Tuesday, 30 December 2014 (Part I)
At Sea — Nuevo Golfo
Temps: Hi 81F (27C) / Lo 59F (15C)
Distance to Punta del Este, Uruguay: 693 NM (797 miles / 1,283 km)
Slow it might be — the internet on the ship, that is — but it still comes in handy. The service comes to us via satellite, and is usually good enough to check emails. On occasion, I’ve even managed to post a couple of ‘post-cards’ to the blog. But where having internet-at-sea really comes in handy is when we need to make changes to shoreside plans while we’re in the middle of the ocean.
Our plans in Puerto Madryn call for a long drive today. Will it be worth it? We’ll find out soon enough ;-)
That was the case yesterday when we found out that Infinity would be docking at the commercial pier — about 3 miles (5km) from downtown Puerto Madryn, Argentina — instead of the tourist pier in town. An email about the change in plans to Juan, my shore excursion contact, and a few hours later I had my instructions to take the shuttle operated by the locals to get into town since he was not allowed inside the commercial port. I wrote up new meeting instructions to the rest of my group, delivered them to their cabins, and was able to sit back and enjoy the rest of the day without worries. The internet also came in handy to solidify plans to meet up with a friend who lives in Puerto Madryn.
But that was yesterday. Let’s move on to today.
You can barely make out Infinity behind the cargo ship at the commercial port in the distance.
Woke up to blue skies, sunshine, and warm temperatures — a good omen for the day ahead. Time to stow the winter gear and put on summer attire again. At 8:00a, we met up with Linda and Bill, and Steve and Diane — the rest of our group — and hopped on the shuttle into town. Twenty minutes later, we were being greeted by Juan.
Since we were a party of six, Juan had recruited Alex as a second driver. We split up into groups of three and off we went on our El Pedral Safari. Sites of interest in the area are quite distant from Puerto Madryn, requiring drives ranging from 1-3 hours each way. Our drive to Punta Ninfas [Nymph Point] was 45 miles (73km) and took about 1½ hours on mostly unpaved, dusty roads — typical of Patagonia, we were told. Unlike the drive to Otway Sound from Punta Arenas, however, there wasn’t the constant din of rocks hitting the vehicle, so we were able to carry on a conversation with Alex, an agricultural engineer who hails from Buenos Aires, and is in town to visit his son, a marine biologist.
Along the way we saw guanacos and rheas [similar to ostrich], and a pheasant-like bird, but we didn’t stop for photographs as they were quite far off, and we had a considerable distance to cover to get to our destination. On either side of the road were sheep ranches, the flat land stretching off to the horizon. Around 10:00a, Juan stopped to open the gate of Hacienda El Pedral, which was established in the late 19th century to breed the first Australian merino flocks in the region. We had arrived. Or so we thought. Nope, circling around the sheep shearing shed and the gaucho house, we continued towards the cliffs rising from the ocean — another 20 minutes or so.
From here, you wouldn’t know that we are on top of steep cliffs.
Leaving the 4WD vehicles behind, off we went for our trek to the clifftop overlooks. Although there was a trail initially, it disappeared quickly. So we put our faith in Juan, who knows the land intimately, and followed him. Soon, we were traipsing between thorny bushes that tried to snag our pants legs. Our first stop was a scenic overlook from where we enjoyed views of Golfo Nuevo [new gulf].
The landscape reminds me of Arıburnu, a promontory on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.
The eroded landscape puts some obstacles in front of us that none of us are willing
to take on to get to the edge of the cliff. This vantage point is plenty close enough.
[If you look closely, you can see the makeshift ‘bridge’ that crosses the ravine.]
From here we continued down a very short, very narrow, very steep path — which Juan described as the scariest part of our trek. It wasn’t too bad; the footing wasn’t slippery, and he gave us a hand as we gingerly stepped sideways down the path. Whatever trepidations we might have had vanished when we caught our first glimpse of the sea lions lying about on the pebble-beach. Admittedly, they were at a distance, far below the cliff, but we could easily differentiate the adults from the juveniles, the males from the females, and even see one of the pups nursing. The view was even better with zoom cameras ;-)
Easy to differentiate the males, which have a lion-like mane, from the females and juveniles.
The pups are black at this stage; if you look closely there is a nursing pup on the left.
Closer to us — just below our feet, as a matter of fact — was a breeding colony of gulls. Offically, these are kelp gulls, but Juan said they call them cook gulls, because they fly in and steal food from kitchens. They apparently also feed on the dead skin whales slough off in the waters offshore. It seems, however, the gulls have learned that they don’t have to wait for the slough off; they just dive bomb the whales and pick at the skin themselves now. No whales for us today; it’s not the right time of the year … and we knew that. But we did see some elephant seals on the beach, although most of them had returned to sea already.
