Ups and Downs in Patagonia

Travel can have its ups and downs, as proven by our recent few days.

Last week we took a trip from Trelew to Punta Tombo, which has the largest colony of Magellanic penguins in the world with around half a million penguins. We walked along a wooden boardwalk through the colony with penguins on either side, often right next to the path. As we got nearer the sea their number increased and soon there were penguins literally everywhere we looked. Although we'd seen penguins at Peninsula Valdés, this was a much better experience as we were so much closer to them. We could hear the noises they made really well - somewhere halfway between a honking noise like a goose and the eeyore of a donkey.

So many penguins!

From Trelew we decided to make Puerto Deseado, the 'Port of Desire', our next stop. This was a small town 600 km or so further down the coast, which we'd heard had lovely scenery and was an excellent place to see rare Rockhopper penguins. Arriving in Puerto Deseado at 11 pm after a 9 hour bus ride, our first impressions were not favourable. The place was completely dead except for fierce dogs everywhere. One even leapt over its fence and chased us, barking all the way. Things didn't improve in the morning - the hotels were all extortionately priced and apparently 'full' despite there still being no-one around. Visiting nearby scenery and wildlife also proved prohibitively expensive. The town hadn't quite lived up to its name!

At least Puerto Deseado has a pretty estuary

Still, onwards and upwards. We left Puerto Deseado before the crack of dawn and a few hours later arrived in the dusty pitstop town of Perito Moreno where we booked a tour to the nearby Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands). The drive there took us through some of the most incredible scenery imaginable, looking down into a deep canyon and passing through arid landscapes coloured all shades of the rainbow by mineral deposits. The cave itself is a UNESCO world heritage site and was even more spectacular. There are rock paintings here dating from 9000 years ago, most of them the eponymous handprints. There were even ancient maps and advice on how to hunt guanaco. The paintings are in exceptionally good condition - you'd think they were painted yesterday. We were joined on this trip by an Argentinian patriarch who turned out to be the great-grandson of Perito Moreno himself!

The view down to the canyon with Cueva de las Manos

A fantastic day... but then disaster struck. Unfortunately, while our bags were in the back of the pick up truck to the cave, a container of spare petrol spilt everywhere and all of our possessions were covered in petrol. We had to throw a lot of things away, and separated the rest into two black sacks of clean and contaminated items. The dirty sack was significantly bigger than the clean one. We had to wait around with the smelly sacks at a desolate one horse town for several hours for our night bus to El Chaltén. Arriving there this morning, we promptly took everything to the laundry and it is all now airing outside. It still smells.

Hands and other symbols

On the plus side, El Chaltén is perfectly situated adjacent to the Fitz Roy range and the scenery here is jaw droppingly beautiful, with a perfect view of snowy peaks from our hostel balcony. It's a pretty amazing place to be, and we look forward to exploring further.