El Calafate looks like a typical mountain resort town: handcraft shops, homemade ice cream stores, souvenirs, chocolate shops and food. Everything looks like a new and shiny attempt at evoking the historic: expensive restaurants, clothing stores and swanky hotels with glistening interiors flickering from rustic exteriors.





This is not to say it isn't a pleasant place. It is relaxing to sit on the wooden deck of a cafe, sipping espresso and watching the people go by. And when you get off the main drag, you can see the snow tipped mountains and walk along the glacial turquoise lake (though in the morning it is more of a mundane lake blue).

Yesterday, in the morning, we took a walk around Nimitz Lagoon: a bird sanctuary full of blue billed ducks, black faced ibises, as well as many others.














It is a tranquil walk, except for the parts of the path that go a little too close to the nests of some birds-of-prey. Then the birds swept down towards our heads, swooping back up at the last minute before circling back to make another attack.

For lunch we tried an Argentinian all-you-can-eat place with parilla (grilled meat). I didn't care for it much: greasy food, fatty meat. However, the peaches with whipped cream were good.

At 3 we caught a bus to Perito Morena. The bus traveled along a lake. We ascended a little from the dry steppe and as we turned a corner, the weather got misty and rainy. The hills became greener with heartier trees. It was as if the weather was setting the scene for the presentation of something amazing off in the distance: the ominous change in climate that turns out to be caused by the breath of an ice giant.




In the distance we could see the white triangular shape of the glacier cutting a path between the mountains. The lake was almost green. The observation area was crowded when for miles around there was nothing but nature. Stairways led to different viewing balconies. The glacier was a huge jagged mass of white and blue.




Mammoth, it stretched from where it had dammed the river/lake, ice scraping the rocks on the shore into black sand, back across the lake until it disappeared into the mountains like an army of pointy headed soldiers, frozen as they rushed through the pass at the start of an epic battle.













Or perhaps it looked more like the result of an overzealous, over creative giant housewife whipping up a blue meringue pie. What do you do when faced with a massive river of ice? You stare at it. You watch it for hours wondering if it is the cause of the chill that permeates the air.

Occasionally there is a loud crack as a piece of ice falls off and lands with a louder crash when it bursts through the ice sheet covering the water below. You wait for a large icy spine to crash or an ice plate to slide off the face, crashing and shattering into little icebergs below. You watch the giant shedding its skin, self-destructing as it grows. And since you have 3 hours before the bus back to town, you watch it hoping for a dramatic explosion caused by one huge piece breaking.

Yesterday we arrived in Rio Gallegos. We had reserved a hotel room even though the town is "Not the world cup of tourist destinations" according to Lonely Planet. I needed some recup time and we both needed to sleep after 2 nights in a noisy campground. After a brief walk around town we decided to stay for 2 nights precisely for the fact it was not a tourist destination. It's a laid-back town with nothing much to do. There is a long non-developed river front with an empty river bank (possibly because of sewage being dumped into it). The weather was cloudy and raining but the quality of light from the shifting rain clouds and the slow setting sun was beautiful. The town has a main street with restaurants and stores. It made me think of parts of Alaska.



Today we went to an interesting museum which had displays on fossils, archeology, an exhibit of political cartoons by Abraham R. Vigo,




and a twisted but extremely original exhibit of contemporary penguin related pieces by artist Carlos D'Amico.




To my delight we also managed to find a vegetarian take-out place and a good bakery.

Patagonia is one of those places where I've heard the name often but haven't been entirely sure what was there, aside from mountains as suggested by the logo of the outdoor wear manufacturer. As we traveled, people mentioned going to El Chalten, El Calafate, and Bariloche (Lakes District). I gathered it was a very outdoorsy place with mountains, lakes, glaciers and penguins.



A 20 hour bus ride brought us to Puerto Madryn. As we moved south, the main thing we noticed was a beautiful sunset which lasted for quite a while at about 9 or 10 PM.




The landscape was flat with scraggly bushes and occasional groups of Guanacos, an Argentinian relative of the Vicuņa which easily blends into the landscape. There were also quite a few sheep which seemed bigger and fluffier than the sheep we'd seen in the Andes. Maybe they were brought over from Wales (a lot of Welsh immigrants settled in this area).

