Puerto Deseado, Bosque Petrificado, Puerto San Julian, Piedrabuena

Monday, 22 November

A bus drive from Trelew to Comodoro Rivadavia. Three hours break here, the wind is so strong that I hardly can walk in the city with my backpack. A second bus to Puerto Deseado. Here I met two girls, one from Panama and one from France. We don`t know it yet but will spend together the next three days. Nice taxi driver with strong polish roots takes me to hotel - there is no single hostel in the city, so no cheap way to stay overnight. Not that I knew at this timepoint.

Puerto Deseado

It is a city located in the northern margin of the Rìo Deseado, named in 1586 Port Desire. Both Hernando de Magellan and Charles Darwin visited this place (in 1529 and 1833, respectively). Around Puerto Deseado you can find spectacular landscapes and rich fauna: cormorants, Magellan penguins, grebes, petrels, flamingos, swans, gulls, oystercatcher,Commerson´s delphins, Pealer`s dolphins, fur seals and... the craziest looking yellow crest penguins.

Tuesday, 23 November

In the very morning (very morning for me ;) ) I search opportunity to have an excursion. I reached the Darwin Expeditions house - a very cosy wooden house at the Deseado river. Thanks two very nice local guys I changed the place of my residence from hotel to a camping which reduced sleeping costs to 20%... In Darwin Expeditions I met two chicas from the yesterday bus together with one german chicke which I had met in Puerto Piràmides a fw days before. Next days we will have a great time in our panamian-french-german-polish dream team.

Isla Pinguíno

Wednesday, 24 November

Our dream team went to Isla Pinguíno for a dream excursion! la isla is inhabited by - guess what - oh yes, penguins. Here you find Magellan penguins. They can live in a wide range of nests: caves in soft grounds (like in Punta Tombo), small barrows under bushes, holes in rocks.These 50 to  60 cm small animals feed mainly from fish, diving up to 30 meters. Nearby Puerto Deseado they are ca 25 000 reproductive couples. If the reproduction goes well, they do not change partner and stay together the whole life. If it does not - they change but never during they have a baby. A logic recommended to humans, too...

Es muss die Liebe sein...

Walking penguins are making everybody smile... I  have a funny video but I wan`t able to post it here.

    FUNNY VIDEO

Just please smile a bit and read further.

The amazing looking yellow crest penguins (ca 60 cm tall) have to yellow crests over their eyebrows and red eyes. It makes them a bit devil-like looking... But never judge by apperances - can you imagine more innocent in behaviour creatures than penguins??? This species can dive up to 100 meteres and feeds from crustaceans, fish and squids. Walking between them is a special experiece and made me wanting to stay with them, at least for some time...

Don`t touch my egg(s)

The haircut is killing

Innocent penguins or cruel devils?

I could stay here

So do they, Brasilian Girs, Zebra, Angel and the newest member of the family: The Wool Penguin from Buenos Aires.

From a very short distance you can observe sea lions and fur seals, and dolphins wchich seem to have a lot of fun playing around the boat.

Thursday, 25 November

Another excursion with Darwin people - to Deseado River being entered deeply by the sea water.

Sea lions are very humans in they behaviuor when lying and scratching themselves, looking bored to the death... It is recommended to watch them from the wind side - they stink a lot.

Male sea lion - and it`s clear that they deserved their names

have a break

In the afternoon two very nice guys took our dream team for an amazing ride in a half track along the coast around Puerto Deseado. Cañones, Sanctuarium, El Gauchito Gil.

The day ended with The Last Supper in great Puerto Deseado. ¡Muchas grazias!

Friday, 26 November

Bosque Petrificado

In a very morning I left Puerto Deseado wuth a very nice israelian couple who just adopted me for the next two days. We went by car to Petrified Forest. El Monumento Natural Bosque Petrificado is located in the north east of province Santa Cruz. The landscape resembles sometimes the moon.

You can see here and... touch 150 000 000 yaers old Araucarias,  evergreen coniferous tree. Incredible, but these "stoned" trees preserved perfectly theis original "woody" look.

Way to the South...

At the evening we landed in

Puerto San Julian

Saturday, 27. November

In Puerto San Julian we visited a replice of a boat Victoria - the only one from five boats which returned back home after Magellan`s expedition, without Magellan who ended up in Phillipines. Then we went with a boat to Isla Justicia and Isla Cormoran for penguin and cormorants watching.

After a short trip along the coastal circuit we left to Piedrabuena where I had The Last Supper with the israelian couple in room with The Last Supper painting on the wall. Goodbye and see you again.

from Trelew to Puerto Deseado

On 22. November I took a bus to Comodoro Rivadavia and then a secon one to Puerto Deseado. It is a small city on the patagonian coast in the province of Santa Cruz. It has a very unique Isla de Pinguinos inhabited  not only by Magellan pinguins, but by a endemic and crazy looking Yellow Crest Pinguins. More soon...

