Backpacking South America

We’ve finally made it to Mendoza, the original inspiration for our trip.  While it is a city full of opportunities, it has always been quite an adjustment for us.

After a 24 hour bus ride from Puerto Madryn, we arrived to a pretty bustling city.  Mendoza is the fourth largest city in Argentina, with 130,000 in the city, and 850,000 in the greater metropolitan area.  That seems like a lot of people, but it doesn’t feel like a lot or people.  It’s a drastic change from Buenos Aires and it took us pretty much an entire week to adjust and begin to appreciate all this city has to offer.

A Smaller City

Not as many people take the colectivo (aka – the bus), but they also have a card that you can charge up, unlike Buenso Aires  (moneda not needed).  However, if you do use moneda to take the bus, please note: you will not get change.  Many people have cars and where they park them is called the “Playa,” not to be confused with the “Beach.”

Everybody Eats Ice Cream…All the Time

If  you can’t beat ‘em – join ‘em.

So, we don’t actally have any Welsh roots, but we did spend some time in Trelew and Gaiman, two of the original welsh settlements in Argentina.

Cawsom hwyl!

Puerto Madryn is a quiet little town.  It’s touristy for the wildlife it offers, but there isn’t a whole lot to do there.  There is an ecological museum, which we visited and was very informative and then there’s the beach, which on a beautiful summer day is probably pretty amazing.  It’s a huge beach.  We’ve been told that a lot of Chileans come here in the summer because the water is warmer.  We had one day where it was pretty windy and cold – that was the day we decided to walk to the eco-center (abt. 3 miles, and back) – why?  Puerto Madryn is also pretty famous for the Aluminum Plant located just outside the town, which was installed in 1971.  Prior to the Aluminum Plant there were roughly 6,000 inhabitants in this quiet beach town.  Now, the Aluminum Plant has brought over 80,000 inhabitants and is the leading producing of aluminum and largest factory in Argentina.  (Colin Powell used to be an owner.)   We ended up only staying in Puerto Madryn for 3 days. 

After that it was time to move on.  So, we caught a bus to Trelew, which is one of the little Welsh communities, about an hour from Puerto Madryn.  We stayed for a night in this old hotel, The Touring Club, which has been there for many years and is probably a trademark of the town.  It was always pretty busy in there too.  While there, we visited several museums, primarily they have a pretty decent museum of paleontology.  They have an old Community Center, which is now used for Bingo, but unfortunately it wasn’t open the day we were there.  The night we were there we had an amazing dinner in this Old Mill.  Jared had a steak in a Malbec reduction sauce and Carra took the prize with a steak with a Roquefort sauce and grilled pears. 

We considered going back to Trelew just for dinner there again.  From here, we caught our ride to Punta Tombo to visit the largest colony of penguins anywhere.

As we were planning our trip, we were really excited to visit Punta Tombo, a fauna reserve created to protect the unique fauna of the area and the largest colony of Magellanic penguins.  Every year, 200,000 couples of penguins arrive to have a baby and hang out.  So that means, at the peak, there are 600,000 penguins (400K moms and dads, and 200K babies).  When we visited, the males were onsite and the females were arriving.

We left Puerto Madryn for Trelew, only about an hour bus ride away and one of the first cities in Argentina to be settled by the Welsh.  From Trelew, we scheduled an excursion to Punta Tombo, which is about an hour and half drive from Trelew.  We made our reservations in English, our voucher said to be ready by 8:00 and the woman who made our reservation reiterated to be ready by 8:00.  We were ready by 8:00.  We waited, we waited…and we waited.  It was 8:30, which we thought wasn’t so strange because from our experience in Buenos Aires, no one is ever on time here.  Jared went to call the office just to double check that they didn’t forget us.  Their response was, no you should be ready by 9:00.  Oh, right.  Soon after that phone call, a man shows up to pick us up.  It was just us.  He chauffeured us around that day.  There was no one else.  So, we wondered if we were the only people who signed up for this tour or if they did actually forget us.  Regardless, off we went.  It was good Spanish practice.

