Puerto Madryn

Hello!

Apologies for the last blog: excessive alcohol and lack of sleep resulted in little wit or particular excitement. However, a 22 hour bus journey has fixed this and I am now ready to write of my stunning adventure in Peninsula Valdes, Puerto Madryn...

So I arrived, checked in and was immediately adopted by an Argentinian divorcee amed Veronika who has decided we are to be bff for the next few days. She told me to book myself on her whale watching tour so obediently, I did. Then the next day we get picked up by a minibus and we begin our tour. First stop is El Doradillo, a collection of beaches where southern white whales can be spotted with their babies. Almost immediately we spotted one and to be honest, I was set for the day. Remember that book 'Whale's Song' that has me in it as a little girl? I was living out that book in my head. So we watched the whale do its thing for a bit and I tried to take some photos, but then I realised that I can't experience life through a camera lense and gave up and just watched in awe and wonderment.

Next stop was a seaside town called Puerto Piramides where you take the boat to go whale watching. Cue dweeby photos in life jackets next to big models of whales. Off we trot onto the boat and out we go into the gulf and again, almost immediately a whale appears and delights us, but a little far off, then when it gets bored of us, we turn the boat around and are just in time to catch one in the distance doing a full on jump out of the water like in the dramatic nature programmes that make you want to be a marine biologist when you're small. So that was AWESOME and I would have gone home happy, BUT THEN (the order of events now gets a little hazy as I was overexcited) a young whale decides to come right up to the boat and hang out for a bit and I got a really great photo of him under the water. Then we watched a female stick her tail up in the air for a really long time. The guide explained why only females do this, but I wasn't listening.

Then, best of the best of the best, this massive whale comes right up to the boat, sticks his whole head out of the water to have a look at us and then swims underneath the boat and hangs out with us for a big doing that Loch Ness Monster kind of motion - back, head, tail, back, head tail - and then we went back, which is probably for the best because I was exhausted from the excitement.

But the day wasn't over, oh no. We then went to watch a colony of elephant seals, the alpha male of which has between 80-90 females in his crew (who knew you'd be reaading David Attenborough's blog today) and they are the fattest things I've ever seen. When they move, you can actually see them ripple, like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer's fat dances. Anyway, check this out (do not read if you are easily offended), so when elephant seals mate, the male flubbers up to the female and CRUSHES her so she will submit, and then rolls over and spoons to actually do the deed otherwise he would actally kill her because of his enormous weight. Just imagine. That is what the wives of fat people feel like.

So then we saw penguins, and whatever, penguins are over rated, sorry. Then we came home and Veronika decided we simply must do something tomorrow, so we booked a scuba diving trip and at some point I will stop spending money, find an internet cafe where I can upload photos, sleep and relax a bit, maybe even read my book.

Also, check this out: I have been speaking Spanish ALL DAY and Veronika thinks I'm really good and people keep being really surprised when I say I've only been learning for seven weeks. Result.

Also, officially half way through my trip now - scary!