The Blaus - South America and Europe

24 del Enero - Patagonia - Punta Tombo

Yesterday we woke up at 6:30am to go on a tour to see a magellanic penguin colony, as well as some uniquely-colored dolphins and a Welsh village. As we were eating breakfast in our guest house, we looked out the window and watched groups of kids walking past us. At first we were not sure what they were doing awake at that hour, but then it struck us, they were all coming home from the clubs. The clubs open at 2am, and most people stay until 7am. It was really interesting to see all the kids coming home after a long night. They did not appear to be drunk, stumbling home, or bleary eyed from being up all night, they just looked like normal kids walking down the street. It was a different picture from what we might see at home under the same circumstances. The 7am crowd is much more civilized here. I think the youth here live a pretty spoiled life. Nobody seems to care that they party all night, and sleep all day. And all the Argentines seem to take at least a month off every summer to lead this luxurious life.

Anyway, after watching the first part of the tour from our guest house (the Argentine party colony going back to their dwellings), we headed out to Punta Tombo, which is about 2.5 hours south of Puerto Madryn. We arrived in Punta Tombo to see an enormous penguin colony, there are over 800,000 penguins there this time of year. We were allowed to walk among them, and it was really fun to see them up-close. Their colony is like a village in which each male has his own home, a hole in the ground covered by a scraggly bush or tree, and there are trails in certain places (like highways) where they exit and enter the ocean to fish for food. We followed one male home after he exited the ocean. We just walked behind him as he waddled for about 500 meters down the paths, and finally he got to his home. When he walked up, he had two young babies that started crowing when they saw him, and he stood tall and let out a huge yell of a bird call, and the family all gathered together. He then fed the children by regurgitating his catch from the day. The parents usually go fishing for 2 to 6 days, and then return to feed the children. We considered him our friend after the experience. Our bus driver kept talking about his amigo, the penguin that he sees every year in the same place, named 26883 (after the tag on his arm, they track some of the penguins year round to learn more about their migration patterns). We thought that sounded strange, but now we understand the relationship, they are very friendly little guys. They are comfortable around people, because some of them have been in contact with tourists since they hatched. These penguinos are only found in the southern hemisphere and they swim to Brazil every year when they are finished mating and raising their young.

After that we jumped on a boat to go look for some dolphins that inhabit the waters here. They are strikingly colored black and white in a pattern that is not like any dolphin we´ve ever seen before. It was rainy and very windy and choppy on the water, but overall a fun trip, and we did see some of the dolphins playfully swimming under and around the boat. We departed from the harbor and went to a small Welsh Village nearby called Gaiman. The Welsh came over to Argentina in the 1850´s to start their own country, but the Argentine government was very welcoming, so they just settled and became Argentines. The village was old and very quaint, and we had a traditional afternoon tea Welsh style. Our visit to Gaiman was like being in a different country for an hour or so. On the way home we discussed the biology of the animals we had seen with the bus driver, who continually asked us if anyone on the bus was a biologist, we think he was making a lot of stuff up and didn´t want to get caught. He did tell us a funny story about how they have named some of the sea lions with the biggest harems, his favorite being Julio Iglesias. He also told Billy that he need only know three words in Spanish, cerveza, lomo, y mujeres (beer, beef and women).

We finally met some fellow backpackers from the US and England on this tour. It was great to exchange traveling tips and stories with them.

The whole day was about 13 hours, so when we got home and had some food, we went to sleep.

posted by The Blaus @ 1:19 PM