Puerto Madryn - Northern Patagonia, Argentina

Another 17 hour bus journey, filled with flat, barren and uninspiring landscapes, brought us to the little city of Puerto Madryn. This Welsh settlement is a gateway to the wildlife found on the Argentinian east coast, and so we were pretty excited about the excursions to follow.

The bus dropped us in the windswept city, and we had originally planned to stop in the campsite situated 4km outside of the centre. We caught a local bus, which dumped us about 800m downhill from the campsite entrance. This had to be the longest 800m of our lives. The intense winds whipped the sands up from the beach, and shot-blasted us from head to toe, stinging our exposed limbs and faces. I swear that it look the top layer of skin off too, but it was the most unpleasant exfoliating experience that I´ve ever tolerated.

To our dismay when we arrived at the campsite, we discovered that they didn´t have room to store our oversized backpacks. Instead of braving the sandstorm again we took the easy option and caught a taxi back into town. After wandering about we found a couple of beds at a friendly little hostel, and booked our trips for the following days.

Punta Tomba is just south of Puerto Madryn, and houses the largest penguin colony outside of the Antarctic. It gave us the opportunity to see these wonderful creatures in their natural environment. We learnt that the monogomous penguin couple will have two young ones per family, and at the moment the babies are still in the nest.

A long pathway greeted us at the entrance of the national park, and before long we started to spot the little birds on each side. We were amazed that they seemed totally unfazed by humans, and would waddled across our paths like miniture Charlie Chaplins. We also couldn´t believe just how up close and personal we were able to get to them, including to the nests with the two fluffy babies. We watched on in delight as they clumsily walked to and from the ocean, whilst their young hungrily fought for the regurgitated food.

On the way back the bus stopped at another Welsh settlement called Gaiman. It was very strange to see the Welsh flag flying everywhere, and it was obvious that they were fiercely proud of their heritage. We stopped at one of the very expensive, old-fashioned, Welsh teahouses. Luckily we decided to only order "one service" between the two of us. The tray that she brought over was ladened with breads, scones, jams and delicious cakes aplenty, and all of this was washed down with a huge pot (complete with a cosy!) of traditional tea. We managed to roll ourselves back onto the bus for the ride back to the hostel.

Our second excursion took us North to Penínsular Valdés. Much to our disappointment we were a bit early in the year for Orca spotting, but there was plenty of other wildlife to be seen. Our first encounter was with the large and rather aggressive lion seals. They were violently territorial over their tiny strips of sand, and their roars could be clearly heard from our elevated position. There also appeared to be a little nursery of pups grouped together, which looked much cuter then their adult counterparts.

Next stop took us to see more penguins. This was a much, much smaller colony, but they were different as their nests clung to the side of a steep cliff.

Finally we stopped to see the elephant seals. These big lumps idley lounged in the sun, occasionally flicking stones over their blubber in order to cool down. The funniest moments were when they tried to caterpillar their way towards the shore. They would exert so much effort into wriggling forward, and suddenly stop just a couple of feet from the sea as if unable to muster up enough energy to reach the water, and just lollop back down and rest.

Needless to say we loved our time in and around Puerto Madryn, but we were looking forward to our travels further south which would take us into the heart of Patagonia.