November 28th continued
The person at the museum had mentioned that we could camp freely at Punta Pardela,
so after driving on dirt tracks for a while we finally arrived, another camper van was
there, a big 4x4, from Germany , but on this trip we were not used to talking to
strangers. On our next one I will certainly make friends.
The water was an intense blue, calm and clear, I wanted to jump in, again I had to hold
back my madness.
Most of the ground was a build up of shells and salt, the hills were made of fossils, this
beach is where some famous pictures of the whales swimming close to the shore were
taken.
We didn't know what to do, we were tempted to stay the night, but as we had no
information on when we could see the Killer whales in the morning, so we headed back
to Piramides
We wanted to stay at the camping, but they would not have any water until the next
evening, so we moved to the police camping where they have water every evening from
7.00, it is a small compound with some horses living next door, a lot of dust, but flat
and quiet.
November 29th
Peninsula valdes Map
We were up at 5 and quietly got the van together, put both the kids in the back bed and
drove towards Punta Delgada, on the way we were amazed by the amount of wildlife,
herds of guanacos, patagonia hares and normal hares running across the road, flocks
of ostrich like birds (ñandu) ..... We later were told that there are too many animals
due to it being a protected park and there are no depredators.
The kids woke half way there, we arrived at Punta Delgada and enquired about seeing
the seals and penguins, we were told that the tours were only by appointment and we
would be better to head to Caleta valdes.
After having some breakfast, we headed along the coast, we decided to stop and get a
closer look at the beaches, by walking across a small field of spiny plants and other
small bushes.
What a surprise when we arrived at the edge of the cliff, a beach full of seals and sea
elephants!
We pulled ourselves away from that beautiful sight and headed for caleta Valdes where
the high tide was due at 10.00, on our arrival we were not sure where we were supposed to
be to get a view of the killer whales, we stopped by the road and got out to have a closer
look at the inlet, everything was calm, seals and sea elephant's were lazing in the sun
on a bed of warm stones, a few baby's were playing in pools, a couple of penguins made
their way across the beach, but we couldn't get closer, and there was a sign saying that
we were not aloud out of that small parking place, what should we do?
No worry, a park ranger zoomed up, jumped out of her vehicle and gave us a talk on
what we were not aloud to do nice??? She directed us along some tracks and we were able
to get a close look at the seals, another path led us to a few seats were we sat and waited,
and waited, it was cold, we finally gave up and headed back to the parking space, a bus
of tourists arrived and said that the orca's were at punta norte! the "nice" park ranger
had not told us that the high tide is 2 hours later at Punta Norte, and, if they don't
appear at caleta, you should race to Punta Norte.
And that we did, as fast as we could along that bumpy road, when we arrived we
jumped out of the van, ran to the beach and found a bunch of tourists with videos of the
whales, I was too upset to look more than a second, everyone had a big smile on their
face (don't get it wrong, I was happy that someone saw them). The sea was a beautiful
deep blue, and soooo calm...we stayed for a while and talked to a much nicer park
ranger, and decided to return the next day. And try for the high tide here which will be
a couple of hours earlier than the day before.
We return to the police camping, made a BBQ, it was windy and dust was blowing
everywhere, I made the most of the "hot water hour" to get some clothes clean, and we
cleaned most of the dust that we had collected along the dusty roads of Valdés, I was
surprised that we even had dust in the oven!
November 30th
It is still windy, we get up early again, we really want to see those whales! We arrive at
Punta Norte 2 hours too early, and the sea is rough...we have breakfast and Isabelle and
Alex play with some friendly armadillos that live in the car park, a couple of birds
decide to enter and eat some crumbs from the floor.
The whales do not appear..the Spanish tourists were back as well, they wanted a second
look at the beasts, I was tempted to ask them to show me yesterdays video, but decided
against the idea, we sadly leave, as this is our last chance, we have to start driving
back towards Buenos Aires to return the van. Peninsula Valdés is one place we will
return to, and spend as long as it takes to see the killer whales.
We drive out of the park and towards Buenos Aires, we find a camping in Las Grutas,
belonging to the local police I try again to talk to the flight company, we have decided to
take a later flight rather than an earlier one, but alas I cannot get through, how
strange:-)
We take a walk down to the beach, the tide is out leaving never ending bare slippery
rocks, I spot a man heading out with a bucket, I follow, curious about what he was
doing, it was not as easy as it seemed, very slippery and in some places very wet! I
finally caught up with him, he kindly explained that he was leaving bait to see if he
could catch a shark with high tide that night, he will come back and check at dawn, he
invited us to come and watch, we will see..
