From Mendoza, we took a 24hr bus to Puerto Madryn, a small port town on the Patagonian Atlantic Coast built in the 1970´s around an aluminum smelter. The town was not the drawing feature here, it was the area around the town that held all the promise. 

We booked a bus tour and headed on a short ride to a nature reserve near Puerto Pyramides in the hopes of seeing  a lots of land and sea animals. Luck was on our side that day. We toured around Peninsula Valdes, a world heritage site, in which the  scrub landscape wasn´t very impressive until you reached the water.

Our first amazing stop was seeing these somewhat comical yet beautiful magellanes penguins in the middle of breeding season. They could not care less as tourists approached the fence, a mere few feet away from the penguins .  We were also lucky to see a young grey fox, a lesser rhea (smaller version of an ostrich) running alongside the van, and orca whales (which are extremely hard to see there).  The area is also home to elephant seals and sea lions.  Orca whales are a huge draw on this peninsula since as it is the place in Argentina where they will beach themselves trying to catch a small sea lion or young elephant seal.  Only big lazy elephant seals on the beaches this day so no orca hunting... man that would be cool though! 

By far the best part of the day, after the bus tour, was going whale watching.  Southern right whales are plentiful at this time of year as this is the area they come back to to give birth and mate.  The area has been protected since the 1960s and boats are heavily restricted from entering the gulf where they spend most of their time.  The right whales in this area are not afraid of boats and as soon as our boat stopped just inside the gulf a whale swam right by and around the boat. It was surreal seeing such a magestic creature  so close.  This area must be one of the most unique whale watching places in the world. 

Baleen whales were almost hunted to extinction in the early part of the century, and likely in most other places of the world would never swim towards any boat, the boat would have to tail them to get a good look.  In this area these creatures are so curious they actually human watch and swim around a stopped boat.  We had three of them do it. It was awesome!  

We saw at least 20 more in the span of an hour and a half.  It was such a rare opportunity. After all our wildlife sightings, we took it easy for a few days in the small town of Puerto Pyramides (300 people, it reminded me of Port Renfrew) then made our way to Buenos Aires. Yihaaa!