Puerto Madryn

Sitting in a "locutorio", wasting time until my bus to Esquel at 9:00 this evening. Esquel is just east of the Parque Nacional los Alerces, one of the most untouched areas of Argentina with fantastic fishing and hiking. In Puerto Madryn, I´ve visited a penguin colony, swum with sealions, had my "bautismo" in scubadiving and visited Peninsula Valdes (penguins, elephant seals and killer whales). Not bad in four days eh?

It has eaten away at the funds though. After aluminium production and fishing, tourism is the third biggest earner in Puerto Madryn and you can see why. Doing the dive and snorkelling with sealions cost me 550 argentine dollars (110 quid), which is pretty extortionate for Argentina.

The journey from Buenos Aires to Puerto Madryn was long. I had read about it in books but no-one can fail to be stunned by the vast, seemingly infinite emptiness of the Pampa humeda, echoing with the lowing of cattle. The landscape made it almost impossible to tell one place from another and I was worried that I would miss my stop and end up hundreds of kilometres away. I also forgot how cold buses can be. With the AC pumping out cold air, I spent most of the journey shivering in my "semi-cama" seat and got only two hours sleep. Just before reaching Puerto Madryn, I started talking to an old man with a grave, bespectacled face and bushy grey eyebrows. He tried to convince me that only one fifth of the normal employees turned up for work on 11 September and hinted at a Jewish conspiracy. He also said that the Argentinian government had scrapped the majority of the nation´s railways and privatised the rest to force people to take the roads, paying at toll booths along the way. He obviously thought he was enlightening a naive English child.

Puerto Madryn is a great place to watch wales from about September to February, but at other times of the year you have to make do with penguins, seals, sealions, elephant seals and orcas. I stayed at a hostel, HI Patagonia, that felt much more like an ordinary house than the place in Buenos Aires. The owner, Gaston, has been great and almost indecently helpful (he´s helped me to set up the fishing trip with his friend on Lago Verde), admirably dealing with my faltering Spanish.

Geology of the area is fascinating. The area was once the sea bed, but once volcanic activity began in the ocean rift in the Pacific, the whole land was pushed up. That explained the incredibly flat scrubland that surrounds Puerto Madryn and the huge hills of shells at Puerto Piramide. Apparently before the Andes rose to such a height that they blocked cool, wet winds from the Pacific, the whole of Chubut Province was a lush rainforest. Today, lack of rain (only around 200mm a year) means that the area is arid and dry.

After visiting a Penguin colony on Monday at Punta Tombo and dropping in on the old Welsh colonies of Trelew and Caiman (founded 1874), swam with sealions and dived on Tuesday. Walked down the wide, sunny boulevard bordering the sea to Terra del Mar where I was kitted out with a wetsuit fit for the Antartic; two layers, rubber shoes and rubber face mask. I realised why, though, when I jumped into the water and my knuckles slowly started to turn a deep purple. The first stop on the boatride was a shipwreck where two experienced divers took the plunge. Further towards land, I had my "bautismo". Although breathing was no problem, I took a while to master adjusting to the pressure by blowing out through my nose. We shimmied down a rope into the murky deep. Visibility wasn´t particulary good because of the high winds which had churned up the sea bed and I was virtually pulled along by the instructor since this was my first dive. Nevertheless, saw some pretty intersting fish, anemones and starfish. Continued on to Punta Lomos where we could see hundreds of sealions basking in the sun on a rocky ledge. You could hear them roaring across the water. Their lumbering movement on land was contrasted with their grace in the water. They twisted and turned at unlikely angles, and the moment I thought I might be able to touch one, it curved away and below me. The poor visibility made it all the more impressive to see them suddenly emerge from the gloom with wide eyes bulging, and their flipper-like feet propelling them along. That night I was treated to the traditional Argentine music of Julio Garcia (as important a national figure as Maradonna it seems)

On the excursion to Peninsula Valdes yesterday, we saw fluffy, bedraggled looking penguins shedding their feathers before continuing on to Punta Delgada in the SE of the peninsula. Sediment from the erosion of the NE of the peninsula is being deposited here in a long, slender spit that snaked along the coast. At first sight, the elephant seals looked like huge, smooth rocks and seemed almost impossibly large given the distance we were viewing them from. Adult males can weigh up to 4000kg. After a rest of four or five months and after the breeding season is over, each elephant seal goes his own way to hunt continuously for around seven months, not touching land until they return to breed again in the same spot exactly a year later. Scuttled off after hearing that killer whales had been sighted at Punta Norte. Only seconds after piling out of the bus, we saw a huge black fin slice its way out of the water and disappear again. As we watched them, it became clear that they were circling into deeper water, turning round and shooting towards the baby seals playing on the beach. They voluntarily beach themselves to have to maximise their chances of catching their prey.The two orcas had killed at least five cachorros that day.

Ten past one at the moment and scorching outside. Have got slightly burnt on arms and legs. Probably need to get as many rays as possible before travelling to Esquel near the Andes where it will be pretty cold. Not sure what food to take on the bus. Crackers perhaps...but which crackers. Not sure if they sell Jacob´s here. Gonna go and find out...