Momo and I arrived to the eastern beach town of Puerto Madryn from the southwest part of argentina in Patagonia, Calafate and Chalten, a few days ago. Though southern patagonia is beautiful, its kind of nice to be out of the cold and in the hot sun. Its still Patagonia though, which means its still VERY windy, and ash from the volcano eruption in the west sweeps by at night. Origionally, we were planning to visit Bariloche, a lake town in the west, but the ash and recommendations from other vagabond travelers carried us to the wild life (penguins, whales, sea lions, elepant sea lions, dolphins, and all sorts of birds) of Peninsula Valdes and Puerto Madryn. I was most excited for the whale watching. But alas, none to be found on the day we went out. I have a sneaky suspicion that the guides just told us that they saw a mother and calf yesterday just to rob us of our money, since other foreigners had told us that the whales swam on weeks ago. Though we still saw sea lions and sea elephants that day. Just so everyone knows, a baby sea elephant weighs just as much as a full grown male sea lion. These things are massive! And quite funny to watch them wiggle their way up and down the beach like they are doing the worm, blubber jiggles and wobbely bits and everything.

Yesterday, we saw the biggest magellanic penguin colony in the world. Those cute little penguins were all over the place, 3 feet away, not scared nor seemed to care that tourists were shoving pricy canon cameras in their faces. The little baby penguins which just hatched this month were so cute, I just wanted to take one with me to be our travel partner. Three minds are always better than two. Well, depending on the mind I guess. Besides, it was too windy to take him out of his burrowed hole. He would either blow away or freeze to death. At least Momo caught a really great video of a penguin jumping off the boardwalk, back on the boardwalk, then falling off the other side. I know its cruel to laugh, but I couldnt help myself.

We are off again to the famed Buenos Aires to catch a bus to Iguazu Falls for the holidays. Hope everyone has great family vacations!

Happy travels,
Teigan