A Whale of a good time!

Nov. 18-20  Veidma to Puerto Madryn

Once again we are relegated to pavement along the coast past the city of San Antonio Oeste and then south to Puerto Madryn. The route is very similar to the last couple of days with only a slight change in elevation, up from 13m above sea level to almost 200m, and they even put a sign to indicate an upcoming hill. Like you could not see it for miles. We came across a group of bikers outside of La Grutas, which is a small ocean side spot just south of SA Oeste, they were on their way to Ushuaia and said they would be there on Friday, today is Tuesday. They seemed to know what they were talking about and figured that with a couple of hard riding days they could make it. This seems a bit aggressive but as they were riding mostly bigger street bikes it is possible to cover the 1500km in two days. In any case it was a nice chat and we parted ways, they were camping on the peninsula and we were heading to Puerto Madryn.

We knew that the distance to Madryn would be tight for gas and with only a couple of kilometers left Brenda informs me she is sputtering to a stop. We were hoping to avoid using the jerry can fuel reserve but that is why it is there, a quick roadside fuel up and we roll into town.

The town is very well developed for tourism as it has long been a popular spot for viewing marine life, and also has an active port. While I am in the tourist info office a guy hands Brenda a pamphlet for his hostel and says that it is very clean and quiet. We circle around a bit looking at other places then the same guy rides up on a bicycle and leads us to his place. He was accurate about clean and quiet and we end up staying for 3 nights, there is also a kitchen available so we cook our own breakfasts and even made some pasta for supper. 

Between all this eating we planned to take in a whale watching tour, the first time we tried it got cancelled due to strong winds and rough seas so we took the opportunity to ride out to Punta Ninfas and see the elephant seals. This is about 70km down a dirt road so a fun ride and then being able to walk within a couple meters of the seals is amazing. There was one energetic fella that was trying to eat his tail flippers by bending over backwards in some extreme gymnastic pose. The balance of the sea lions just laze around sleeping and grunting without a care that there are people so close, we must not pose a threat so they feel safe.

The next morning the winds are calm and from the West so that makes for good whale watching conditions. It is confirmed that we will be on the 2pm boat so we set about our day with the plan to ride up the coast road and into the Peninsula Valdez National Park, and we should be able to get there in time for the excursion. We see some whales along the way but they are very far out and with the aid of binoculars we can see them as they bob like corks in the water. We had been told by some Uruguay bikers we met at the gas station that the narrow part of the peninsula was the best for camping and simply beautiful. Aside from the ability to see water on the left and right, there did not seem to be much else attractive about this stretch of pavement. The vegetation is the typical short shrub trees and patchy grass, we did however see a nice herd of Guanacoe. They are a Patagonian animal that looks like a Llama but isn’t quite the same. The whale watching is fantastic and we do our best to get some good pics of the enormous creatures, of course there is only so much that a point-and-shoot camera can be expected to do. We are in a larger boat and it can only get so close without risk to the whales, but all the same we enjoy the experience and take as many pics as possible, I even took some video footage with the GoPro.

An Albino calf plays with its mother, laying cross-ways over top of her.

These are the Southern Right Whales which have a curved body and no dorsal fin. The males reach 12 meters of length, whereas adult females may measure from 13 to 16 meters. Adult specimens can weigh between 30 and 40 tons. The guide explained that their mouth, which is curved, contains some 260 plates or horn-like sheets originally called baleen, from where the Spanish name ballena derives.  Later on, we could watch a mother with its new-born calf. When they are born, they measure five and a half meters and the breastfeeding period lasts as much as their gestation: 12 months.

When these animals are ready to breed, they come back to the Valdés Peninsula area every three years, searching for safe and quiet waters to bear another calf. Likewise, the guide pointed out that in the upper part of their head, they have some callosities which represent their “identification mark”. They work just like fingerprints, as they are unique. We found this fact particularly interesting. Behind the callosities, we could see the blowholes, used by the animal to breathe and blow the air from its lungs. It is important to note that in order to avoid alterations during the mating and breeding periods, the Province of Chubut allows navigation only in the Nuevo Gulf and only to crafts owned by tourist agencies, which must in turn have the corresponding authorization provided by the Prefectura Naval Argentina.

Our guide explained about the Albino calves, they are born white then change to either grey or brown a couple of years later. These Albino calves have only been noted in the last 5-10yrs, so something must be changing with the whales in order for this to be occurring.

Before we know it the captain is heading back to port and our excursion is over, we chat for a while with our guide and he says that it has been a very good year for tourism, and that 99% of their customers have been Argentinians. He says it is contradictory to the news of lagging economy and lack of consumer confidence, this was also mentioned by the lady in Hermoso who said that Latin Americans are used to having their money taken away by the gov’t so they do not worry about savings, if they have it they spend it.

Once again there is something about the 3km mark that scares our bikes into stopping and this time it is me that runs out of gas. Almost made it...and the jerry cans are getting put to use once again, we can see the gas station this time. We chuckle about it, dump in some gas and carry on.

Asado and other local specialties.

