Welcome to Puerto Madryn - a beautiful Welsh seaside town on the South Atlantic ocean. Yes, we did write Welsh because it was Welsh settlers who first founded Puerto Madryn and settled here in 1865;
Welsh is still spoken in places, Rugby is widely played and bizarrely there are Welsh tearooms and museums dotted throughout the town. As a selling point this wasn't huge for us as Stroud where Beth is from is only a couple of hours from Wales anyway! It was the wildlife however that pulled us and a few other backpackers to the area; braving the winter-low season to see the Patagonian wildlife.
On the first day, we visited the
EcoCentre in Puetro Madryn to learn a little more about the wildlife of the area which, due to it's close proximity to the Antartic, is famous for colonies of
Penguins, Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, Killer Whales and Southern Right Whales. We walked the 3 miles back to the hostel along the beach which, with the weather and culture, could have easily been Bangor! The whales had come into the bay and we watched them from the shore until the sea turned pink with the sunset. The sounds of the whales venting water and slapping their fins against the ocean competed with the noise of the waves crashing on the sand and we could barely wait for whale watching by boat.
The following morning,
our trip took as to the mouth of Peninsula Valdes which is the area where most of the wildlife can be viewed and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Our first stop was Puerto Piramides where we spent two hours watching the whales swimming next to the boat. Despite being winter and out of season for most of the animals, it is mating season for the whales and the best time to see them in Patagonia. We saw two whales swimming together and one was over 12 metres long!
Seeing these huge mammals so close to the boat was amazing; they look like they belong on another planet as they are so different from anything we've ever seen before. Watching them dive and seeing their enormous fins sticking from the water (see
movie clip - 2.9MB) was a truly incredible sight and the whole boat was 'oohing and ahhing' as loud as on fireworks night!
Unfortunately we are out-of-season to see the penguins waddling around on land, but we did see some in the sea...although they do loose some of their comedy value when they are swimming!
From here we went to Caleta Valdes, a beach that in high season is normally full of sea lions and sea elephants mating and fighting. As it was winter, we saw only a few baby sea elephants sleeping on the beach who, to be honest, just looked dead as they didn't move at all as we observed them. They were so cute though and incredibly fat - you just wanted to go and cuddle up to them! The area itself offers a lot of protection from the winds for the seals as the coast is always growing due to depositing soil - the land formations as a result are spectacular and worth seeing on their own.
The following morning we hired mountain bikes and cycled the 34km trip (Steve's bum still bears the marks) to Punta Lomas where Sea Lions can be seen all year round. Fortunately the roads were flat and we could have been in Norfolk if it hadn't been for the coastline! The sea lions were worth the effort - there were about 200 of them either snuggled together, swimming or feeding their pups. The big male sea lions were incredible at 2 metres long and with their characteristic roars they scared the living daylight out of us observing from the safety of the viewpoint!
If we had time we would head down to the Glaciers in the far south and wait for September when the Penguins and Orcas come into season. Unfortunately neither time or budget permits and we head to Buenos Aires on Monday for our final 5 days in South America (sob).
Too see more photos from our time in Puerto Madryn, visit 'world travel' section above and click on 'pictures' or alternatively
click here
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