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Day
9 (October 28, 2019) Peninsula Valdes
Before
We’re allocated in Puerto Piramides, in the same
beach where the whale watching boat leave, so we can do that activity
whenever we want, but we’ve already booked the first one at 10 AM just
in case, following the recommendations from the hotel as it seems these
boats use to fill up very quick.
On another hand, the main purpose for this day is
to drive around Peninsula Valdes to enjoy the fauna that is
concentrated in this area.
In the afternoon we would drive to Trelew to
deliver the car and spend the night. The hotel is close to the
Paleontological Museum to play our options to visit it this evening.
The spots marked at map are:
0- Puerto Piramides
1- Trelew
2- Interpretation Center Istmo Ameghino
3- Punta Pardelas
4- Caleta Valdes
5- Punta Norte
6- Estancia San Lorenzo
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After
At 9 AM we’ve already checked out at hotel and go
to Hydro
Sport, where we have the whale navigation booked. There, they give us
the boarding passes for 10 AM and, when commenting it is not allowed to
go to Punta Pardelas by car now, they give us the advice to go to a
closer viewpoint: La Lobería. Since they tell us we have time for it, I
drive to there and have our first contact with the gravel roads of this
peninsula. We stop in a lookout for whales, where we can see none, then
we go to the view point for sea lions and that’s full of them.
We come back to Hydro Sports and arrive just on
time for
the security speech at 9:45 AM as planned. After that we put on life
jackets and walk down to the beach to board in their boat. It’s warm
but we were advised to keep our jackets on and, when the boat starts
sailing, we’re grateful for it since the air is pretty cold.
 
First stop is by “La Lobería”, where we can have a
closer
look of the same sea lions we’ve just seen from far. After this, they
sail further from the coast looking for whales. It seems they cannot
find them.
They know about a whale and its young are around this area
and
they look for them until they finally find them. The first we can see
from a whale is the expected view of the tail.
 
We’re following these two whales for a while but
more of
them appear in the distance. One of these makes a couple of jumps that
we don’t manage to take on cameraa.
 
We reach the time to come back where the activity
is at
its top, with several whales in different points. We’ve got two hours
in total and it’s past 12 PM when we start our road trip through the
peninsula.
 
Just after taking the road to Punta Norte is where
the
tarmac ends. Driving on gravel is slow but it is going through an
endless straight where the only live we can see is groups of guanacos
here and there, some sheep and a couple of cars fighting with their
punctured tyres.
It’s after a bit more than one hour when we reach
the sign
for the road to Estancia San Lorenzo. It’s 6 kms through a road that
makes good the gravel one we’ve just left. We arrive just on time for
the tour to the penguin area at 2 PM but, since they tell us kitchen
closes at 3 PM and, if we join this tour, we won’t be able to get our
lunch there, we’re going for our meals first and will join the tour at
3:30 PM.
Visit to penguin area is 45 US$ each and between
the
options for lunch we take the “field menu”, which is roasted lamb and
salad. We pay 110€ in cash in total since cannot be paid by card.
 
We’re thinking about how expensive this tour is
until the
SUV car reaches the penguin area and have the first contact to it. Then
we forget about it. Every bush here has a penguin below hatching eggs
and a standing one guarding. There are lots of them here and are far
from the sea.
 
We walk following a ring circuit of around 700
meters.
It’s like if we were tourist in a city of penguins that keep with their
daily routine ignoring us. We can see the nests, the eggs and the
penguins passing by close to us with their funny walking.
 
It’s a fantastic experience. By the half of the
itinerary
we’re reaching the beach, with penguins going and coming. This is a
colony of Magellan penguins.
 
We spend two hours on this visit, so we’re back at
our car
by 5:30 PM. There is no time for more and we start what is expected to
be a long drive to Trelew. We were told it was going to be 4 hours
until the city, but I’m getting used to the main gravel road and make
that part in just one hour. After one hour and a half more on the road
to Trelew we reach the city. There I call the number for the car rent
who tell me that they’re going to go directly to our hotel for the
delivery of the car. This makes our day easier since it’s already dark
when we’re checking in at hotel.
We have a short night in front of us since we’ve
got the taxi for the airport at 5:30 AM.
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