pipeline running beside the road, but apart from that, and the odd electricity pylon, there is nothing. Not a house, not a tree, rarely a sheep. Its basically just dusty desert, covered in bushes about as high as my waist, and it is endlessly flat and windy. The road itself is a two-lane tarmacked ribbon running through the desert.
The reason that there are actually people here is that Comodoro is a town based around the oil and petrol industry. Tempting as it is though, I will not be visiting the Petrol Museum, I think!! The main reason I am here is to catch an Argentinan Air Force flight tomorrow to El Calafate, on the western side of the country to see the Andes, and the glaciers there. Canīt wait to get away from this flatness and see a hill of any kind! So, for the bargain price of about 35 quid, I will cross over the country and avoid another bus ride with nothing to look at out of the window!
Anyway, must go and get some washing done, am fed up of handwashing!!
Sarah xxx
Comments
Hey!
It all sounds fab, especially the whales. When we went whale watching in NZ I was in awe, and cant wait to do it again.... I saw Fen on Saturday and she's well, she was down in London for a protest so popped over to CJ afterwards. Have taken up running, did I tell you (who would have thought it, me?!)? I ran 10km on Sunday and have the Nike 10km 'fun' run this weekend. Was rather sore after last attempt so must remember to have a bath afterwards this time and try and ease aching muscles. Anyway, thinnking of you.
V
Re: Hey!
Running?!? I've only been away a few weeks and clearly you have gone mad in my absence!! Sne you an email earlier, lots of love to all, Sarah xxx