After Valdez came the big nothing … and pengüins

As Linda wrote Valdes was amazing and it was our first bigger goal since we started in Montevideo. Now we were on our way further south and it felt…weird. Somehow we felt a little empty and the scenery along the road also changed into a big nothing. Almost like a desert there were only a few bushes along the road. Only the guanacos, we were so excited to see the first time in Valdes stayed and could be seen all the time. Not always alive though. The amount of roadkill we could see along the street is mind boggling. Sometimes you see three dead guanacos within 100m, sometime only big blood stains on the road and sometime only the skeleton was remaining. But at least every few km you could see signs of road kill.

We had a little lunch break in a beautiful tea house in the village Gaiman, that was built by welsh immigrants and had a surprisingly funny American vibe. From there we motivated us to visit Punta Tombo to see Penguins, since we were so excited to finally see them in their natural habitat. After the 40km ride in that direction we stood in front of a closed gate and the info that the national park will open for the season in one week. This was a hard reminder that we travel in the off-season and should inform ourself better (and not always believe the most recent google ratings). But our penguin-motivation was not so easily destroyed. 

A few nights later we were reminded again that it is off-season and winter. We stayed next to a river mouth and the forecast said that it will be about 3 degrees over night, so we filled all our bottles (including the coffee machine) with water in the anticipation that we might loose it, and indeed the „frost protection“ of the water system in the van kicked in and drained all our water in the night, but we were prepared and had enough water with us for the next few days in a canister. „Take that, off-season!“ Also we had an amazing night before at the river with a bonfire and an incredible view of the milky way. Linda had been pushing to be prepared for making a bonfire and the fact that we had to buy an axt for that was convincing enough for me. 

With enough water in our little container we continued to the National Park Monte Leon and after a friendly check in at the park ranger without any entrance fee, a 15 km dirt road, no-one else visiting and a 2.5km hike we saw…. Penguines! Only that they were DEAD, not one, but at least 15-20 dead penguins. It looked like a penguin cemetery or more like the penguin edition of a Zombieland. But we continued our hike and finally saw the first real and alive penguin and after the first one there popped up more and more. At this time of the year the male magellanic penguins arrive from the ocean to find their nests and prepare for the mating season. We could even see them arrive one after the other from the sea. First chilling in the sun and than funnily and happily toddling towards their nests. It was a magical moment to see them arrive (maybe also a little weird that we ate boiled eggs while watching the penguins prepare their nests….) An information board explained that this colony is exposed to foxes and pumas and that the daed penguins are an indicator of this. This showed the brutal truth of nature.

Many nights after this day Linda still says to me in bed before we go to sleep that she thinks about what the penguins are doing right now and if they are safe…

I hope that national parks like tis one will continue to give the room for penguins colonies in the future. We loved to watch them and they motivated us a lot for the upcoming nature adventure: Torres de Paine National Park….NOT! 

Somehow the Penguines had changed us. „If these little cute animal can swim four month being hunted by sharks and killer whales, just to come back to land to be hunted by foxes and pumas, we can go further as well!“ We had discussed a lot about if we shall go further south to Ushuaia (or the „end of the world“ as some Argentiniens call it). But after seeing the penguins (and of course making a very ration pro and contra list) we made the decision to do it and that lifted the motivation again! We had a new goal!