Peninsula Valdes and Coastal Patagonia: Penguins, Sea Lions, Whales and the Vast Expanse.

Out of Buenos Aires and the journey begins!

After leaving BA, we hit the road with the loose plan of driving down the coast of Argentina, possibly going to Ushuaia (time permitting), and then driving back up through the Andes crossing in and out of Chile and eventually back to BA. (Update: as we are behind on blogging, spoiler...we ended up following this route more or less)

In BA, we found these tour books from the early 2000s that offered road trip information for the different areas we planned to visit! Even though the books were in Spanish and super outdated they proved super helpful because they broke down this massive landscape into smaller multi-day itineraries. And sure some of the places recommended had been closed so long that when we asked locals "where this estancia (ranch/farm) is" or "where this cheese shop is" they often never even heard of them. But nevertheless the books really helped us out, all the while practicing our Spanish.

They didn't always take us where we wanted to go, but we got there nonetheless

Once we left BA, we quickly discovered the meaning of 'pampas' (lowlands), the road was flat and straight and it felt like we could look out in any directions for hundreds of kilometers without it ever ending. In a way it felt like we were inside some painting of a great landscape expanse. If you have driven through areas like Western Texas then you understand what we mean. Our first night ended with us driving and seeing a lighting storm somewhere off in the distance and the clouds and sky just lighting up with each strike. It felt like it was close by but we could barely even hear the thunder...

Open sky and scrub land along Ruta 3, somewhere south of Bahia Blanca from our car

After the first few days driving down the coast we arrived to Peninsula Valdes which is a national reserve and technically part of the Patagonia region. This area of the coast is known for containing sea lions, penguins (!!) and whales. On our way we stopped at lighthouses and numerous beaches for short walks, vistas and lots of picnics. Nearing the national park we stopped at Playa el Doradillo, known for great whale spotting. We could see them in the distance so we picnic'd and kept pointing to whales far off hoping they would come closer. Although those whales never ventured closer, a little later while driving we passed a group of 10 people stopped on a different beach with fancy cameras and decided to check it out. Here, we saw about 4 pairs of whales, each with their calves about 10 feet off away from the shore just playing around. It was absolutely incredible!! Over the next few days we camped in the national park in Puerto Piramides, encountering our first penguins (A is in love with them), sea lions, and whales (from afar).

Faro Rio Negro, south of Viedma

Concession stand built into the hillside with blooming spring flowers taking over

Empty beach for a picnic at Playa el Doradillo

Looking out for whales at Punta Flecha

Whale spotting just off the coast on the way to Peninsula Valdes

Sunset in Puerto Piramides

Our first penguin spotting!

Heading back to the nest to keep the eggs warm

The eastern coastline of Peninsula Valdes

As we continued down the coast of Patagonia towards Tierra del Fuego, we continued to stop and see sea lions, whales and more penguins! We took a day trip in Puerto Deseado to see the rock hopper penguin colony which were adorable with their bushy yellow eyebrows!!!

Ready for all the animals!

Dolphins following our boat

Sea lions, especially in large quantities, do not smell good

But they are still very cute

Rockhopper penguins!!

The coastal drive remained to be very much the same and unfortunately the only national park that was on the way was closed due to bad rains and damaged roads.

On the drive down we stopped at a petrified forest in Jaramillo (further inland) which was incredible. The amount of trees there that are petrified and the magnitude of them is absolutely amazing! It is hard to describe but imagine a large tree that has fallen over, all the branches are gone, only the trunk remains, and the trunk is now entirely stone!! And all around what looks like wood chips are actually chips of stone.