P P P P P Pick Up a Penguin:

Mar del plata has been and past, it was a nice coastal town with some
killer waves for those who concern themselves with standing atop of

them on an old door! Other than that and a large casino the town
didn't really hold much for the imagination! Plus the hostel we stayed
in was straight out of the 80's, complete with woodchip, and tabacco
stained ceilings!

Now we are in puerto madryn, on the edge of Patagonia, and a place
where some welsh settles made home in the 1700's I think! Some of the
place names, buildings, and the vast number of sheep, could place us
anywhere in Wales except for the good weather!  Conveniently the first
settlers built their town at the top of a cliff, make of it what you
will, but as the old tale goes "the sheep push back harder"

Well onto our main reason for stopping in puerto madryn! the coast
here has become home for many forms of sea life, and a visit to the
nearby peninsula valdes gave us an up close and personal view of some
of the animals. First stop on our tour was caleta, to get up close and
personal in the mating grounds of the penguins, we where able to get
an arms length away from the penguins, who are currently protecting
their young, so much so that every passing bird was treated to a
chorus of penguin calls! We then moved a little along the coast to a
beach containing miles of elephant seals, due to the time of year we
just got to see them lying basking in the sun, occasionally doing
their own version of the worm to get to a new position! Our final
point on the trip was to Puerto piriamides, here we boarded a boat out
into nueva golfo, to get to see some whales, after travelling for

about 20 minutes we got our first sight of these massive creatures,
from about 200m, we then got a little closer to a mother and calf who
seemed really serene and unfazed by the presence of the boat, we
watched these for a good 20mins, as we thought we where heading back
to shore we caught a glimpse of a larger calf jumping in front of
another boat, it was great to see but a little disappointing it wasn't
infront of us! Finally we got a confident pair near our boat, who
seemed to want the attention splashing their tails, and generally
horse playing with one another! So we went home happy!

With all the goings on with the penguins and whales, it was easy to
forget we had seen free roaming ostriches, llamas, and grey foxes!
Unfortunately we are a little early in the season for seeing orcas but
we might have missed the other whales had we waited till later in the
month!

One disappointment we have had, was building ourselves upto see Harry
potter! The girl in the hostel was adamant it would be in English with
subtitles, but imagine our disdain when we got to the cinema to be
told it was in Spanish! We had been and bought sweets and everything!

Now our plan is to head south, and take in the wonders of the
glaciers! So a 17hr bus ride to look forward to on Sunday! And then a
4 hr one straight after!