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Puerto Madryn is a major fishing port on the eastern coast of argentina. Although it is a relatively non descript town itself it is surrounded by places where you can see sealions, penguins and whales and the most important of these places is the reserve of peninsula valdes. After our 24 hour bus journey we had a little walk and booked ourselves a tour to penninsula valdes, again leaving very early the next day. From feb til april the sealions have cubs with them on the shore which attracts the orcas, who come on to the beach and snatch off the baby sealions almost beaching themselves in the process. We got to the sealion colony just at the end of high tide, which is when the orcas approach the shore so would have been very lucky to see an orca but we got to see the baby sealions at play. There are hundreds of them lining the beach and sunning themselves making some very peculiar sounds as the mothers call to their pups. A little further down the coast is an elephant seal colony, and where as sealions move lots and play, because elephant seals are so heavy the just lay their, occasionally moving an inch or two. They were a little further out so we didnt stay too long. In between the seals and sealions is a penguin colony where the penguins are almost in touching distance as they hide in little coves in the cliff face. Some of them were changing feathers so looked very scruffy and forlorn. Our last stop of the day was the only town on the penninsula which is often the base of whale tours but as it was not whaling season we headed off on an extremely rocky boat to another sealion colony. This time we got a lot closer to the animals and were able to watch them diving off the rocks and playing in the water. The pups were only a couple of months old and so cute as the waddled along the rocks playing with each other. We decided to brave the water and go snorkeling a little along from the sealions. After we donned our wetsuits we somehow forced ourselves into the water and almost froze on the spot. It was so cold it was hard to breathe and we were wondering if it were worth it after all we had been able to see were a few crabs. So we headed back to dry off slightly disappointed with the day as we had not got to see the orcas.
The next day we hired some bikes and headed up the dirt tracks to another sea lion colony 15kms away. We quickly discovered that its not very easy to cycle through sand as our bikes came to frequent abrupt halts and decided to find easier paths on the deserted dirt track road instead. It was a fairly brutal cycle in the intense heat without any breeze and we devoured our 2litres of water before we made it to the colony. On the way we saw a ship wreck and got some nice fews of the town behind us. We spent a little time at the colony where the sealions are forced into the water more as the bay is quite small, before we headed back. A lot of the way back was downhill so not so painful and didnt take us nearly as long to get back. We stopped off at the ecocentre to learn a bit more about the wildlife before getting back to the town. We werent sure what to do with our last day but got talking to a dutch girl with whom we decided to hire a car and give it one last try to see the orcas before heading of to bariloche the next day.
We had to be at the beach at 8am, and with a 2 hour drive that meant another early start. We got to see sunrise over the penninsula and had fun beeping our horns to get the sheep and guanacos off the road. Most of the way is a dust trak which took some getting used to especially when you got engulfed in dust by the other cars but we finally made it there. We sat watching the sealions with our fingers and toes crossed but as time passed we got less and less confident and after almost 5 hours we decided to call it a day and head back as we all had buses to catch later on. It was really disappointing but it had been nice sitting in the sun watching the sealions play. So we finished off our packing and headed to our next night bus back into the west of argentina to Bariloche
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