la Península Faunística

The Península Valdés is a mushroom shaped extension of Argentina's Atlantic coast, one 18-hour busride south from Buenos Aires. Its shape, according to our guidebook, was the inspiration for St. Exupéry's hat/snake eating an elephant gag in The Little Prince . We rented a car in the old Welsh settlement town of Trelew and drove up to the peninsula. Or, rather, Mike drove. I still haven't learned to drive a stickshift. The peninsula is a big place. The interior is mainly sheep estancias, many of which also run hotels and restaurants to cater to ecotourists. It is also a wildlife preserve and is home to big populations of Magellanic penguins, sea lions and southern elephant seals. In April baby elephant seals are all over the beaches and then the orcas appear. This is one of few places in the world where killer whales beach themselves to grab baby elephant seal snacks. We camped in Puerto Pirámides, the only town on the peninsula, pop. 500. Most of the commercial establishments are whale watching expeditions and hostels. That first evening we drove 12 km. out a dodgy gravel road to a whale watching point. The rock formations are beautiful and strange, flat slabs that extend into the water or stack up on each other. They're some sort of sedimentary rock, full of shells. The wind was so strong it felt as if you might easily be blown into the sea if you were too close to the edge of the rocks. We managed not to be blown into the sea and ate our dinner of bread, cheese, salami and red wine in the car, watching for whales.

The next day we spent driving the road that leads around the perimeter of the peninsula. Along with many elephant seals and sea lions we took in a colony of Magellanic penguins, also called jackass penguins for their braying call. These penguins burrow into the soft soil of the cliffs, in this particular place all the way up to the level of the road. From our viewing point we were a couple of feet from many of these guys, all of them quite unconcerned with our presence. We saw two gray fuzzy penguin chicks, not old enough to toddle around but sticking quite close to and sometimes underneath their parent.



We also saw a number of groups of guanaco, rust-colored llamalike animals, with new kids in tow. And ñandu, or the lesser rhea, including some ñandu chicks, bouncing across the open country with their funny long-legged run. We spotted a couple of mara which are large brown rodents with a stripe of white across their rump, and some of the big brown European hares that live in the area. And at the northern edge of the peninsula we got to revel in the peculiarities of a couple of hairy armadilloes.

Not being big on guided tours we eschewed the whale watching expedition but got to watch a right whale from the beach, lounging about in the bay where new mother whales bring their calves for a few months.

The most wonderful moment for me was when I followed Mike out across one of the "Intangible Areas" and we were able to stand on a beach by ourselves with sacked out elephant seals and crashing glass green surf. The preserve has done a great job of combining getting close-ish to wild animals with keeping them happy in their chosen place. But it was perfectly wonderful to leave the prescribed areas for a few minutes and see them by themselves.