Having A Whale Of A Time
Bariloche and Puerto Madryn
11th-20th October 2011

We're getting the hang of these night buses now. The key, we've found, is to have a huge meal before you board, a bottle of wine with dinner or at least four beers, get a seat on the bottom deck at the back (away from the loo) and take your own food. Then fix the eye mask in place, select the gladiator soundtrack on the iPod, semi recline and be rocked to sleep by the motion of the bus.

I woke on the bus carrying us from Mendoza to Bariloche and the scene from the window was somewhat confusing. Hills adorned with shrubbery, lakes glistening and the ground covered in...snow? No...sand? No...ash. Ash. The ground was completely covered in it, bleaching the colour from the landscape and in the distance the dust was being whipped up into vertical tunnels giving the illusion of a dozen small smoking fires on the horizon. We had heard that there was some ash in the area from an erupting volcano in Chile but we were not quite prepared for the impact it has had on this beautiful place.

Bariloche is a medium sized town encircled by mountains and sitting ashore lake Nahuel Huapi which is one of the largest in the Argentinian lake district. On the recommendation of friends we checked into the cutest place we've stayed so far in South America. La barraca suites is a five minute walk from town and has stunning views of the lake and mountains from the sunny patio. It's very cosy with a huge fireplace, living room and immaculate kitchen. We were set to stay for four nights. Starting as we meant to go on we went to the supermarket and bought the first of many bottles of ridiculously cheap Patagonian red wine, relaxed after our journey and got slowly squiffy!

Day 43 and time to stretch the legs again. We hired bikes from the base of Cerro Campanario and cycled the 27km Circuito Chico which winds around the smaller lakes and has numerous spectacular look out points along the way. We got a bit lost, and thinking we were not very far along the route we sped up but ended up completing the hilly loop in two hours rather than the recommended four. Oops! It gave us chance to chat with the bike hire man (in Spanglish) and found out a bit more about all this ash. The volcano in Chile erupted on the 4th of June, that day the sky was black and it rained sand. Since then the steady plume of white ash has been blowing into Bariloche daily damaging houses, cars and the economy. Not to mention what it might be doing to people's health. By the end of the day there is dust everywhere... In your hair, eyes, ears, mouth and you feel like someone who has a twenty a day habit. It tarnishes the feel of this town and the surrounding area mainly because the locals are so upset about the situation and understandably so. We hope it clears up soon.

A Canadian couple- Pat and Gary, on a 5 month trip around SA staying at our hostel asked if we'd like to go in on a car share. We jumped at the chance, always eager to save a few pennies and get off the trail of those other son of a b**** tourist mongrels! They collected the car that evening and we drove up the rocky road to the lookout point at Cerro Otto. The chairlift was closed so there was no one else in site- exactly what we were after. The view from the top was beautiful. The sun set behind the mountains lighting up the sky for the final time that day. The lake's islands were highlighted, dogs in the town below howled and like a chimney in the distance the chilian volcano smoked away.

The following day the four of us set out on a road trip to see the waterfalls and black glacier at the base of Mt Tronador. Who would have known that Gary had a secret rally car driver streak? He thrashed the poor little renault cleo to within an inch of the scrap yard, we bumped around in the back and co-driver pat giggled hysterically at the map. We got round in one piece and the landscape was again rewarding. The torrent of blue-green water cascading over the rocks with such power was captivating and impressive. The several thousand year old glacier with it's blackened fragments floating like icebergs in the turquoise lagoon was like an image out of a science fiction film.
We crossed the path of wild boar, giant south american hares, cattle, birds nesting on the middle of the trail, and horses determined to block our way.

We spent two further days in Bariloche. We walked along the shoreside of the lake, took the bus to the small ski town on Mt Catedral (but refused to pay the extautionate
chairlift fee), relaxed in the hostel and researched the next places on our itinerary.

We left Bariloche on our good old friend the night bus and travelled the width of Argentina while we slept.

Puerto Madryn; our next exciting destination with marine wildlife expeditions on the agenda for the next few days.
As soon as we stepped over the threshold of our hostel- El Retorno, Gladys our hostess was eagerly getting us booked onto a day trip. Brilliant- the weather was gorgeous and so the sea calm!

