Well, I am now into the last 10 days of my year-long adventure, it’s crazy how time flies! So… since the very beginning of my trip I had been looking forward to seeing the whales and their calves in Argentina during their breeding season. And finally the time came when i arrived in Puerto Madryn, hoping these gigantic mammals had not yet migrated to Antarctica.
One of the whales breaching, it was absolutely spectacular to watch.
Oh my god, the whales are a jumping!
I was INCREDIBLY lucky with the boat tour I went on to see the whales as they put on quite a performance for me! Sitting in just an oversized rubber boat, we headed off the coast in search of the whales, with our ‘whale-spotter’ Carlos at the helm. At first we were simply awed when the whales swam alongside the boat. There were lots of mothers and babies, we even saw a white calf, with there only being 7 white babies out of the 184 calves born that year, we were rather lucky to spot the albino-looking whale. At one stage the calf even swam right underneath our boat! However, apparently they are incredibly accurate with their positioning so our guide assured us we were not in danger of being upended into the ocean by the whale choosing to come up for breath underneath us!
Here is a shot of the whale close up to the boat, without any zoom at all, getting a bit close for comfort!
But, then the whales really turned it on and decided to bring out the big guns for a spectacular finale … it was simply breathtaking and hard to describe in words when one of the whales started breaching (jumping)! The guides we had on our boat were so skilful with the whales spotting that they even knew exactly where the next jump would be, and we watched in joy and ooh-ed and arr-ed as the whale hauled its mammoth 100 tonnes of body weight right out of the water and dived gracefully back under, producing a thunderous crashing noise and a massive great splash as it re-entered the water and then flipped its picture perfect tail at us before preparing itself for the next jump! This went on and on for minutes at a time, while we waited with baited breath for the next spectacular jump. Even the guides said it was one of the best performances they’ve seen!
This time I got the whale about to dive back in after hauling its 100 tonne body out of the water.
The whales we were watching are southern right whales, which are mostly black in the body and each whale can be identified from its individual callosities or formations of crustaceans on its body. They are absolutely massive and, an interesting fact I learnt that may be of use in a trivia quiz at some point … apparently the male southern right whale has the largest testicles of any animal, with each one weighing a massive 500kg!! Needless to say, we didn’t want to get too close to one of these jumping beauties, and at one stage Carlos, the driver, thought we were getting a bit too close for comfort … so without any warning whatsoever, he suddenly spun the boat right around and out of the path of the breaching whale, not worrying at all that I was standing up on the seat at the time, with camera poised, and nearly ended up in the sea with the whales!
Hanging out in Puerto Piramides
Anyway, the whales jumped numerous times and it was simply magical. Definitely a highlight of my trip without a doubt. It proved to be a great decision to stay the night at a hostel on the peninsula, meaning that we had a night and the next day to chill out and absorb how wonderful our whale-watching
I had to admit defeat to Hannah as she ‘out-aqua-ed’ me as you can see in this photo!
experience really was! And even better that I was joined by Hannah and Fran, some hilarious English girls I met in Puerto Piramides, and we had a ‘whale of a time’ sharing travel stories over a glass of vino or two.
I was also fortunate to meet up again with Robyn and Cedric (i’ll refer you back to my previous blogs where we’ve been hanging out) and I was able to join Robyn in celebrating her birthday after we luckily met up in Puerto Piramides. We went to a great restaurant, actually we went to the same place a number of times as it was only a small town, and caught up on what we’d each been doing since we parted in Torres Del Payne National Park. All in all, the five of us had a fantastic night and enjoyed many a laugh.
Having a drink with Robyn for her birthday after we had a lucky meet up in Puerto Piramides
Sea lions, curtain rods and missing shoes …
The tour we took also drove us around the peninsula where we saw colonies of sea lions and fur seals, as well as penguins. These were all lovely, however the whales were definitely the highlight of the day. I also managed to incense the bus driver a little (or maybe a lot) as I unfortunately ripped the curtain rod out of the wall of the bus after mistaking it for a handrail …. he wasn’t very pleased with me and this might also explain how magically one of my hiking boots ‘disappeared’ off the bus from under my seat (obviously situated next to the broken curtain rail) … hmmmm … well he managed to get me back by stealing my shoe, if it was his grand revenge!! Guess it’s an excuse to replace my boots that were barely hanging together after all the recent trekking.
