Life has been pretty regular the past little while with the oldest four kids in school all day, me wondering why I'm not getting more done with them gone, and James hard at work navigataing the intricicies of Microsoft-Argentina.
We did have spring break this month and took the chance to head south to do some whale watching. We were originally going to fly, but for reasons that escape me, I decided it would be a good idea to drive the 18 hours to Puerto Piramides. We broke it up into 5 hrs a day and made stops to see some cool things along the way. It turned out nearly as planned, but I think if we do it again we'll opt to fly.
Our first stop was Tandil, a charming little town surrounded by rocky hills and green pastures. It was Jack's paradise. He loved climbing over all the rocks everywhere we went. It was cold and windy, but still so gorgeous.
This is probably the coldest picture I've ever been in
At the top of a hill in Parque de la Independencia they have a cute little cafe built into the cliff. They have exposed rock on one wall, and Moorish architecture on the other. This was the first time we have had waffles in a year!
On top of the cafe
We took a chair lift to get the the top of another hill. It was still windy and slightly terrifying. As I age I find myself more and more afraid of heights. Especially when it's windy.
At the top there was a short hike to a spring.
Then on the way back it rained and continued to be super windy. I'm not sure why Wesley and James look so content in this picture....
Tandil is famous for this huge balancing rock that fell over 100 years ago. They recreated it and put a replica in the original's place. Kind of funny, but we had to go see it.
They have a very charming downtown plaza/cathedral
This is at the AirBnB in Tandil. Absolute heaven.
And heaven for little boys
We continued south and found these hot water vending machines for mate. It is so huge here. *side note: we've had lots of workers come to the house and the first thing they always want to know is which bathroom they should use. Everybody drinks mate all the time and end up needing to go to the bathroom frequently :)
We stopped at a beach in San Antonio Este called Playa las Conchillas. It is completely covered in seashells and turned out to be a fantastic beach for this baby. He loved the shells and there was no sand to eat!
Made it to Puerto Piramides!
We stayed here on the beach. We could see the Southern Right Whales out in the bay from our window and hear them clearing their blowholes. The tractors on the beach would launch tour boats and pull them in again. No dock here.
We followed a mama whale and her calf for nearly an hour, watching them play and just sort of putter around the bay. We discovered we aren't great marine wildlife photographers....but we saw them and it was much more satisfying than these pictures!
We had a second tour scheduled later in the afternoon to go on a "submarine" tour where the bottom of the boat was glass and we would be able to see the whales underwater. The winds picked up a bunch though and all tours were cancled the rest of the day. James found another company that was willing to do a snorkling tour the next day. He took Charlotte and Jack and they saw dolphins and more whales. Again, the photography prowess was somewhat weak.
While they were gone I thought I would drive up to a lookout point where we could see a colony of sea lions. Easy, fun, no big deal. But I got a flat tire on the dirt road going up. I can change a tire, but with three little kids and an unfamiliar set-up I was struggling. Thankfully, a wildlife ranger and tour bus driver came to my rescue and changed my tire for me. And now I know how to change the tire on my van.
We still saw the sea lions. There were all sorts of noises come up from down there.
On the same peninsula there is an enormous penguin colony. We took a tour through the colony and saw a few elephant seals on the beach too. Two animals that could not be any more different.
Under every single bush and sometimes just out in the open is a penguin burrow where they are watching over their eggs.
These sheep were so scared of us
Found on the beach
We were freezing, but the penguins were hot and would go down to dip in to water to cool off. We saw sea lions prowling the shore looking for little penguins to pluck off.
Here is an elephant seal and her pup. We didn't get too close, but the penguins weren't intimidated.
The mighty male with part of his herem
Back to cute penguins
Random enormous bug at lunch that day
This was the wildlife vacation. We saw so many animals! But we need to get a camera with a telephoto lense because our pictures don't represent what we experienced. These guanacos were everywhere once we were on the peninsula. We also saw flamingos, niandu (emu) and owls.
Choosing the driving route may have exhausted us, but we're already planning to go back next year! Who's coming with us??
Comments
Post a Comment