WHALES ! Puerto Madryn

WHALES.... more whales... and so incredibly close. Yes I came to see them, but I´ve still been absolutely blown away by this place. There are just so many whales, that if you look out from town you will see at least 5 spurts, tails or flippers without trying too hard. Walk out on the pier and theres likely to be 2 or 3 hanging around. Go for a walk along certain beaches and they swim along the shore only 5-10m out. Ok they´re not the prettiest whales with barnacles growning on their heads, but they´re quite big (up to about 15m) and they´re curious... eg they will come check out a boat. I took a whale watching boat cruise and was lucky enough to watch whales copulating within 5 metres of the boat (for those who are curious - there is one female who is surrounded by a group of males, she floats upside down while they circle and jostle, then when she turns over the lucky male underneath her gets his chance... she will normally mate with 5 or so in turn.) Other whales slowly cruise under the boat, surfacing within half a metre to check things out.... and futher away they slap tails, jump out of the water or just cruise by. So amazing!

There´s more to the Valdez Peninsula than just whales though... there are sea lions and elephant seal too... the first of which are noisy and active on land at this time of year, while the second are just big bags of fat, sleeping on the beach trying to conserve their energy. And although its the wrong time of year this is also the place for penguins and killer whales (yes you remember those documentaries of killer whales eating seal pups... well thats probably here). And on land their are rhea (like emu) mara (odd kind of rabbit/deer/kangaroo/rodent like!), and guanaco (like llamas). If you haven´t gathered the wild life here is amazing, and I´d love to come back and see it at other times of the year too.

The town itself is bigger than I thought with the aluminium industry arriving in the 70´s, but its got a nice seaside hum to it, and a few excellent museums explaining the wildlife. And I went to Trewlew, originally a welsh town, but now known more for its excellent Palentology museum... Yep, also impressive with the amount of dinosaur bones they´ve pulled from the semi-desert nearby or a few hundred km inland from here. And apparently giant spiders 1m big...yuck! Unfortunately the walk thru fossil beds in nearby Gaiman was shut, but who´s complaining after my luck seeing wildlife over the last few days!

I´ll say it once more... Whales... so incedible. Such a shame to think that they´re called southern right whales because they where thought to be the ¨right¨ whales to hunt... they were curious and came up to boats, were of an ok size, and importantly when killed they floated. Luckily now days they only have to put up with tourists taking photos!