We made a BBQ and cleaned yet more dust, washed our suitcases( which we had not
used) and drowned our sadness of not sighting the whales, and that our voyage in our
now beloved motor home was nearing the end, with few glasses of wine too many.
1st December
We started the day with a headache and even more cleaning didn't get rid of it, the
dust in the van seemed never ending.
We spend the day driving, we stop at a camping in Rio Colorado to make lunch, enjoy
the breeze and the lovely temperature.
We wanted to find a camping or hotel on the route, after entering various towns and
asking around we found that this was impossible until we were closer to BA. We saw ae
hotel and stopped to find out the price, we were very tired, but not tired enough to pay
100 us ....
We finally stopped at a gas station and parked behind the main building with other
truck drivers away from the noise, and had a lovely meal and a few glasses of wine
before a quiet nights sleep.
2nd December
We carried on driving towards BA, and decided to make camp that night in Laguna
del monte.
We found the lake which was a strange grey colour, and was also surrounded by camp
sites, we stopped at the "sindicato de carniceros" camping, ( butcher's syndicate) and it
was full!
Everyone was cooking their meat in many ways that I had never seen before, but it
seemed that they were enjoying themselves, lots of people were fishing with hand made
fishing poles that were sold on the premises, and others were rowing boats in the lake.
We rested for a while and then went out with Alex for a "row", it didn't LOOK that
difficult from a distance, but wow! We had trouble getting out into that very dirty
water and even more trouble getting back, we kept going round in circles! But WHAT a
laugh!
Isabelle spent a while playing in the playground at the camp, I was surprised to hear her
talking like an Argentinian with the other kids!
We started preparing dinner while Alex carried on with his quest to catch a fish, after a
while he returned with a big smile and a 5 millimetre fish, it was too small to have even
bit the bait, it had caught on the hook by accident... We put it in a glass of water for a
while then released back into its smelly home, maybe it would have been happier in the
glass of clean water?
Another evening starting to pack our stuff and clean as much as possible, will the van
ever be clean enough?
continue.....
The person at the museum had mentioned that we could camp freely at Punta Pardela,
so after driving on dirt tracks for a while we finally arrived, another camper van was
there, a big 4x4, from Germany , but on this trip we were not used to talking to
strangers. On our next one I will certainly make friends.
The water was an intense blue, calm and clear, I wanted to jump in, again I had to hold
back my madness.
Most of the ground was a build up of shells and salt, the hills were made of fossils, this
beach is where some famous pictures of the whales swimming close to the shore were
taken.
We didn't know what to do, we were tempted to stay the night, but as we had no
information on when we could see the Killer whales in the morning, so we headed back
to Piramides
We wanted to stay at the camping, but they would not have any water until the next
evening, so we moved to the police camping where they have water every evening from
7.00, it is a small compound with some horses living next door, a lot of dust, but flat
and quiet.
November 29th
Peninsula valdes Map
We were up at 5 and quietly got the van together, put both the kids in the back bed and
drove towards Punta Delgada, on the way we were amazed by the amount of wildlife,
herds of guanacos, patagonia hares and normal hares running across the road, flocks
of ostrich like birds (ñandu) ..... We later were told that there are too many animals
due to it being a protected park and there are no depredators.
The kids woke half way there, we arrived at Punta Delgada and enquired about seeing
the seals and penguins, we were told that the tours were only by appointment and we
would be better to head to Caleta valdes.
After having some breakfast, we headed along the coast, we decided to stop and get a
closer look at the beaches, by walking across a small field of spiny plants and other
small bushes.
What a surprise when we arrived at the edge of the cliff, a beach full of seals and sea
elephants!
We pulled ourselves away from that beautiful sight and headed for caleta Valdes where
the high tide was due at 10.00, on our arrival we were not sure where we were supposed to
be to get a view of the killer whales, we stopped by the road and got out to have a closer
look at the inlet, everything was calm, seals and sea elephant's were lazing in the sun
on a bed of warm stones, a few baby's were playing in pools, a couple of penguins made
their way across the beach, but we couldn't get closer, and there was a sign saying that
we were not aloud out of that small parking place, what should we do?
