Wild times & Wildlife
Trip Start
Jul 04, 2009
1
60
Trip End
Jan 19, 2010
Where I stayed
Patagonia Hostel (HI)
Puerto Madryn, Argentina
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
We spent the first few days in Puerto Madryn doing absolutely nothing. We'd moved quite quickly and seen so many places over the last week that we were keen to see nothing.
On our second night, there was a group of us drinking at the hostel bar and one thing led to another, which led to new friendships, which in turn meant a huge night out. Turns out it was ladies night at one of the local clubs and walking in there was like been reborn into a party wonderland! Some clubs here stay open all night! Obviously, because of this fact, we are considering moving here. We danced for hours to the reggaeton music and before we new it it was 7am!???
We decided we'd better check out some of the wildlife that Puerto Madryn is famous for.
On our 3rd day, we took a tour down the coast to see the dolphins. It was amazing! There were dozens and dozens of them, swimming with the boat and around it, leaping out of the water and coming to the surface to look at us. It was unreal. These little Commerson's dolphins are quite a lot smaller than the Bottlenose dolphin we see at home, and are black and white in colour. Adding to the day was a huge sealion that joined us by the boat, flopping around and trying to steal the attention from the dolphins. Very cute.
After the dolphins we traveled further down the coast to visit Punta Tombo penguin colony. These penguins are the Magellanic Penguin and there are at least 500,000 penguins! At this time of the year they are nursing their chicks so we got to see lots of little baby penguins too. You can walk amongst the colony here and the penguins don't seem to be fussed at all. Actually they can be quite inquisitive. It was really incredible.
On our 4th day we caught a local bus out to Punta Piramides. First we walked 5km out of town to visit the seal colony, but the seals were quite far away so it was difficult to see them. That afternoon we went on our whale tour. It's right at the end of the season and most of the Southern Right whales and their calfs have left the bay and are heading into the Antarctic Circle to feed. But fortunately there were still a few about and we were lucky enough to get up very close to a Southern Right Whale mother and her calf. The mother was gigantic and the calf was probably around 10 meters long. At one stage they came up within 5 meters of our boat. It was magical to see them and watch their behavior.
That night, after a few drinks at the hostel bar with Gaston and Ky, we decided to hit the town again. It was saturday night after all. And Argentina is a great place to party!