Peninsula Valdes, Puerto Pirámides

Peninsula Valdés in Province of Chubut, Patagonia, is a great place known for protection of nature: wildlife, paleobotany, vegetation and hydraulic basins. You can observe from a very short distance whales, Commerson´s dolphins making shows. Three days long I went on the boat for whale watching. Amazing!!!

baby whales communicate as well by clapping with their fins...

...and the mom is coming

smiling mom whale

near enough to touch...

jumping for a play or for communication?

after the Big Bang is coming



synchronized swimming was invented by whales or dolphins



¡muchas grazias para todos!

Trelew

Trelew is the city where you find the most important Paleontology Museum in South America - Museo Egidio Feruglio. Here I have spent three days, visiting the Museum, watching film about Dinosauros and having a private trip with a argentinian biologist and argentinian architect (a super team :)) to Punta Tombo.

I felt really short in this case

great sceletons

maybe the only Dinosaurus bone you are allowed to hug

the great ammonit ca 1,5 m diameter

Punta Tombo

 In Reserva Natural Punta Tombo you have an opportunity to meet a huge amount of Magellan Pinguins. It is the biggest colony in the world, beside the Antarctis. On the day I have visited Magellan Pinguins many pairs had babys from which the oldest were just 7 days old... So sweet, you melt...

The first hug

Yes, indeed, area de tránsito de pinguinos

so close!

In Punta Tombo the Magellan pinguins nest in wholes in the ground which are sometimes decorated with plants or down

They have one or two babys which mom (or dad?) protects carefully... Only ca 8% of babys will reach the adult age.

huging mom (or dad?)

the pinguin parents have to be very patient, too... and use ear plugs - the babys can be really loud!

I believe I can fly...

a bit fat ass does not allow you to sink ;)

Peninsula Valdes, Puerto Pirámides

The last three days, from the night 17  Nov untill today afternoon, I have spent at Peninsula Valdes in Puerto Piramides, an unique place famous for whales being and breeding around - here the film Gigantes de Valdes was made. Three days long thank to great hermoso Luis B. (muchas grazias para todos, para experiencia muy especial y única) and very friendly people from Southern Spirit company (para paciencia y el profesionalismo) I could watch whales (ballenas, it took for me two days to remember this palabra) often from just 1 meter distance, such a extraordinary experience. Before I have never thought I can look so close, almost touch and hear and feel the breath of whales... I did so many pictures I was dreaming of before - very very soon I will share them with you. Here just a entrada pequeña:

Smiling whale makes you love them all and really not understanding how  the creatures called humans are able to cruelly kill such calm, friendly and curious animals

At this time around Peninsula Valdes they are circa 700 whales. Four of them are white like baby seen here :)

¡Buenos Aires!

Wed 10. Nov
Buenos Aires, Argentina...

With the rhythm von Santa Maria de Buen Ayres (Gotan Project) in my head (and my earphones) I came into this 13 000 000 inhabitants city I was dreaming of. Chaotic, great, with some slums near the bus station where we have arrived safely. We means: me, my backpack and small travelling family, too (the Angel, Brasilian chica and Zebra). By metro to San Telmo to hostel Tango City, easy. To get stuck in between floors in hostel in a stupid elevator, easy, too...  

The cama, how comfortable - almost the whole 20 hours ride from Puerto Iguazú to BA I have slept like a baby

slowly, but surely... Buenos Aires!

After a short shower I took a short walk and a dinner in San Telmo, artistic part of the town, with beautiful buildings which were inhabited once by 1870 by the higher layers of society but then left after several epidemies. Great houses vere divided into small flats for immigrants. So San Telmo turned into more alternative neighbourhood with galleries and ateliers, now with more and more boutiques and restaurants. Here the Tango was born and in Plaza Dorrego lovely tango shows are still present.

en la Plaza Dorrego

Thu 11. Nov

Shortly after a very modest breakfast in my hostel (quite dry breads, Broetchen) me and my new friend from Berlin went to barrio Boca - a poor part of town next to the harbour, boca, mounth, where the Rìo Riachuelo opens into the old harbour. Years ago it was mainly inhabited by workers. The artistic spirit of Boca you can see mainly in Caminito street.