Kelp gull with chick.
For the return trek, Juan took us through slot canyons — a result of rain erosion on the soft sedimentary rocks. The formations were intriguing, and at one point, we saw an exposed layer made up entirely of rounded pebbles. I imagine there were plenty of fossils embedded in the layers as well, but we didn’t stop to explore as we had other things to do. Eventually, we climbed up through a couple of very narrow spots and found ourselves back where we had started.
By the time we were back in the vehicles, it was time for lunch. So we headed to El Pedral Lodge where we were served a family-style meal at the pool house. We were joined here by a group of four, also off the ship, but that was the end of our encounter. That’s one of the nice things about this safari; so many trails to follow through the land that groups hardly ever end up in the same place. In fact, the tours are customized to your interests … some going down to the sea lion haul out; others spending more time in the slot canyons; some skipping the penguins — though I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that ;-)
El Pedral Lodge — the main house is in the early 20th century Normandy architecture style.
Too bad none of us thought to bring swimsuits; it’s warm enough for a refreshing dip.
Our meal was a simple one consisting of salad, bread, and chorizo — a sausage that is traditionally made from a combination of pork and veal. The only condiment available was chimichurri, which was quite tasty. Of course, since we’re in Argentina, local red and white wines accompanied the food. We wrapped up lunch with fruit and then off we went on the final part of our tour.
Mui and Linda checking out the table.
This time we headed across the hacienda [ranch] to sit with Magellanic penguins that frequent a pebble beach at Punta Ninfas Natural Wildlife Refuge. We didn’t have to wait until we got to the beach to see penguins — they were right there in the parking lot and on either side of the path. Some were in their burrows under the bushes, peeking out curiously. Others were standing outside their burrows, while still others were just hanging out in groups on the side of the path. They didn’t seem to mind our presence at all, turning their heads this way and that to check us out as we made our way quietly by them.
A pair of adult Magellanic penguins peer out from their burrow.
How do I know they’re adults? They have the distinctive black collar and yoke.
As we made our way to the beach, Juan explained that it was only a few years ago that this colony started with just six penguins that somehow found their way here. They started returning season after season to nest and breed at this site, and now their numbers have grown to 6,000.
The group of 4 with whom we had lunch were on the beach as well, but they went one way, and we went the other way. The penguins were not out in huge numbers. For us, though, it wasn’t the quantity, but the quality of the experience that mattered. As we sat and watched the Magellanics, they went about their business — one pair even deciding to put on an x-rated show by mating right in front of us ;-) A few of the penguins went for a swim, but soon they were jumping back out of the water — the presence of a sea lion swimming just off the beach putting them on edge.
I love how the penguins go about their business, paying no mind to us.
Our time with the penguins was wonderful. We could have stayed there for quite a while, but after an hour or so it was time to begin the long drive back to Puerto Madryn. The last shuttle back to the ship was at 5:00p, and we were all agreed that we wanted to be back in town at least an hour before then. That worked exceptionally well for us as we wanted to at least say hi to a friend who lives in Puerto Madryn.
We met Berna on the Greenland Expedition we did with Quark in 2013. An ornithologist/marine biologist, he was one of the naturalist lecturers/zodiac drivers. We enjoyed his presentations, his driving skills, and his company for nearly a month before bidding him farewell when we disembarked the expedition vessel in Reykyavík, Iceland. Who knew then that we would have occasion to meet him again in his hometown. Our time together was brief — a mere 30 minutes … again, quality counts more than quantity. At 4:30p, we bid him farewell and headed along the beach — filled with holiday-goers from all around Argentina — to the cruise ship shuttle stop. Our timing was perfect. We were on the last shuttle back to the commercial pier, arriving at 5:15p — the scheduled all aboard.
A “selfie” with our friend Berna.
We had a wonderful time in port today. Yes, the drive to get to El Pedral was long — but every other destination around Puerto Madryn was a distance away as well. We had a great time viewing the wildlife — and we especially enjoyed being in a small group at a place where there was nary another soul from the ship, except the group of four we encountered briefly at lunch.
Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve! We get to ring in 2015 at sea — a first for us — if we are still awake ;-)) Perhaps tonight’s one-hour jump from UTC-3 to UTC-2 will help us stay up until midnight tomorrow.
P.S. You might be surprised at how few wildlife photos I’ve shared in this post. No worries; I’ll be making up for that with a “plog” post … plenty of images of sea lions, gulls, and penguins coming up next ;-)