As the driver at the time, I was faced with the dilemna of what to do as we approached the roadworks … normally for traffic control there are red and green signs or lights for indication … but not in Argentina. So, does a guy standing on the road madly waving a non-descript orange flag up and down mean for me to go or to stop? I decided to keep driving… then he changes from waving it up and down to waving it from side-to-side, what do I do now? Is that a different signal or is his arm getting tired? I decided to keep driving (egged on by the backseat drivers of course!) … Then, suddenly and just when it looked like I was almost through, I see cars coming in the opposite direction, and there’s just one lane for both of us, what the hell was happening now? It was like we were on a computer game with obstacles flying from every direction and all at full speed … it was confusing but absolutely hilarious. When we made it through the kilometre of chaos, with only a minimal offroad diversion, there was a lot of cheering in
A Road Trip to Remember
The next day, Hannah, Fran, Neil (our latest recruit!) and I hired a car and headed down the coast on a very memorable road trip in search of the 400,000+ Magellanic penguins that inhabit Punto Tombo, just south of Puerto Madryn. Actually just getting to the penguins was about as entertaining as the penguins themselves as the Argentinian roadworks employees entertained us with their skilful range of flag-waving skills, that had absolutely zero indication of the required action for the driver! I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard in my life and I was probably a danger in my hysterical condition!
A male penguin keeping guard over the nest in Punto Tombo… you can see the baby sleeping in the nest.
Penguins every which way
So after a couple of hours of driving we finally arrived at the penguins. This colony, as I mentioned above is home to over 400,000 Magellanic penguins and rather than living in the snow or by the water as I had previously assumed, they make their nests for the young by digging holes in a rather barren and desolate area of land, in some places nearly a kilometre from the ocean. We saw so many penguins that in the end I had finally had enough of taking their photos, as cute as they are, especially the babies that were learning to swim at the time!
A pinguino as they are known in spanish
When we got back to our state of the art hire car, a GOL, not to be confused with its higher quality cousin, the GOLF … we found that none of the doors could be opened, not even using the rather strange techniques demonstrated by the car rental guy as were we leaving! So Hannah ended up having to climb into the car through the boot, much to the amusement of an old Argentinian couple having a picnic just a few metres away, who I’m sure were convinced we were stealing cars and sandwiches …
Tea and cakes in a welsh village anyone?
On our way back to Puerto Madryn, we of course made the obligatory stop to a little town called Gaiman (pronounced ‘gay-man’), an old welsh settlement famous for high-tea. So, after we’d finished with ‘the only gay man in the village’ jokes, we found a suitable welsh tea house and settled in for a cup of tea and a sugar rush. We had a little taster plate of about five or six different types of cake, although the apple pie was definitely my favourite. As well as a massive pot of tea for the table, complete with a knitted tea cosy. All in all, it was very quaint indeed and a lovely finish to our day.
With the girls outside the welsh tea house we visited in Gaiman (pronounced ‘Gay-man’!)
Sadly, this was the end of my time with Hannah, Fran and Neil and that night we all parted company as we boarded our respective buses. The girls however had given me a great tip for a relaxing place to spend my next and ultimate few days, so I’m heading back to Chile … involving two nights on a bus and 40 hours door-to-door of travel … but that’s for my next blog. Hasta luego, Tamara
The first penguin give way sign I’ve seen!
Our first sighting of the whales in Puerto Piramides. This is the mother southern-right whale swimming by the boat.
No, it’s not an albino whale, but it is still unusual to see the white baby, so we had a lucky day indeed
Here is the baby whale swimming underneath the boat
When the whale dived back into the water it produced a massive splash and deafening crash!
Here is the tail shot with the pyramid type landscape in the background, hence the name of the little town built nearby
With Hannah, Fran and Neil on the whale-watching boat
I’d never seen one of these crazy creatures before!
A couple of the 400,000+ penguin colony in Punto Tombo
There were penguins and their nests everywhere on the walk through the national park in Punto Tombo
More of the penguin colony we walked through in Punto Tombo
One of the penguins having a bit of a rest
In the background you can see the penguins on the beach. The mothers were teaching the babies to swim!
Enjoying our high tea of a selection of cakes and tea of course!
Our perfect high-tea complete with the knitted teapot cosy! I hadn’t seen one of those for years!
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