So, having had enough of Bariloche and armed with our new, improved spanish speaking skills, we boarded a bus to a little town called El Bolsen, which is apparently known for its hippy beginnings and being the only town in Argentina to have declared itself anti-nuclear or something similar. We spent only a day there, wandering around the markets and enjoying the small town feel. There really wasn't much going on and it rained most of the day. I guess people who spend longer there, doing lots of walking in the mountains would have a much more impressed view but at this point we really just wanted to move on. And so we did ....

Next stop, following a brief overnight bus ride, was a place called Puerto Madryn, which provides access to Peninsula Valdes and Punto Tombo. The fascination of these two places lies in the sea life. Having arrived early in the morning and hearing the cost of the tours and going on advice from other's we have met along the way, we decided to hire a car and make our own way around, with the idea of allowing ourselves however long we wanted at each spot, rather than the 15 minutes alotted by the tour operator. Having located the only car hire shop opened at 9:00am on a Sunday morning, we soon found ourselves pottering about in a 5 door Fiat Uno - Tim was not very impressed and mumbled for quite some time about having to drive a Fiat ... Anyway, once we got over that we loaded up at the local grocery store and headed off for Punto Tombo.

Punto Tombo was fabulous. It was just a world of penguins that roamed the beach side with signs telling humans to give way to the penguins! We spent about two hours there just walking along the tracks, watching the penguins crawl in and out of their little burrows, listening to the babies calling for their mothers with their lunch and getting as close as possible to take photo's - this led on one occasion to a grown up penguin pecking Tim on the leg and pulling out quite a few hairs and 'spraying' him. I told him not to get so close .... We also got to see the penguins playing in the ocean. It was great fun to see them diving in and watching the waves tumble them back to shore only for them to start the process again.

After Punto Tombo we headed off to the Pensinsula only to be turned back at the gate because it was close to closing and there didn't appear to be any accomodation. We turned back to Puerto Madryn, spent the night camping and headed off early back to the Peninsula. We managed to find a camping spot (it was quite full but I am pretty sure if we had arrived the night before there would have been space even if not the ideal spot) and headed off to check out more penguins, seals and sea lions. Sadly, we had missed the whale season but the sea lions were certainly impressive (if a little smelly) and the seals were super cute. We spent the afternoon lazing on the beach until it started to get a little cool at about 8:30pm.

Next morning we headed off relatively early, congratulating ourselves on not having roled the vehicle or crashed into another car (both of which seem to be quite regular activities) - although Tim seemed to think it impossible that we would have such an encounter (obviously due to his superior driving skills on gravel roads...). Our self congratulations, it seemed, was slightly to early as about 10 minutes prior to arriving back at the hire office a truck went by and showered us with rocks and stones, leaving 3 cracks in the windscreen. What had started out as a relatively inexpensive trip suddenly became a lot more than anticipated. Nevermind, the animals were lovely and I am glad we got to spend the extended time there, particularly when I hear people talk about the tours they went on.

Having got our fill of sea life it was time to keep moving so we boarded yet another bus, this time for Ushuaia arriving about 36 hours later, having been through 4 border crossing to end up in the same country we started in!

That seems long enough for now so the next chapter can have it's very own entry.

Hope all is well

Until next time,

Tim and Tracey

PS - thanks very much to Mhari and Li-Ann for the information on getting photo's onto the blog - now I just need to find a computer with a fast enough connection ...