Puerto Madryn is a beach town... not what I was expecting in Patagonia. We got a spot in a crowded campground 3.5 kms south of the town. The town is located on a bay. The campsite was on another part of the bay. During low tide we could cut through the beach and go straight to town rather than follow the curve of the street along the edge of the bay. This reduced the walk substantially. The beach was lined with restaurants and bars. Toward the evening it was so covered with people, we decided to return to the campsite by the road.

The only reason we came to Puerto Madryn was to visit the Valdez Peninsula. I couldn't care less about the beach and we spent most of our time in town hiding from the sun. The Valdez Peninsula is a nature reserve and home of a couple penguin colonies, sea lions, elephant seals and the orcas who love to eat them. The land part is flat with bleak bushes (like the surrounding areas), however we were able to make out a lot more guanacos, ņandus (rheas), and a very cute ground bird with a death wish which we named "stupid birds" due to the fact they seemed to always be trying to get hit by cars (the squirrels of the bird world). Seeing families of ņandus wandering around, fluffing out their feathers and racing at amazing speeds away from the road, proving they were a lot smarter than the "stupid birds" made the long stretches of bleak landscape and gravel roads worthwhile.




We had rented a car which turned out to be about $20 cheaper than going with a tour. The roads kicked up tremendous amounts of dust and I was extremely grateful that Rowshan loves driving.

From a viewing tower at the visitor center we were able to see the Isla de los Pajaros which inspired the first page of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's "Le Petit Prince" where he described drawing a boa constrictor who swallowed an elephant. The island does resemble the elephant engorged boa constrictor. It also, as with the narrator's drawings, could be easily misinterpreted as a hat.




The peninsula is big and the land is harsh. The road had just a few places where one could stop and take in the views, though you could see the sea from the road: bright blue and turquoise.




Incidentally, this is the last photo our camera took before it died. The rest of the photos are captured from the video.

Our next stop was an overlook with a view of a long beach covered with elephant seals.




They were big, loud and lounged on the beach like giant slugs. The tide was out leaving a beach area with water filled ridges where the seals were able to swim up to the dry part of the beach.

Caleta Valdez gave us our first glance at Magellanic penguins though there was a bit of a distance between us, we were able to watch a few groups: one group swimming up to a spit, climbing out of the water, walking over the spit, then getting back in the water, swimming a bit around the spit, climbing out again, then diving back in.




They were incredibly cute. I think it is because they walk as if they are just learning and seem to be incredibly happy with the discovery that they have this ability AND can swim, too!!!!

However, this view was nothing compared to the penguin colony which was hanging out a little North of this area. The spot was marked with a sign "pinguinos 200m". We parked our car and walked to the fence expecting to look down at a beach with penguins in the distance. Instead, penguins looked at us from the other side of the fence as if on that side they had a sign reading "Humans 200m." Many had babies (or perhaps the penguin equivalent of teenagers). They were almost the same size as the adults but covered with fluffy gray feathers. The parents groomed them and stood proudly and protectively next to them.







Other penguins seemed to delight in posing for the never ending stream of photographers.




It was hard to leave the penguins but we had to continue on.

Punta Norte was our last stop. This was where the sea lions lived. I'd seen sea lions in San Diego and San Francisco but these were huge and it was understandable why they were called sea lions.




The big males had huge rolls of fat on their neck, big as a lions mane. They roared. The young made the sound of bleating sheep while others seemed to moo like cows. They are definitely not quiet animals. The bulls would occasionally charge each other roaring.




Unfortunately we didn't see any orcas. I think the tide was too low for them to be hunting in that area.

While walking across the parking lot, we saw an armadillo. It turns out that several had burrows in the area.




We got back into town around 9PM though it felt more like 5PM. I was having to resign myself to the fact that I was sick (again), but this time with a nasty cold. We had a noisy group move to the campsite next to us. The worst offender was a woman whose voice was gratingly loud who I'm sure I caught telling the others in her group to be quiet because people were trying to sleep. Another site was occupied by 2 screaming kids. Perhaps people are louder than sea lions after all.