No worry, a park ranger zoomed up, jumped out of her vehicle and gave us a talk on
what we were not aloud to do nice??? She directed us along some tracks and we were able
to get a close look at the seals, another path led us to a few seats were we sat and waited,
and waited, it was cold, we finally gave up and headed back to the parking space, a bus
of tourists arrived and said that the orca's were at punta norte! the "nice" park ranger
had not told us that the high tide is 2 hours later at Punta Norte, and, if they don't
appear at caleta, you should race to Punta Norte.
And that we did, as fast as we could along that bumpy road, when we arrived we
jumped out of the van, ran to the beach and found a bunch of tourists with videos of the
whales, I was too upset to look more than a second, everyone had a big smile on their
face (don't get it wrong, I was happy that someone saw them). The sea was a beautiful
deep blue, and soooo calm...we stayed for a while and talked to a much nicer park
ranger, and decided to return the next day. And try for the high tide here which will be
a couple of hours earlier than the day before.
We return to the police camping, made a BBQ, it was windy and dust was blowing
everywhere, I made the most of the "hot water hour" to get some clothes clean, and we
cleaned most of the dust that we had collected along the dusty roads of Valdés, I was
surprised that we even had dust in the oven!
November 30th
It is still windy, we get up early again, we really want to see those whales! We arrive at
Punta Norte 2 hours too early, and the sea is rough...we have breakfast and Isabelle and
Alex play with some friendly armadillos that live in the car park, a couple of birds
decide to enter and eat some crumbs from the floor.
The whales do not appear..the Spanish tourists were back as well, they wanted a second
look at the beasts, I was tempted to ask them to show me yesterdays video, but decided
against the idea, we sadly leave, as this is our last chance, we have to start driving
back towards Buenos Aires to return the van. Peninsula Valdés is one place we will
return to, and spend as long as it takes to see the killer whales.
We drive out of the park and towards Buenos Aires, we find a camping in Las Grutas,
belonging to the local police I try again to talk to the flight company, we have decided to
take a later flight rather than an earlier one, but alas I cannot get through, how
strange:-)
We take a walk down to the beach, the tide is out leaving never ending bare slippery
rocks, I spot a man heading out with a bucket, I follow, curious about what he was
doing, it was not as easy as it seemed, very slippery and in some places very wet! I
finally caught up with him, he kindly explained that he was leaving bait to see if he
could catch a shark with high tide that night, he will come back and check at dawn, he
invited us to come and watch, we will see..
We made a BBQ and cleaned yet more dust, washed our suitcases( which we had not
used) and drowned our sadness of not sighting the whales, and that our voyage in our
now beloved motor home was nearing the end, with few glasses of wine too many.
1st December
We started the day with a headache and even more cleaning didn't get rid of it, the
dust in the van seemed never ending.
We spend the day driving, we stop at a camping in Rio Colorado to make lunch, enjoy
the breeze and the lovely temperature.
We wanted to find a camping or hotel on the route, after entering various towns and
asking around we found that this was impossible until we were closer to BA. We saw ae
hotel and stopped to find out the price, we were very tired, but not tired enough to pay
100 us ....
We finally stopped at a gas station and parked behind the main building with other
truck drivers away from the noise, and had a lovely meal and a few glasses of wine
before a quiet nights sleep.
2nd December
We carried on driving towards BA, and decided to make camp that night in Laguna
del monte.
We found the lake which was a strange grey colour, and was also surrounded by camp
sites, we stopped at the "sindicato de carniceros" camping, ( butcher's syndicate) and it
was full!
Everyone was cooking their meat in many ways that I had never seen before, but it
seemed that they were enjoying themselves, lots of people were fishing with hand made
fishing poles that were sold on the premises, and others were rowing boats in the lake.
We rested for a while and then went out with Alex for a "row", it didn't LOOK that
difficult from a distance, but wow! We had trouble getting out into that very dirty
water and even more trouble getting back, we kept going round in circles! But WHAT a
laugh!
Isabelle spent a while playing in the playground at the camp, I was surprised to hear her
talking like an Argentinian with the other kids!
We started preparing dinner while Alex carried on with his quest to catch a fish, after a
while he returned with a big smile and a 5 millimetre fish, it was too small to have even
bit the bait, it had caught on the hook by accident... We put it in a glass of water for a
while then released back into its smelly home, maybe it would have been happier in the
glass of clean water?
Another evening starting to pack our stuff and clean as much as possible, will the van
ever be clean enough?
continue.....
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