After 32 hours on a bus, we arrived in Puerto Madryn, a city of 70k people near to Peninsular Valdez on Sunday night.  Many welsh people settled here over a century ago, though you wouldn´t think it to look at them, although our tour guide did like suspiciously like Robbie Savage! 

On Monday we took a 13 hour tour to Peninsular Valdez, which is known for it´s population of Southern Right Whales and Killer Whales, which settle in the bay every year to mate.  Our tour guide spoke English, and turned up in a clapped-out old Renault (which he referred to as "f***ing piece of s**t") with two Swedish girls.  After about five minutes on the road the trouble (and expletives) started, as we had to keep pulling over so he could fiddle with the engine.  After a few stops it seemed to be OK, and we made it into the park and to the bay. 

After our experience in Canada (where it took us six hours to see Orca´s), we expected to have to search for the whales for a while and could leave disappointed, but amazingly we could see them in the bay as we pulled up in the car.  We set off on a boat with about fifty tourists, and after about a minute had a mother and baby in our sights.  The captain then switches off the engine and we float along side.  The babies are apparently only a few months old and seem really playful, and the whales do seem a little curious or at least not bothered by the attention, as they swim around, next to or under the boats.   

They´re called Southern Right Whales as they live in the southern hemisphere, and were the right whales to kill apparently, as they are slow and have so much blubber they don´t sink.  They were endangered, though they are now protected yet still vulnerable (about 4500 live in the southern hemisphere).  They are between 11 and 18 metres long, and weigh between 25 and 66 tons, living 50 years.  They are grey (babies were white), and have shrimp and crustaceans living on them, so birds sit on them and eat them off. 

In the hour and a half we were on the boat we must have spotted about dozen whales, as they only seem to swim under the surface when passing under the boat, and at times they were only about three feet from us.  Their tails were bigger than us.  It really is amazing being so close to them, and even though they look quite ugly and it´s hard to make out features on the faces, they are beautiful creatures. 

We left the bay and got back in the "goddamn French piece of crap", and headed off to our next stop, only to break down about three miles up the road.  At first it seemed quite funny, though we soon stopped laughing as we realised we were in the middle of nowhere and had to be back for an 8.30pm bus.  Luckily the guy called through to another van, and we left him at the side of the road waiting for the AA.  Unfortunately the Robbie Savage look-a-like couldn´t speak English, so the rest of the tour we needed translations from our Swedish companions. 

The next stop was a beach populated by sea lions and elephant seals (again for their mating season), which are huge ugly seals that can weigh up to 4 tons.  The males can weigh up to 4 tons, but the females only weigh about a ton.....poor girls.  The males fight for territory and set up harems, where they can mate with 40 females.  Apart from that they just lay there all day.  Not a bad life, though they do have the threat of killer whales (Orca´s) swimming up at high tide, skidding on to the beach and eating them.  Apparently it happens around this time of year, though we only saw some Orca´s swimming around the bay, which is probably why the seals and sea lions don´t seem to go out to sea much. 

On the way back to the van we saw an armadillo, who kept creeping out of his burrow intrigued by us.  Also from the van we spotted some mara´s, which are native only to Patagonia and are like huge hares, as well as a small snake and some guanaca´s, which is the only member of the llama family that can live below 2km altitude. 

Our final stop was to visit the Magellanic Penguins, which are Patagonian Penguins.  Amazingly we pulled up and walked a few yards from the car park and they were stood there completely still, so much so that I laughed at Allison when she said she spotted one and insisted it must be a model!  Their burrows were just a couple of feet from the viewing fence, so they were within touching distance, which we nearly regretted as one of them bent over and squirted a liquid, white poo towards the watching audience.  The noise it made was like the noise when you squeeze a Fairy Liquid bottle to hard, though they were very cute all the same. 

We returned to Puerto Madryn glad we had meade the trip, as so far it was the best wildlife experience we have had, and we nearly hadn´t made it there.  Another 30 hour bus journey only and we´ll be in Mendoza, Argentina´s wine region and our final destination in Argentina.