Here's what you get for pulling yourself out of bed at 7am and splashing out $420 on the tour, plus a further $120 to get into the park. Even though we misunderstood Eduardo in our hostel and didn't bring any money with us to pay for it. We can fix that later.
Here in the centre we have some Darwin's Rheas, disguised as grey things, making them tricky to spot in a pale yellow, washed out green and dusty grey environment.
Easier to spot are guanaco! They are little llama things, very cute. One guanaco male to fifteen or sixteen females. Remember boys, you only have one. Imagine how much work fifteen would be!
At one point on the road you can see both bays across the dust on either side of the car. This one is San Jose I think.
The entrance to the Peninsula Valdés National Park. Here you hand over $120 to get in.
The visitor centre is good
...and features a whale skeleton found at a huge sandbar, which you will see later. The silly whale went in at high tide, but forget to get back out in time.
Sarah, in peril.
The view from the approach to Puerto Pirámides, a charming little town where we had considered staying. Sadly it is in the arse end of nowhere, and would have been a bit of a disaster, so good decision Sarah!
We have arrived at Punto Norte, a 100km of so from Puerto Pirámides. Here we will see sea lions, sea elephants, and armadillos. No eating or smoking past this point.
Sea lions!
Sea elephants!
The path!
Lots of bad-smelling sea lions making a racket! Incredible view!
More! More! More!
And so on into the distance.
This is high tide, a good time to be here, as the sea lions have been forced up the beach a bit, and closer to us. You have a great view of them, although mostly they didn't do too much except bark at each other sometimes. A few sea lions got a bit jiggy with it and didn't seem to mind a whole load of humans watching them. Not sure if the humans would have felt the same had it been the other way round.
Back up to the little cafe, where armadillos live underneath the porch!
A snake! It moved off the road once we stopped and reversed to check it out. Faster than you might expect!
Here's somewhere else to stop. Possibly the most beautiful place I have ever been. With penguins!
We were rather impressed with these little guys and how close they were, up until we went to Punta Tombo on Tuesday anyway.
Sea lions hiding out in a pool, making them protected from Orcas and other predators.
Sea lion / sea elephant skulls.
Punta Delgada : more sea lions and more spectacular views back up towards the sandbar we just left.
Much to Sarah's disappointment we managed to see no orcas.
Back to Puerto Pirámides to have a beer on the return journey. Only 150km to go!
Funny wee beach here, but plenty of people on it nonetheless.
The view into Puerto Madryn. Looks like an industrial hell, but then Argentina's first aluminium works is just up ahead on the right.
Only one way to celebrate such a good, if exhausting, day. Mexican Food! Down we head to El Paso, the highly rated local Mexican eatery, for about 8.30pm. As per usual, we were the only people there. Half an hour later and you couldn't get a seat. Dinner was delicious.
Thats a big melted cheesy twisty thing there on the right. Good guacamole too, even if we did have to pay for it!
Every restaurant must have a picture of Eva Peron and Ché on the wall, otherwise they will be closed down in minutes.
Dinner may have been delicious, but we were exhausted. Time for bed.
PS : The small birds with suicidal tendencies were little rhea birds that had a terrible habit of running underneath the tyres of the cars as they drove past. Mauricio and Mauricio, our two guides, made light of this, even though we did annihilate about six of them on our single trip. Good eating for hawks, apparently.
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