February 7-11
Where does the time go? I thought I was only 2 ports behind when I opened my blog and discovered that I had only written the title for Puerto Madryn and nothing else.
I know where it went, I was spending all my time with Michael before he disembarked on the 16th, but still. Okay, it’s time to play catch up. You know I can barely remember what I did. Photos help, though.
A Day Early
In the last entry, the Odyssey had left Puerto Deseado early because winds and high waves made it impossible to tender to the port. Well, it also was the case with the following port, Camerones. Camerones have only a 1,300 population, so I wasn’t too sad to miss it. These skips meant we went into Puerto Madryn a day early and spent 5 days here.
I had already been to the most popular tourist attraction, which is the Valdez Penisula, last year, so I stuck mostly close to town. The other popular attractions are swimming with seals and the largest Magellanic penguin colony, Tombo.
Winds
One thing to bear in mind while on the coast of Argentina is the winds. Even on low-wind days, the winds are about 30km, and on windy days, the gusts can get up to 50-60km. This makes for an exciting time on the sandy beaches and pampas. We were lucky with 3 relatively less windy days and two extremely windy days.
Boardwalk
Two days were pretty much the same plan; walk along the beach boardwalk until tired and go into the city for a late lunch or dinner. The walk is flat, and there is plenty to look at from the sandy dune area, mosaics, and sculptures.
One of the most common sculptures here was dead trees carved into whimsical creations. On our first day, we arrived in the afternoon, so almost everything was closed for an afternoon siesta. We found the city to be super quiet for a Friday afternoon and ended up back at the port area where a pub, James Beer, was open, and a bunch of residents were hanging out.
On Sunday, Angela, Steve, and I did almost the same thing except we went further along the road. We had originally planned to walk to the letters of Puerto Madryn by the airport, but after talking with a local who said there was no path there and we’d need to walk along the highway, we changed our mind to go to another sign of the city.
We walked about 5 km until we reached the caves. The caves here are where the Welsh settlers stayed in the 19th century when they first arrived on the continent. There still is a Welsh-speaking community in Argentina in this region.
A little further up the hill, we came across flags, a monument to the natives in the area, and a small sign. I was hoping that this was not the sign of the city that we were directed to, but alas, I walked further and could see no larger sign down the next beach.
We turned around and headed back into town looking for pizza. I had a craving for it. The first spot we found was closed despite a sign saying they are open on Sundays. Our next stop was open but had no seating, so the third try netted us some ok pizza and a beer.
Other days, I braved the winds to go and get some lunch and that was about all.
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