November 2006
We took an overnight bus from Esquel to Puerto Madryn and the Peninsula Valdes on the cost. The peninsula has a big bay which is a winter feeding area for whales, sea lions, seals, penguins and orcas. During the high season (which we missed by a week or so) you can see whales from the beach in town (we had to go further out on the peninsula to see whales). The orcas hunt sea lions here and there are some cool pictures and movies you can buy of orcas practically on the beach attacking sea lions.
This is a guanaco, related to llamas. We saw them all over Patagonia. We did not get a picture of the other two large animals, the rhea or ņandu which is a smaller version of an ostrich and the puma.
The next two pictures are in a penguin colony. Note that the fence is made tall enough so the penguins can go under but people can't. These are Megellanic penguins.
This colony has a million or so at the peak breeding period. They dig holes and lay eggs in the holes, since this was the beginning of the season we saw lots of eggs and chicks. Some nests are quite a way from the water, making a long walk for food.
I don't know if these are sea lions or seals, they are really hard to tell apart unless they move and they don't move much. The seals are elephant seals (they have a big nose like an elephant).
We drove about 100 miles on this gravel road to reach another place where you can see penguins, seals, etc. Did not see a soul all day. There are a lot of roads like this in Patagonia.
From this point we watched three orcas for about half an hour. I never did get a good photo. The two right whales we saw from another spot were also too far away for a good picture. Fortunately we had binoculars..