Just only a few streets in Boca are safe (others are suspiciously empty as we have seen) - when I was walking with my friend a policeman stopped us and strongly recommended to us a change of our walk direction - and sent us to this small touristic corner of Boca... It is very picturesque and crazy place, full of tourists, sure, but special. Cafés with live tango shows, music, artists (or people pretending to be), thievs, school children, men trying to get you in one of the restaurant tempting with special offers just and only for you - and even: for you everything free, yes, sure... - and Diego Maradona with whom you can have a picture, for some pesos of course. Incredibile, but the guy was really looking like Maradona itself! You can pose as well with one of tango dancers to have a hot shot pretending to be a professional in this passionate dance. In one bar with a great band with live music I had opportunity to take my first lessions in tango, or maybe the tango dancer had just opportunity to make me dance as he wants. And despìte maybe 15 cm difference (guess who was taller...) it did work out somehow.

...and here as it should look like!

Boca is an exciting place but indeed very dangerous. While we were sitting and having a coffee, there was a short street fight between one guy trying to put tourists in one of the restaurants and... one tourists... It was horrible, the local guy beside hiting the tourist was pulling the tourist even on his small backpack, the wife of the tourist was going crazy, one woman tried to help the victim, everybody was gazing, nobody moved a single finger to stop this fight (I did not as well, sure), and the band started just to play the music a bit louder, show must go on. That`s it. After few minutes a policeman came, but the fight was over. I have seen that this local guy was following a bit the tourist. A but later I saw the agressor standing again on the same street in the same place, others were checking his face for injuries...

Both of us had different plans so we splitted. I went to the center and my friend wanted to visit museum of the art. She did not, it was closed. She wanted to leave for a bus stop and in this moment two teenagers attacked her and tried to steal her backpack... Again everybody was gazing but nobody moved... She was screaming and had a great luck that one policeman immediately came - so nothing really happened and this guys did not managed neither to hurt her nor to steal anything... In such moments you really understand, that you have nothing in your hands...

Anyway, I feel very good in Buenos Aires. At the evening I never have any bag or so with me and thats more less fine. I feel here more secure here than in Rio de Janeiro or in Salvador. Even if in the early evening the cartoneros are hatching out of their hidden places and collect cartons and any materials, sorting them out of rubbish to sell them later. In the evening the rubbish is always lying everywhere because people collect stuff for selling or... they search for food. You see the whole families falling asleep lying on one carton on the pavement (you feel the wind of a third world; Lonely Planet, 2007)... Seeing a homeless person lying on a very old materace, doing crosswords or reading a newspaper show you how much they still try to have normal lives. Many people of a middle class have lost during the crisis everything so that now they are forced to live on the streets with their whole families.

Nevertheless, I have felt in love with this wonderful city. People are very nice and helpful, architecture is just great and impressive, from old kind of colonial style to the very modern skyscrapers in Puerto Madero.

Afternoon I have spent in the city microcentro and walking in the wonderful and very atmospheric Cementerio de la Recoleta, where e.g. Evita was buried. Many alive people would wish they can live in such beautiful "accomodations" as here buried ones... In the late afternoon sun with just a few tourist this place seemed to be magic.

In the evening me and my "Berliner" friend met my amigas from Buenos Aires whom I have met in Rio de Janeiro before. We went to one of the most noble locals in the city in Puerto Madero, the hafen City of Buenos Aires... El Clan. Great place. We have immediately noticed thet the place was full of very beautiful women, really only bbeautiful women and maybe few guys. Why? Because (hm, now forget any political corectness, ròwnouprawnienie or Gerechtigkeit...) the beautis were allowed at this day to have an entrance for free... to chase the guys most probably. We had not only a free entrance but a whole extraordinary and very elegant dinner gratis, thank to my argentinian friends (chicas meravilliosas!!!). Good that I have put "small black" into my backpack, otherwise it would be very peinlich. Even if I had to combine it with my Teva-hiking sandals, immerhin black sandals with no shameful Jack Wolfskin logo ;). The dinner was great, followed by dancing in San Telmo.

Fri 12 Nov

Lazy morning, empanadas con carne and yogur natural in the sun at the campus of Universidad Catolica Argentina.

from the left: empanada, ampanada, yogur and spork (=spoon+fork)

Sun and heat -  I have to tank it before I leave to Patagonia. Now it is sure, the next stop will be Puerto Piramides at peninsula Valdes, whales please wait for me, I am coming soon!

Casa Rosada, Congresso. Once again -  Buenos Aires is a wonderful city, I like it so much and I could live here at least for some time, no doubt.

Sat 13 Nov

Time to update my blog and enjoy the sun in one of parks in Recoleta. At the entrance to Cementerio you see an enormous ombú-tree.

The whole green comes from just one tree

Great sculpture, the Flower on Plaza Nationes Unidas which can be opened or closed depending on the daytime... Visit in Museo de Belle Artes. Hippie mercador next to the Cementerio de la Recoleta.

¡Me gustan las vacationes, me gusta el sol, me gusta viajar, me gusta aquí!

I am so happy that I will spend here the next two days. If you wanna feel in love, just come to Buenos Aires