The first shock of stepping off the bus from Patagonia is....the temperature !! I realise I have not been properly warm since leaving Valparaiso (over 2 long months before), it feels very strange...
Puerto Madryn is another of those Argentinian towns founded by the Welsh, I spot a few unusual Celtic-skinned locals down on the beach. It´s very dry and deserty here, not what I expected. It´s main attraction is "Peninsular Valdez", it´s particularly famous because this is the only place in the world where (at the right time of year, this is not it) Orca´s will "rush the beach", swim up it at speed and take unwary Seals straight off it (for their lunch...). There is a well known clip of this in "Blue Planet" (I had just assumed that it was in Antarctica, or some such, but, no).
I cycle 20km out to one of the whale spotting beaches. I sit and wait for 4 hours, staring at the sea, and see absolutely nothing. By the early evening I give up and cycle back up the nearest headland. I look back one last time and there is a Southern Right Whale and her Calf, frolicking in the sea, only just off the beach, exactly where I had been sitting ! NUTS !!!
The day after that I put up a notice in the hostel, I want to share a hire car and drive all around Peninsular Valdez. I find four 19 year old German backpackers who are too young to hire a car themselves, perfect ! except they are all tall, it´s going to be cheap, but a bit of a squeeze.
Somewhat unusually the hire company transacts a $2000 deposit payment straight off my credit card, this helps me stay focused ! It´s pretty easy to slide on ripio.
The hostel guy says the Park Entrance is not manned until 6am. So we leave at 5am (not easy...) and get to the Park Entrance at 05.40, a sleepy face pops-up at the booth ! Crapola ! We are each relieved of a hefty 18 bucks entrance fee. This was my idea (getting up at 04.30am for no purpose), and it pushes German humour to it´s limits....
Peninsular Valdez is very hot and very dusty (over 400km of gravel road). There is really nothing there except the odd wildlife in various spots, mainly penguins and sealions, some elephant seals, all in the distance, Fauna no Flora. It was a long hot day, we were all a bit disappointed really, but our day was comprehensively saved by a fab sighting in the evening. I wanted to go back to the same beach I was at before (outside the park). And sure enough, there was a Southern Right Whale and Calf, frolicking, just 7-10 metres off the beach. Incredible ! we were all mesmerised for a good couple of hours, the magnificent size of these beasts. We got back to Puerto Madryn in the black dark at 5 mins to 10pm, just in time to return the car and secure my deposit. It was soured slightly when I realised I´d left my mini-binoculars somewhere in the park...doh !
 |
| Not a sandbank ! an adult Southern Right Whale and Calf (calf not visible) |
No comments:
Post a Comment