After being amazed from the shores of Puerto Madryn, we were really excited for our tour of Península Valdés the following day.  We left at 7:30am and had a full itinerary which promised to get us up close to the Southern Right Whales, Elephant Seals, Penguins and some land animals as well.    

Our first stop on the tour was one of the more impressive sights; mom’s teaching their babies to swim only 50 yards from the shoreline.  It was so close that you could hear them exhale.  After standing in awe and snapping countless photographs, it was back on the bus. 

The video below gets interesting at about 50 seconds… so be patient.

Our next stop was the park entrance and interpretive center.  We came to find out that if you are an Argentinean, the entrance fee is AR$14, if you’re not, it’s AR$45… So, we had to bite the bullet.

Science Lesson – Skip if you’re not interested and want to see the pictures…

 At the visitor center was a lookout tower where you could see two separate bodies of water.  These two gulfs receive currents from 2 different sources, one comes in from the north and is warm, the other from the south at it is quite cold.  Where the two converge, there is an abundant source of life in the water, which is why so many marine animals make a lengthy stay around Península Valdés. 

After the interpretive center, we spent an hour driving through the middle of the peninsula.  As we have come to realize, the majority of Argentina is extremely, incredibly, unbelievably flat with next to zero inhabitants.  On our bus ride south from Buenos Aires, we would drive for an hour without seeing a house or any sign of life aside from green shrubs and sheep.  This was the same on Península Valdés. 

Elephant Seals

When we were finally on the Atlantic coast of the peninsula, we scrambled down a cliff to walk near the beach to observe the elephant seals.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the males fight for their women.  The male elephant bull seals fight for the female seals, when they win, the female is theirs.  The objective is to collect as many females as possible.

We decided we needed to take a break from our vacation and studies to explore a different part of Argentina.  After studying Spanish in Buenos Aires for 4 weeks, our heads felt like they were about to explode.  We decided it was the perfect opportunity to hit the shore and enjoy some wildlife. 

So we headed south (way south) to visit Península Valdés, a hotspot for seeing whales, elephant seals and penguins.  After an 18 hour bus ride, (our first and surprisingly comfortable bus ride), we arrived in Puerto Madryn, which is the closest town to the Peninsula.  The main attractions are the Southern Right Whales, which arrive in September to raise their babies in the waters in and around Península Valdés.   The whales are so close to the shore, that you can see them swimming, jumping and teaching their young how to swim from the shoreline.   It was one of the most amazing experiences. 

On the day we arrived, we took a stroll along the boardwalk and Carra said, “Do you think you can see whales from here?  I think I just saw one spray water.”  To which, Jared replied, “I doubt it, it’s so choppy and the whales are pretty far out.”  “Oh.”

So, we kept walking, it was a perfectly clear, but slightly cool day with a strong wind blowing off the water.  As we were walking, we found this amazing little hotdog stand with an indoor seating area that served super ponchos (which is actually two hot dogs) and fries (which were the best fries we’ve had so far – kind of like McDonald’s – perfectly salted) and soft serve twist ice-cream of vanilla and dulce de leche, of course.  We’ll save a dulce de leche post for another day, but to say the least, it is a national passion.  Regardless, it was a great little restaurant. 

Jared saw a whale.

Mmm...Super Pancho, Fries & 2 Cokes for $3.50.

It's a family trait.

As we were sitting eating our lunch, Jared said, “I think I just saw a whale.  I didn’t think you would be able to see them from the shore.”  Just another time that Jared dismisses what Carra says only to find out she was right…

Our reason for heading to Puerto Madryn and Península Valdés was that at this time of year the mothers bring in their young to teach them how to swim before migrating to the Antarctica.  We enjoyed watching the show from the shore.  It was so neat to see the mama’s tale flip up out of the water, and then you would see this smaller tale come out.  Or you would see a big fin come out, then a tiny little fin.  It was really unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. 

But it didn’t compare to what we saw the next day from Península Valdés– stay tuned for our next post…