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We awoke and it was so cloudy and foggy outside that you could not see down the valley - however it slowly cleared to reveal snow on the hill tops where it must have been really cold.
Today was a travelling day - however our car to the airport was not leaving until 1145 so we had a relaxing morning.
The driver took us via the shores of Lake Argentinas to show us the birdlife and say that in the winter it was frozen and people skate on it.
The flight was delayed by 45 minutes but eventually we took off for Trelew where we collected and taken the two and a half hours to Estancia Rincon Chico on the Peninsula Valdez.
There was miles and miles of low thorny scrub that's almost desert due to being in the lee of the Andes - it can only support 4 million + sheep and a few hundred thousand people.
Enroute we stopped at the excellent and very informative Peninsular Valdes visitor centre to look at the exhibits and have a coffee.
For the next hour or so we got to see some of the Patagonian wildlife - guanacos, lesser rheas, crested tinamou - partridge type birds crossing the road in suicide fashion- burrowing owls ( today's photo) and the endemic mara - a cross between a hare, kangaroo and an antelope but actually related to the guinea pig and the size of a slimline capybara! ( see Saturday's photo 20/12/14)
Finally at about 7.30pm we arrived at Ricon Chico a working ranch with 5000 merino sheep and lots of terrestrial and marine patagonian wildlife.
We arrived as the internet and generator were switched on which is once per day from 1930 to 2300. This allowed me to sort out a few emails and send a few xmas cards.
Dinner was a convivial affair with a German couple and a Dutch lawyer who was having a 3 month break travelling with his wife, solo, with a friend and finally meeting all the family for xmas in Quito followed by a trip to the Galapagos islands.
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