Two Beers and a Pretzel

Saturday, Feb 7th – what a day…

PENGUINS

I booked a tour of the region South of Puerto Madryn.  The bus picked me and 2 Swedish guys, Magnus and Jonas, up at the hostel.  There were already a few Irish, Brits, and Argentinians.  Out guide was really cool, but I can’t remember his name to save my life.

We drove about an hour and a half on Route 3 to an area South of Trelew called Punto Tombo.  Years ago, a private land owner donated 17 km of beach-front penguin nesting grounds to the Argentine government in exchange for exclusive rights to have the only souvenir shop and restaurant near the park.  Around the whole area there were an estimated 2 million Magellin Penguins between mating pairs with 2 babies each and molting 1 and 2 year olds.

The park was basically a stone path thru the nesting grounds.  We were told to give way to the Penguins crossing the walkway because most of them were on their way back to the nest to feed the chicks.  You had to be careful that you didn’t step on any of them…  We were on a 1.5 km section of the beach where about 20,000 pengiun pairs were nesting with their chicks – so there were around 80K penguins in the “human” part of the preserve.

DOLPHINS

We headed back to Trelew and over to the coast to catch a boat to see Commerson’s Dolphins (also called Panda Dolphins).  These dolphins are small.  About 50lbs and 4.5 ft long on average.  Our guide stressed that we should remember that there was always a chance that we may not see them.  Shortly thereafter, we ran into a pod of about 20 of them ziping between out boat and another boat.  They were so fast that you had to film using video.  Even people with SLR’s could not get any good still images in the limited time we had.

Here’s my best video, again proving the value of having a waterproof camera – as no-one else dared to hold their camera under the bow of the boat.

…and another video of the dolphins breaching the water between the boats:

DRAGONS

After the penguins, we went to the city of Gaimen for Welsh tea.  Thus, the Welsh dragon.  This area was settled by Welsh immigrants back in the late 1800′s.  They planted trees in the barren plateau and irrigated the land to make farming possible. Everyone on our bus went to a very quaint Welsh tea house and enjoyed some bitter tea with what seemed to be an endless supply of pastries.

The lemon tort was the best, followed by a banana cream cake.  Plum sauce was a close third, with the raspberry/fig sauce not far behind.  The tea was not my favorite (I’m not a tea drinker anyway), but if you loaded it up with enough cream and sugar it became palatable.

RETURN TRIP

On the way back, we descended a hill where you could see how straight and far the road was – as well as how barren the landscape is.

We got back to the hostel around 8 PM – just in time for the dinner the staff had prepared – barbecued beef, pork and prawns, plus a good selection of local wines for about $12. There was also a featherweight boxing match for the championship belt being held about 3 km away from the hostel.  The main event was at midnight where an American challenger took on the Argentinean champ.  A number of us thought about going, but it was free on TV and we were having too much fun already, so we watched it on the tube.  The Argentinean won, making the hostel staff so happy that they neglected to collect money from anyone.

FYI, $12 is about what a bed in the dorm costs, and I’ve been lucky enough to be in a small 2 bed addition to an 8 bed room – without a roommate.  Aside from the tours, you can easily live on about $35 a day here.  Day long tours are about $50, but it’s worth it to see the animals in the wild.