About 12 of us on the tour, with the tour guide fluent in both Spanish and English, and very knowledgeable and town proud to boot... The tour started with a quick drive around PM's highlights, including the fish factory and aluminum smelter - Ok, not off to a particularly brilliant beginning.
The drive to the peninsula is about an hour, and we learnt all about the regions history, why it looks so desolate (rarely rains here), and the problems they face with very little water.
Entering the park, we learn that despite being heritage listed the are 5 estancias on the peninsula and the main industry is wool from the "Australian Merino". Then came about half an hour on wool, and how many sheep the gauchos can shear a day. The guide knew I was Australian and was raised on a farm, so he asked me could i shear, and how long it took me to shear a sheep. Now Australian pride is on the line here, so I said lied about my shearing prowess and said just under two minutes. He seemed suitable impressed... Then of course we came upon a shearing shed and I had a god awful moment thinking I was about to have to prove it! Fortunately though we didn't stop as we had to go look at a windmill to see how the water is raised from the ground. Please not...
There was some interesting wildlife - guanaco's that will spit at you if you get too close, silver foxes, patagonian hares that apparently engage in golden showers (that was confirmed in English so it is not a mistranslation on my part), armadillos (actually cool), seals, sea lions (cool too), and magellanic penguins (again cool), but really this was getting to be a looooong tour. This is also a fantastic spot to view Right Whales, who breed in the bay. But of course it is not whale season now. Naturally.
But the reason this park is so popular, and why so many people visit is the Killer Whales. This is one of only two places in the world where the whales will beach themselves while hunting seal and sea lion pups. And it is Killer Whale hunting season, as the seal pups are just beginning to learn to swim.
It is truly spectacular. A pod of killer whales is swimming just meters from the shore, and they are actually listening to the pups and watching them to plan their attacks. When a pup or pups do enter the water (I don't know why either), all hell breaks loose as though young the pups are still fast and agile swimmers, and they try to avoid the attacking killer whales. All this happening just meters from the shore line. If a whale gets a pup, they play with the poor bugger much like a cat with a mouse, even letting it go and swim groggily yo shore before launching themselves fully onto the steep pebbly beach and dragging him back in - where the little tacker is just meters from his bellowing mum and aunts. Amazing and heartbreaking.
Of course, I know all this because I've seen the David Attenborough film about it which was filmed here. We of course did not see diddly of killer whales... I pretended that some lumps of floating kelp were a pod on the prowl, but alas this seaweed did not appear at all interested in launching an attack on the seal pups.
So this World Heritage reserve was something of a bust I'm afraid. Today it has rained all day (I thought this place was a desert?), so have been copped up at the hostel all day. Still, it has been relaxing after being on the go all the time, sometimes I forget I'm on holiday and I can choose to do nothing if I want.
Tomorrow evening is another 20 hour bus trip (awesome busses though with lie flat recliners) to El Calafate to see the mountains for the first time and the spectacular glaciers. At least the glaciers will definitely be there to see.
Hasta
(oh yeah, we also saw a lizard and a black widow spider (a red back). Ooooooh.......)
Penguins (obviously)
Golden shore loving Patagonian Hares
Location:Puerto Madryn
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