Whales and Wales

We treated ourselves to a nice seafood lunch...
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On an overnight bus we headed West to the Atlantic coast of Patagonia to see the abundance of marine wildlife. First a guided tour of Penninsula Valdes, the highlight being a boat trip to see the massive Southern Right Whales who can be found in their greatest number just off the coast. They are reknowned for being one of the easier whales to watch and we were not disappointed. To see such a vast animal ( they can measure up to 16m in lenght) in their natural habitat was a real priviledge. We even got to see a mother and calf swimming together right alongside our boat. Back on land we saw sea lions, huge elephant seals and land critters, the Rhea ( like an ostrich), Mara ( South American hare) and easily the largest spider either of us has ever seen  - a tarantular no less - just wandering across the path in front of us.

...which Michelle enjoyed.
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Further down the coast is the largest penguin colony outside of Antartica, about 500,000 penguins at this time of year. So we hired a car with an Irish couple we had met and drove the two and a half hours to see them. It was great! We were able to walk right in amongst them. We saw them swimming, nesting their eggs and wandering all around us and even in the car park. We rounded the day off with a visit to Gamain, a Welsh settlement founded in the late 1800´s and where they are still trying to maintain their Welsh culture. Blatantly the objective is mainly to keep the tour buses and the money they bring rolling in. Actually it didn´t look particularly Welsh, but we did enjoy a very large and tasty Welsh tea.