Peninsula Valdes is the breeding ground for the Southern Right Whale, Southern Elephant Seal, Southern Sea Lion and the Magellanic Penguin. Its where the boys come to meet the girls and feel the motion of the ocean... If you know what I mean! They each have their own courting rituals and our guide for the day was more than happy to explain, in detail.

The whales were amazing. They occupy the bay for several months of the year at Puerto Piramides to mate. A number of males will pursue a single female and she keeps them guessing on which one she is interested in waiting until she knows who truly has the stamina for the job! She is pregnant for a year and then returns to the bay to give birth and rear her calf.
Rob and I managed to secure a position in the crows nest of the small boat which took us the 2 miles off shore, giving us a prime whale watching viewpoint. We were able to observe a mother and her calf as she fought off attention from another young male; several males dancing around a female bidding for her attention; and the smacking of fins on the water as a couple rubbed bellies trying to get into position (no reverse cowgirl here though) for his 3 meter long ding-a-ling to find it's way...Whale porn! Ha!
After an hour at sea we were thrilled and privileged to have seen these majestic animals in their natural environment and I was pleased that it really did feel like that, and not like a whale chasing game. We were one of only three boats in the bay that day and with so many whales to observe we only saw the other boats from a distance. The whales moved around us rather than us around them and we were lucky to see these barnacle incrusted creatures up close.

Next stop on our day tour of the peninsula was to Punta Norte and Cantor where we saw the Southern Elephant Seals. Each year they haul their huge blubbering mass onto the beaches here to mate. This time the four tonne male holds all the cards and he will often mate with 60-100 females in one session, impregnating them sometimes only days after they have given birth to last seasons pup. Our guide took great pleasure in explaining this to us and I'm pretty sure he's hoping to come back as a bull seal in his next life! In reality we saw no seal action, just a lot of sleeping.

We met a young English couple on the tour (although not a couple, couple), Hannah and Charles and struck up some banter. We decided to hire a car the next day together and try our luck with the lonely planet as our guide. We had to sneak out of hostel though as Gladys had warned us about the risk of car hire in Puerto Madryn and would have much preferred us to stick with the organised trips. No thanks.
We hired a banged up old VW Gol (really cheap version of a Golf) which made all kinds of weird noises and whose passenger door didn't quite shut properly...air conditioned then!
We drove the 400km round trip on pretty awful roads to Punta Tombo to see the nesting penguins. Thousands of Magellanic Penguins claim this stretch of beach each year, digging out holes in which to lay their eggs and then taking it in turns to guard their precious brood.
We walked amongst them as couples sweetly preened each other or waddled awkwardly around the burrows.

On the way back we made a detour to a small village called Gaiman. It's a Welsh settlement colonised in 1874 and with a third of people here still with Welsh decent. We couldn't mistake our way to Gaiman as gravel track and barren land transformed into vivid green willow trees, fruit farms and a quaint river.
Lunch at a tea house here was like walking into a tardis. We were transported back to rural Wales about 50years ago! Local people spoke Welsh and were pleased to see four young English folk. Love spoons and tea towels displaying images of the welsh dragon adorned the walls and the pride over their ancestry was apparent. And then came the tea... Real tea, in a tea pot with a tea cosy, poured into cups with saucers, and taken with milk! Five plates of heavenly sponges, pies, scones, tarts and jams made up the best lunch we could have imagined. Any whiff of homesickness was quickly quenched. Yum!

Day 50- our final wildlife expedition in Puerto Madryn was achieved by cycling the 40km round trip on sandy gravel road to Punta Loma where a hoard of noisy sea lions frolic. These creatures are much more active than the seals and we watched them playfully jumping and dancing in the water, bull males fighting over territory on the rocks at low tide, and mothers teaching their pups to dive for food. The noise they make is quite funny- imagine a sheep roaring and you might get something close.
Sighting a whale on the coastal ride back just topped off the day and we rewarded ourselves after our bum numbing journey with a tub of dulce de leche ice cream... Sooo good.

Patagonia is living up to the expectations so far and we've not even got to the glaciers yet!