Whale Meet Again….

Whale Meet Again….
Puerto Madryn, Argentina

Puerto Madryn, Argentina

Getting to Puerto Madryn was no short journey, we had a 5 hour day bus, a 3 hour wait in a bus station filled with rogue dogs hell bent on marking every piece of luggage with urine and then a 12 hour night bus. As I might have mentioned once or twice already Argentina is extortionate, night buses which in most of the rest of South America cost no more than $20 for the best possible seat were now costing upwards of $100 each, strangely the main bus company is sponsored by an Argentinian vineyard and so wine is included for the second class seats and sparkling wine for the first class. I personally would rather have a cheaper seat than wine, but sadly that was not an option. We had missed out on booking first class seats for our night bus, but thankfully our seats were practically full recliners and there was no one sat in front or behind us leaving us plenty of space and ensuring a very comfortable nights sleep.

Arriving in Puerto Madryn we navigated the maze of streets between the bus station and the hostel and were instantly impressed with our choice of hostel. We were given a great welcome with advice on absolutely everything that we could ever wish to do in the town and beyond.

The hostel had fantastic reviews on tripadvisor and for once truly lived up to them, it was also nice that the hostel was quite empty but the people that were there were all English or European and we spend many an hour relaxing in the lounge chatting and swapping travel advice.

There were a couple of characters who provided us with no end of entertainment during our stay here, the most hysterical was Clem. A few of us were sat in the lounge chatting and suddenly this young English lad presented himself to us, thrust a hand towards us each in turn and introduced himself as Clem from England. I am not sure who told this poor young guy that that was how you make friends in hostels, but we were all so stunned we almost thought that he must work there. Poor Clem was 18 and was on his first ever trip on his own, he had gotten the wrong bus to Puerto Madryn and had spent much of the night sat outside one of the many police checks waiting for the next bus to rescue him. He pretty much had no idea what he was doing and was just petrified. Some horrible German girls spent hours regaling terrifying stories of bus crashes and robberies in Peru and Bolivia and we then spent hours telling him that he would be fine and basically planning the rest of his trip for him. Bless his little cotton socks, in the 3 days that we spent in the hostel he spent every waking hour on skype to his mum, dad, girlfriend and seemingly anyone else from home that would talk to him. We often wonder where poor Clem is now, my money is back at home with his mum!

Anyway enough about the crazies we meet and back to Puerto Madryn. Little did we realise that this tiny little seaside town was about to provide us with some of the most amazing experiences of all our travels so far! Seriously it was that good!

We had read that we were going be in the town for whale season, but we usually take information like this lightly as we have been disappointed so many times before, however our first evening we took a walk down to the beach and as we sat on the wall watching the horizon we could just see huge whales breaching and jumping left right and centre. They were far away on the horizon, but there was no disputing that they were whales. Southern Right Wales to be precise, these giants that weight between 40 and 80 tons are Baleen whales which means they have no teeth and just filter food through special plates. They are renowned for being playful on the surface of the water and for being curious towards human vessels, in South Africa and here in Argentina they also are renowned for a behaviour called sailing, where they raise their tails out of the water and use the wind to stay in place for considerable amounts of time. We were about to experience each and every one of these behaviours up close and personal.

Our first trip was to Doradillo Beach, just a short taxi ride out of the town, we were lucky that high tide was at about 4 pm, so we went at 3 to give us a couple of hours before the sun set. As soon as we walked onto the beach we were greeted with at least 5 or 6 whales all just cruising up and down the shoreline just a few meters from the shore. We were there at the height of breeding season and this beach serves as a little nursery so we had some adults and some babies, all just cruising, breaching and putting on a sensational display for us. Were it not for the setting sun we could have stayed and watched these gentle giants for hours.

The next day we had decided that rather than taking a tour we would take the local bus to Puerto Piramides, this is the entrance to Peninsular Valdes, one of the most spectacular headlands for wildlife in South America. There was a tour out to the peninsular but it being winter there was unlikely to be much to see so we decided to pass. The problem with the route that we took was that there was a bus that got us to Puerto Piramides at 10am and then the return bus was not until 6pm, so it was going to be a long day. A long day indeed as when we arrived and went to the tourist offices selling whale boat tours, the whole reason for our trip, we were told that the coastguard had closed the harbour because of high winds. To say that we were devastated was an understatement. We spent the morning sheltering from the wind in any spot we could find, petting the many dogs in the tiny town and going in and out of every boat company asking if the harbour was open yet. We ate our lunch on the beach and waited and waited and waited. Eventually all the bus trips that had been out to Peninsular Valdes arrived to join in the waiting. We found a girl that was staying at our hostel and asked her how the peninsular tour had been, big mistake, they had only seen orcas! Peninsular valdes is famous for being one of the only places in the world where orcas come out of the water and up onto the stoney beach to feed on seals, they usually display this behaviour in March or April but typically just because we chose this one day to try and Save money they were lurking at the waters edge. To say that I was gutted was an understatement, a serious understatement. Our day however was about to improve as word began to spread that the coastguard was going to open the harbour, we didn’t believe it until we were safely in our life jacket and headed out on the boat, but it was true, someone was looking out for us.

The one benefit of the delay was that we were able to go to the beach and have a look at all the different companies boats to determine which one was the best and there was one which was head and shoulders above all of them, it was brand new, white, shiny and had a top floor to make the viewing that bit better so we picked that one and what a great choice it was. The other smaller boats were full to bursting point with 30 plus people on each, our boat that was twice the size had half as many people and we had the top viewing deck to ourselves with our own private English speaking guide.

