THE LONG AND WINDING ROADS OF PATAGONIA

Winding?  Well maybe not.  For Patagonia and especially the Peninsula Valdez and Bahia Bustamante, that should be the long straight roads.

Since I deplaned in  Trelew, I think I have been on only one paved road.   Here all the roads are dirt and gravel…or perhaps better said, natural stone.  They don’t grade the highways here; they just plow through the dust and grasses to make major highways.   I have been on Argentina Route 1, Route 2 and Route 3 (the only paved one) since my arrival.  All of them straight lines across the Patagonian Steppes.

 They are however somewhat fitting for this area of Argentina because it is here where I have come to see Penguins, Petrels, Sea Lions and Elephant Seals.  It is March and spring is just beginning at home, but here it is the beginning of fall.  The Argentine kids are back in school, vacation is over and it is also the beginning of the season where the guest Estancias are shutting down for the winter.  The animals also will soon leave to go out to sea to renourish themselves until next September.

I have just made it in time to see the remainder of the Penguin colonies in San Lorenzo and Punta Tombo. The Penguins that remain are molting, having birthed their babies in January and nursing the nest until the end of Feb, then off go the fluffy chicks into the water to begin lives of their own.  Mom and Dad stay behind in their nest until they finish dropping their old feathers.  Then they too will head to the high seas until next season when the process starts over.

The baby Sea Lions and Sea Elephants have also spawned their babies and groups of young males fight playfully on the beaches.  The females have their own separate area on the beach after their ordeals and will soon slide into the ocean for several months to restock their body fat so they can come ashore in 6 months and begin the mating season once again.  The large male population for the most part has already taken to the sea to restock their fat bellies eating fish and the baby Penguins that have just jumped into the sea for the first time.

I am looking desperately for a sight of the Southern Right Whales or Orcas that also inhabit this area of Argentina, but unfortunately they have gone seeing cooler waters elsewhere.  In September they like everyone else will return to Peninsula Valdez for the breeding process as well and the feeding frenzy of animals and sea birds like the Petrels that love to dive bomb them and eat the plankton and other tag along fish that cling to the other animals.

It takes about 2 to 3 hours on these winding roads to get to the beaches and see the wild life…but it is worth it.  Traveling across miles and miles of scrub desert with the roads as straight as arrows, you can almost see the beaches before you there.  Even though there are fewer animals at this time of year, there are also less people and as me and the guide are the only ones walking through the Penguin rookery, I realize that we are the only humans for miles.  Later, on a windswept beach I sit about 20 feet from a group of young male Sea Elephants lazing at the edge of the water then jumping in to duplicate the fighting play to learn what they will someday have to put to use as they fight for dominance over a group of females.

The winding roads of Patagonia are taking me on a fascinating visit to a world that we seldom get to see.