Puerto Madryn, Argentina; Punta Tombo Penguins

Diary:

Farewell, Patagonia! It was time to leave the land of mountains, glaciers, lakes, the grass-covered plateaus of the Andean steppe, and of course the incessant boisterous winds. We were heading to northern climes. Next stop was Puerto Madryn, en route to Buenos Aires.

Puerto Madryn is a quiet port on Golfo Nuevo bay. We stepped off the overnight bus from El Calafate and Rio Gallegos into heat and humidity! What a pleasant surprise after the frigid south. At the hotel we buried our fleeces and thermals at the bottom of our packs and broke out the shorts and T-shirts, and presently we were enjoying a stroll by the beach, caressed by gentle warm breezes.

We were planning on only passing through Puerto Madryn on our way to Buenos Aires. However, we were compelled to visit the nature reserve at Punta Tombo, some 200km south of Pto. Madryn. Here was to be found another massive magellanic penguin colony, a community of nearly a million penguins making it the largest in Patagonia. We set off one sunny day with our new friends Paris, Kate and Chris to explore. While it seemed to us there were not as many penguins visible from the observation areas as there were in the colony on Isla Magdalena in Chile, the penguins here were almost completely insensible to us humans in their midst's and allowed us to sit and watch them at much closer range and for longer. We enjoyed our visit to both colonies.

Photos: (click on images to see full size)