Puerta Madryn

The Welsh were the first Europeans to inhabit this area of Patagonia and consequently, many of the family names and road names are Williams, Jones and Roberts, although the Argentinians don’t pronounce them the same way as the English, or Welsh for that matter, do, as we found out on the taxi rides we took to get to the apartment.

The reason most people, us included, come here is for the wildlife.  The Southern Right Whale uses the deep bays to give birth and mate before travelling all the way up north, following the food.  There are also breeding colonies of Sea-lions, Elephant Seals and Magellan Penguins.  These areas are well protected so that the eco tourist can see the wildlife but cannot get near enough to interfere or worry the creatures.  There are also miles of sandy beach for human recreation.  The main roads are paved but many of the side roads are not, giving it a feel of a frontier town.  If you can find a spot in the sun and out of the wind it is really hot, but the wind (it always seem to be windy here) can have a really cold bite.

We arrived here bang on schedule at 09:05.  The double-decker bus was very comfortable with deep padded leather seats that reclined to 45 degrees, and a good amount of leg room, but after 20 hours we were more than happy to get off.  They fed us three times during the twenty hours and I have to say the food was worse than aeroplane tucker.    We did have an amazing view of scenery that was much the same the whole way – flat scrubland.

Our apartment is on the south side of town; about a 30 min walk along the beach to get to the centre.  At the north end, the town has a museum about Man and the Sea which, it just so happens, has free entry on Tuesdays.  It’s a lovely little building on four floors with a tower at the top giving views over the whole town.  We enjoyed the hour it took to go round and when we came out we sat on a rock in the garden to eat an apple and have a smoke.  Very soon after sitting down a black dog came sniffing around.  At first we were a bit wary (rabies), but gradually this dog befriended us and we were both stroking it.  Before we had finished he was laying at my feet as if he’d lived with us all his life.  When we got up to go he started barking at us as if to say I’m with you guys, OK. And he was.  He’d walk a bit in front then stop and look round at us, trot back to touch base, then trot on again as if we were taking him for a walk.  He kept with us as we walked through the town, crossing the road whenever we did.

The buses here run on the same basis as in BA, ie: cards or coins and Paul and I stopped off at a shop to buy a card, when we came out the dog was gone and we breathed a sigh of relief.  But just after we had crossed the next road, the dog came bounding up behind us and as he reached my side his nose nudged my hand.  The dog had clearly adopted us and we both felt really bad.  We couldn’t look after him for very obvious reasons.  He also had a very bad habit of chasing cars and I cringed every time he nearly caught one – this being the middle of town, there were a lot of cars to chase.  As we waited at the bus stop he was particularly active in the chase, but eventually he came to rest, again at our feet.  As I got on the bus I have mixed feelings of guilt – I had abandoned him, and relief – he can’t follow us back to the apartment.  Since that first day, we have come across quite a few stray dogs, luckily all seemed friendly and well behaved.  One joined us on the terrace of a restaurant one evening so I fed him our leftovers.

We spent most of Wednesday walking south along the beach to another museum, again very small but well worth a visit.  It is also about the marine life of this area and there are a couple of rooms dedicated to the whale.  In one there are six TV screens that are like portholes and are designed to make it look like whales are just swimming past.  To get to the next room you have to walk through a tunnel of suspended ropes, giving the impression of being a piece of krill going into the whale’s mouth.  On the other side, the room is dark and filled with whale song – a weird but interesting experience.

Thursday we hired bikes and rode seventeen gruelling kms (10 on them over unpaved roads – mostly up-hill with the wind in our faces)  to see the colony of sea-lions.  Luckily we both had a monocular because the nearest the humans get to them is the top of the cliff, but there was one particular male who kept us very entertained.  Paul noticed him first, a huge great male on top of a tiny female.  Every now and then his pelvic thrusts indicated copulation.  But then they would shuffle around on the shingle with the females head barely showing between his front flippers and the pelvic thrusts would start again.  Paul hypothesized that as this was the beginning of the season he could well be a youngster that hasn’t quite go the hang of it yet.  If that is the case he will have to be a better fighter than a lover if he is to keep his spot on the beach and the harem that goes with it.  As well as the first viewing platform there is a walkway that takes you out to a bit of a point.  When we followed this path, as we got to the end, I saw something that looked suspiciously like a dorsal fin break the surface of the waves.  After a bit of patient searching we got a better view.  It was not a dorsal fin but a mother and baby Southern Right Whale.  So all the pain was worth it – although I’m still a bit saddle-sore three days later.

Raymondo, our host and owner of Edymar Apartments, a very cheerful and helpful person, offered on the first day to arrange an excursion to the Peninsular National Park and a boat trip into the bay to see the whales.  Each time we saw him he kept saying that the forecast said the bay would be too windy for the boats to go out and it was Friday before we actually got to go.  The mini-bus picked us up at 07:50 then trawled the town hotels to pick up the rest of the tour group.  The tour guide, Sebastian, and the driver, Ricardo, where both clearly as interested in the wildlife as the rest of the group.  Sebastian was very knowledgeable and Ricardo was good at spotting.  Every time he saw something the bus would stop, sometime reversing back, and Sebastian would explain the significance and habits of the creature.  I should have taken notes.  We saw the largest rodent in the world , commonly known as the Patagonian Hare (because it looks like  a very large hare but it is nothing to do with that family) but is actually a Maras.  We saw burrowing owls, a perriguin falcon feeding on carrion (most unusual, apparently), we saw a long-haired armadillo, emu type birds called Rhea’s (?), and Guancos – Llama type creatures that come from the camel family and lots of raptors.

We finally got to go out in the boat at about 3pm.  Southern Right Wales are known for coming up to the boats and initiating contact with the humans on board.  Not so today.  We saw about six mothers with their calfs but generally they wanted to move away from the boat and be left alone.  The boats are captained by responsible eco aware people and so the whales are not ‘harassed’ but it left us with mixed feelings as to whether we should be disturbing them at all – particularly now that I’ve ‘done that’!

Saturday and Sunday we chilled and sunbathed.  Today, Monday, we are heading further south to El Calafete to see the glaciers.  The weather will feel like we are back in England.