As we rounded the headland, it was pretty rough so the coastguard was probably correct to have delayed the sailings but I didn’t care how rough it got I wanted to see some more whales. In no time at all the boat was slowing down and right in front of us a whale was breaching and splashing and banging the water, seemingly it was a juvenile trying to get attention. Next up we had a group of mating wales, a female with 3 males all trying to get involved. She was using our boat as a defender to have a breather and so we had her and the three males all taking it in turns to swoop right beneath our boat. One of them lifted its head right at the bow and blew whale spit over all of us. Completely horrible and completely incredible all at once, these giants could squash our little boats if they chose but they were just so inquisitive and wanted to get a look at us as much as we did at them. Before we knew it time was up and we were head
ed back to shore, we just had time to say goodbye to all the street dogs that we had befriended and to have a well deserved but expensive coffee to warm up. We managed to save over $100 by not taking a tour and once again I was in spitting distance of my beloved orcas, hey ho, another time Blackfish!

After two incredible days we wondered what could possibly compete with the sensational experiences we had had with the whales, it turned out it was snorkelling with sea lions. Our hostel really pushed a tour company called Lobo Larsen and we went to speak to them and read reviews and decided it sounded terrible. They claim to be the only company with drysuits but they also have a strange way of running the tour. You have to undertake a snorkelling in formation course and then when in the water with the seals you hold onto each other in a line and kick so no seal can get near. I am all for tours which put the animals first but this company is just a joke. We decided to look around and thankfully found Scuba Duba a dive shop that runs snorkel tours, offers dry suits and lets you swim freely when in the water.

The next morning willing the weather to be good we got picked up by the tour company before sunrise and headed to the dive shop to be kitted out in our dry suits, amazingly it was just Tim and I and one other girl from our hostel on the tour. We stood on the beach in our drysuits waiting for the boat and as the sun was rising we were treated with yet another display of magnificent whales breaching just a hundred meters from shore. Soon we were on the boat and appreciating the warmth of our dry suits as the below zero wind thrashed our exposed hands and faces. As the boat pulled into the snorkel spot we were given hoods and gloves and suddenly the boat was surrounded by excited your sea lion pups. It was something of a terrifying experience at first especially as we had been warned that they use their mouths to nibble and feel you. The sea lions here in this cove are so friendly and comfortable with human interaction as they have no predators and this is like a nursery where all the playful youngsters hangout. As we jumped in the sea lions were all over us, nibbling our fins and snorkels, literally jumping on our backs and using us as rafts. The drysuits took some getting used to as they were so floaty it was hard to manoeuvre in the water especially with a sea lion on your back. It was also really difficult to remember not to pee in the drysuit! Snorkelling with the sea lions was incredible, they were gentle, inquisitive, beautiful and so fast in the water, the more you splashed the more they came and played with you. Whilst we were there the other snorkel company Lobo Larsen showed up and what a tragic state of affairs that tour was. They jumped into the water, splashed around like prats whilst the sea lions all just interacted with their tour guide and then after no more than 20 minutes they were back on the boat and gone. We worked out that we had a full hour in the water with the seals, oh how disappointed we would have been if we had booked the wrong company! After being nibbled, kissed, dunked and splashed our time was up and it was actually colder out of the water than it was in, we were very thankful of our drysuits for the journey home. We were given biscuits and hot chocolate and even hand warmers for the journey, every aspect of this tour was sophisticated. It was a big expense by our standards but again it was an hour of our lives we will never forget.

You would think by now we would have exhausted this little town, but no there was still one last tour we needed to do. Punta Nimfas about an hour drive from Puerto Madryn is the home to an elephant seal colony where you can actually get down onto the beach and get up close and personal with these giants.

Southern Elephant seals are larger than their Northern relations; the male bull can reach 4.9 meters and 3,000kilgrams. They spend 80% of their lives in the ocean and have been recorded to dive 2,388 meters. At the end of the 19^th century Elephant seals had been hunted to the brink of extinction but have since made a miraculous recovery.

The tour that we booked turned out to be just us and our driver, it seems that there are so many positives to travelling Patagonia in winter, I would totally recommend it. We knew that this tour required us to clamber down a part of a cliff face to get to the beach, but no one quite explained that it was a 200 foot cliff face. The first part required a rope and then it was just down to crumbling and sliding sand and rocks. Amazingly we made it down and had to put the climb back up out of our mind in order to enjoy our time on the beach. Sadly it was not the season to have any of the giant alpha males on the beach, it was just young pups and females, but they were so beautiful. You could sit just meters from them and they just slept and occasionally woke up and in a very ungainly fashion wobbled their way closer to the others. It was super windy and cold and we had one eye on the ocean in case an orca showed its face but no such luck. After a good hour just chilling with these giants we had to clamber our way back up the cliff, huffing and puffing and clinging to the rope section like our lives depended on it (because our lives did indeed depend on it) we made it to the top.

Sadly our time in this magical little marine paradise was up, we had seen and done it all. Money permitting I would have very happily seen and done it all again but it wasn’t to be.

We said goodbye to our new friends and surprise, surprise Clem was still on skype to his mum, and we headed to the bus station for our final night bus to Buenos Aires, and this time we had secured first class seats, boom. BA here we come.