7, Peninsula Valdes; 2635 km

This peninsula is the Mecca for watching whales….in October and November. Unfortunately they are not here right now and the Orca arrives only in February. What we did see was 2 large colonies of Sea Lions (seals). The babies had just been born and were crawling in-between the large adults. The male sea lion is large and has an impressive maine. He furiously protects the females of his harem against intruders. Before you turn around the cliff you already hear them blowing off steam. The first night we camped on a rock plateau by the sea. The pits in the limestone indicated to how far the seawater could splash. We made sure we parked far enough away from the sea. On arrival it was low tide and calm. During the evening the wind picked up and in the morning waves were hitting the rocks. To get to this unofficial camp site we followed a narrow track through the sand dunes. The track at one point disappeared and some 300 meters further up we could see a road apper (which we should have followed in the first place). No worries. Passepartout was re-built for this. Rudy switched on the rear differential lock, switched back to first gear and with high ref’s attacked the sand dunes. It was Oman desert driving on a small scale. Finally we could test the 4WD mode of the camper. She made it over the ridge of the last dune and we rolled down hill to the graded road. The sea campsite was crowded with all types of locally made campers and converted buses. It is summer holiday so the Argentineans all hit the road and the beaches. The sunset was beautiful and the stars (you can see clearly the milky way) came out nicely only to be spoiled by the noise of some generators.

Jamaliah with whale skeleton

Road shrines

Not sure which Saint this is.

Landscape

Down to the sealion’s

Noisy Sealions

Mail defending his Harum

Landlion

Watching the sunset

Jump off the cliff

Sunset over the camp

The next day we drove all around the peninsula and visited the sites for more sea lions watching. The penguins were hardly present. Hopefully we will see them further south. The graded roads on the peninsula are well maintained but you still have long sections of washboards. In the evening we camped on the other side of the spit. Here there was only 1 other camper. At night we can see a hazy milky way in the sky. With Jamaliah’s skymap app on her ipad we can recognize the different constellations.