Peninsula Valdez

Sadly our time in South America is coming to an end. We fly from Santiago, Chile to Rapa Nui on December 20th, so we have 2 weeks left.

We recently spent 4 nights camping on the Peninsula Valdez on the coast of Argentina, a 20-hour bus ride South from Buenos Aires. We pitched our little yellow tent about 20 meters from the beach. The old Atlantic wasn't exactly swimmable, but we had a refreshing dip.

The first day we rented a little Chev with a pair of Germans, one of whom didn't trouble himself with the use of deodorant. We drove around the peninsula and saw colonies of elephant seals, hundreds of them, just lying there like milk bags. Occasionally one of them would decide to move a few feet and have to do that Stevie Wonder upper-body sway to locomote. There were a few jumbo sea lions with full furry manes and frisky attitudes. The penguin colony was huge and they were very friendly although they kept pestering us for cigarettes and lights. They made a funny braying sound like donkeys. Another surprising little fellow was the armadillo, who freaked me out because he would freeze for a minute then charge me like a mini-linebacker. He seemed to want to bruise me up. We also saw a bezerker of an animal bolting across the plains that I think is known as a viscacha, a big rabbit-like rodent. As well, a few ostriches and a breed of llama.

Consider that tour the appetizer because the next day was the best part. We hopped on a boat and headed out a half hour to see the southern right whales. This season, reportedly over 300 of them are hanging out in the gulf nursing their calves before they cruise down to Antartica for the colder waters. We saw over a dozen whales and their calves and they came close, at times swimming under our boat. Incredibly, they stay very still and the clean, clear water is quite shallow so they're close to the surface -- very lucky for the viewer. (I only wish we could have had Captain Louis at the wheel.)

After that, we did a little hiking and relaxed on the beach with the Argentines all around sipping their matés, playing soccer and tanning. We saw beautiful sunsets and hung out with two more Germans, one of whom was an engineer. He explained to us how he had changed the entire automobile industry a little bit. Just a little bit. A bit. The entire automobile industry. A bit.