Sea Lions having fun!
El Penguinos
Enjoying Argentina´s finest product
Now thats a big piece of ice!
Buenos Tardes Amigos!
Well this past week in Argentina has been quite challenging, and also very rewarding in travel experiences. The bad part, as I returned from Uruguay, I learned Marina´s locker at the hostel had been broken into so we spent the next few days working on replacement items. I didn´t expect to finish our 18 months unscathed, so hopefully this is the only and last major incident - knock on wood.
Despite the loss of cash, everything in Argentina is expensive - not just by South American standards, but even compared to a place like Japan. The Argentinean’s will not admit this, even though their salaries are still based on the old prices. We had to pull teeth to find out, but the price has more than doubled in the past 18 months, so I´m told. The great news is wine is cheap and it’s delicious! I expect they keep this affordable in order to prevent a revolution from happening - remember this is the birth place of Che Guevara.
A few funny things about South America that take some getting used to; Firstly, I should not state my country of origin as - America, which is seemingly easier than saying the United States in any other part of the world. Here, they say, we are American too; you are from Estados Unidos (United States). They also do not refer to our music and food as Western, but Northern - it makes sense, but one of those things I just didn’t think about before this trip.
Falkland Islands, don´t you mean the Mar Argenino -Islas Malvinas. This is a bitter subject and I was told by our guide not to bring this up with other locals, however he was an educated person and open to discuss it. The seem to forget how they lost the war less than 30 years ago and still consider it part of Argentina, despite the locals there speaking English and having British passports. I´m not sure if it’s that they were destroyed in war by the British or some kind of local propaganda. Despite this, I was able to enter free to Argentina with my British passport, but if I used the American one, I would have had to pay $140.
So what have we been up to: Buenos Aires > Puerto Madryn > El Calafate
Monday to Wednesday - sorting problems: Marina was very upset as I returned having lost some important possessions (nothing irreplaceable) and we spent the next few days resolving this issue. She is fine and well and back in good spirits. That Monday night we went out for a big fat steak dinner and good wine to take the edge off. On Tuesday we left for a 20 hour bus ride south to Puerto Madryn.
Thursday - Peninsula Valdes: We purchased a 12 hour tour to see the amazing wildlife at Peninsula Valdes. Our first stop was a sea lion colony containing at least 500 of these beasts along with many young. This was the perfect time to see them as many mothers were giving birth and strangely it was also mating season (the females wait a whopping six days before starting the process all over). Given the cubs are about as bit as a Labrador, I am shocked how the moms survive!! It was an amazing site as we literally saw babies who were maybe 5 minutes old - from a distance. Grossly, the seagulls came in for the "unnecessary bits". The sounds were like lions for the tough alpha males and like goats for the babies. Next we saw a small colony of penguins and lastly we saw a large group of Elephant seals, which seem to appear dead unless you watch for 5+ minutes.
Friday - Punto Tombo: Again we purchased a full day tour to take us to see the world´s second largest penguin colony which was about 200km away. The largest is in Antarctica. This colony was amazing and had somewhere between 500,000 - 1 Million Magellenic penguins. Such a site as most families had two babies who were just getting ready to go out into the wild. They were shedding their grey fur in preparation for the trip to the sea which would be only a few weeks away. The penguins live in holes on land (one family per hole) and at one point I could see maybe 5000 penguins in one glance! They were clumsy and cute creatures. I just wanted to pick one up, but apparently their beaks can be vicious!
Saturday to Sunday - 24 hour bus: At least they are comfortable! Luckily they show movies in English, but most are VERY cheesy flicks that would not make network TV.
Monday - Perito Moreno: Today we went to see a huge 60 meter high glacier just outside a small town called El Calafate. What an amazing display! We also took a cruise to see the glacier up close. This beast was shedding ice causing loud thunderous noises dropping tons of ice into the sea creating large waves. Now before all you global warming people say ahh-haa, apparently this is one of the few glaciers of the world which is actually growing. Forget the politics, if you haven´t seen a glacier like this, you must!
So what’s next on our tour; we are up to El Chalten later today and we will have three days of trekking there around the mountains and possibly glacier. Then we are off to Bariloche which is dubbed the Switzerland of Argentina. There we will party hard for Marina´s 26th birthday. You all need to remind her of how terribly old she is.. ;)
Hasta Lavista,
Marina and Daniel
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