Nov 16

Waking up with no set schedule is quite liberating in a way, yet there are decisions to be made about which town to visit next and more importantly, What is for breakfast?

The hotel provides a nice breakfast of Apricot glazed croissants, cheese, ham, a couple type of dry cereals, white and brown bread for toast, and of course coffee. The morning ritual is to enjoy breakfast while checking our emails and discussing the previous days events along with a brief review of the plan for the day ahead. We notice how the other guests interact with each other and within their families. There seems to be a large group of ladies staying here and so far only one man with them. There is also a solo lady guest who we end up having a great conversation with as she speaks English very well. She is from Buenos Aires and is just here for the weekend as a small holiday. She asks about the bikes and our travels and then we branch off into discussions about Argentina and its’ history. She expresses concern about the current state of the economy and the government, with first hand experience of the changes that have taken place over the last 20yrs. Argentina was once a self sufficient country that had an overall surplus of about 15%GDP, after some influence by the USA new policies were put in place to privatize many industries and soon the country was and still is in financial crisis with a 65% deficit. The government here can only be in office for one term but somehow managed to trade the presidency between husband and wife for a number of consecutive terms. This made the hole that was dug much deeper and harder to escape. Now it seems that the people expect the economy to collapse every 10yrs or so which makes them very resilient as a people but also adept at managing crisis. All this also makes them very supportive and friendly to anyone who chases their dreams and “Go’s for it!”

Our conversation goes on for at least an hour and we finally decide it is time to get moving so we bid our farewells and hit the trail. There is supposed to be a rural road that follows the coast but it proves to be covered with deep soft sand so we find an alternate route that zig and zags through the crops and cows finally leading us to another flooded road. We backtrack a bit and find yet another alternate route which leads us directly through a farm yard and out his driveway to a paved road Rte.228. Well that doesn’t happen at home.

The highway is mostly deserted as we head Westward, the rough idea is to check out one more smaller beach town before wrapping around the bay and start the trek South to Ushuaia. Monte Hermoso is the town of choice and is supposed to be smaller and less developed than Necochea.We are passing through an area of Argentina that is famous, at least locally, for its’ olive production. We can’t resist the roadside stores and stop into one and check out what all the fuss is. We are surprised to find alot more than just olives, the little store also has a nice selection of cheeses, meats, wine, crackers, nuts, knives, and honey (also produced locally). We settle for a small jar of olives as it is likely the only thing that will travel well.

 Knife with Crocodile toe handle.

 Once we arrive we are surprised to find a Malecon lined with condo towers, hotels, shops, and restaurants. There is only one road in/out of the town and based on the amount of traffic leaving we were expecting the town to be vacant, partially because it is not summer holiday season until January and also because it is Sunday and we assume people have to get back to work on Monday. Once again we are surprised by how busy the town is when we arrive at the Atlantic shore. Cars everywhere, people walking and shopping, and the beach is busy but not overly crowded. 

Maybe that has more to do with the immense size of the beach and not the lack of people. We find a nice little hotel that is right on the Malecon and the manager offers us to have Asado with him this evening.  This is the first time that we have been offered to eat with and Argentine family so we gladly accept and anticipate what the experience will bring. The Argentine people eat very late by our standards, 10pm is normal supper time for them so we have a small snack to carry us over.

Just as promised the meat was ready at 10pm, along with fresh cut tomatoes, tossed salad, and some sort of spicy vegetable with a marinade sauce dressing. The meat was a variety of ribs, steak, chicken, and sausages, all cooked to perfection and very tasty. This was a great experience in other ways as well, we got to interact with what turned out to be other hotel guests and not family members, either way the majority of the conversation was in Spanish and the ability to share some stories made a real difference than the usual one and two word phrases. By 1am it was time to shut down the party and get some sleep, tomorrow is another travel day and we would like to get some miles behind us before the heat of the day.

Nov. 17 Monte Hermoso to Veidma

The hope was to find some dirt roads that took us in a Westerly direction, we realized that much of the lowlands are flooded so we altered the plan and ended up on Rte3, a nice paved road that was not overly busy. It is however very straight with only crops and grass to look at, not even many cows to look at. Then just when I start to think this is a rather uneventful day the chain on my bike breaks. Well, at least it could have happened beside a tree instead of out here in the scorching sun. Lucky for us I have some spare parts for the chain and after about 30 minutes of wrenching and scorching sun Moto Azul is back on the road. This is the first time a chain has broken, and lucky again that as the chain whipped around the from sprocket and broke the guard off it did not puncture the engine case as well. Brenda of course waited patiently and took pictures of the process.

Front sprocket guard, broken from mounting location.

At least the chain was easy to find.

Had to leave my jacket on to prevent sunburn. Very hot, but it is a dry heat.

Next was the town of Veidma, the capital of the province, and as such a well developed center for commerce and tourism. After the roadside maintenance I was feeling a bit drained so instead of pushing on we decided to stop for the day and get out of the heat. It must be over 30C today, sorry for all you folks back home who are toughing out the cold as we are not getting any sympathy in that department.

Brenda stealing a sip of Mate.