10 days in El Chalten

We arrived in El Chalten to introduce the boys to trekking. 

Patagonia, not a bad place to cut your teeth, although I think the boys' interest in a stunning glacial view is probably more transitory than ours, unless there is something extra, like a huge chunk of ice falling from a glacier, in which case their undivided attention is assured.  

We’d passed by La Leona on the way, where Butch Cassidy is reputed to have stopped during his bank raids in Southern Argentina with the Sundance kid. We made a note of that being a film to show the boys. (select "Read more" below to continue)

Travelling George - Episode 2 - by Frankie

In September we circulated a note to Frankie’s old class, J2.4, who had very kindly given him a St George’s Bear as a travel companion.  Frankie named him Travelling George. 

Frankie now picks up the trail on Travelling George’s progress..........(select "Read more" below to continue)

Awesome Cabo Polonio - by Frankie

My favourite new sport - hammock flinging!

We arrived at Cabo Polonio by 4x4 over the dunes.  Cabo Polonio only has 50 people in it and 5 children. In our hostel there are broken sun glasses, a dead fishing rope that I don’t think you would catch many fish on and a rusty saw. On the third day I started doing things where Louis pushed me on a hammock and my record is Louis flinging me 5 1/2 metres. 

Just now we saw a big frog that swallowed a bug.  The shower is weird because you have to put a match in this bucket thing to make the water warm.  Our room is the smallest we have had so far on our trip, but to make up for it, it has got a double swing! (select "Read more" below to continue)

Magellan penguins - by Frankie

Sometimes they try and get a closer look at you

We had rented a car called Bertie in Puerto Madryn. We had just seen the Commerson Dolphins and we jumped in the car, it was a 90 minute journey to Punta Tombo, which is where you see the Magellan penguins.

When we got there, I said “Look, a penguin!” but then we realised we were surrounded by them but we had never noticed it!  

The penguins were black on their backs and white on their tummies and bigger than I thought. They had big fat flippers in the place of their arms, and a small stubby tail.  They have got pink near their eyes, and pinkish black feet.   (select "Read more" below to continue)

Trials and tribulations of long bus journeys with children

Hooray - another long bus journey!

We've taken some fairly long, arduous journeys over the last few months, and become increasingly ambitious about what we can achieve. Initially, we had plane trips punctuated by the odd 4, 5 and 7 hour bus ride.  Once or twice these stretched to 30 hours or so, but with the odd few hours in a hostel to catch up on sleep, or different modes of transport involved.  At the start of our travels the idea of this was not appealing as the children, when at home used to complain about a quick hour and a half trip to the coast and Frankie, in particular, suffered from car sickness.  Now we've done a number of these trips ( South America is HUGE! ) the boys are getting quite blasé about it all and a mere 4 or 5 hours doesn't even raise an eyebrow anymore!   More recently we took an 18 hour bus ride, followed immediately by another 4 hour bus trip to travel south in Argentina from Puerto Madryn to El Calafate.  (select "Read more" below to continue)

High risk car rental in Argentina

We were down in Puerto Madryn last week, and we hired a car for a couple of days to explore the Valdes Peninsula, as the tours looked very expensive and we rather fancied having the independence and freedom to stop and start as we wish and turn the music up if we like.

After hunting around the rental car companies, there seemed to be something of a cartel there, it was very hard to get a car for much under about £70 a day once you add in petrol, which is fairly important.  So you’ve worked out the numbers and decided you want the rental experience, you then have to test the strength of your decision against the onslaught of disclaimers and waiving of responsibility that the completion of paperwork involves.  (Sorry Matt, I am sure it´s much easier with Enterprise!)  (select "Read more" below to continue)

Happy 50th Birthday Russell

Hi Russell,

We put a little birthday video together for you but I tried to send you the link when I tested it, it came up "not available" so we're using this method as at least we know you'll be able to see it if we paste the link in to a blog page.

Happy Birthday!

Phil, Jules, Louis and Frankie

Whales vs dolphins

We have been privileged to have observed Killer whales, Southern right whales, Bottlenose dolphins, Commerson dolphins and Magellan Penguins in the last couple of days down in Puerto Madryn, on the south-east coast of Argentina.  This place is on the entrance to the Valdes Peninsula and is probably most famous for the intentional stranding of orcas during February to April every year which most of us will at some time have marvelled at on television.  It’s where the most skilled orcas steam into the beach at 50kph, grab an unsuspecting sealion or elephant seal (the latter are easier to catch as they can’t move as fast) and wriggle their way back out into the deeper water, with the unfortunate prey in their mouths to share with the family.  

OK, they look like they are miles away, but they are still orcas!

Before we came here, we wondered whether we might feel conflicted in seeing some poor, cute seal pup munched before our very eyes, but I’m afraid to say that as we stood on the beach and watched some killer whales passing a few hundred metres from the shore, we were willing them to come in for some lunch, sorry. As it happens, they didn’t.

When it comes to whales vs dolphins, I’ve come to the conclusion that whilst they are all beautiful in their own way, the southern right whale has the edge overall.  Let me explain. 

Dolphins are exciting to watch. They are playful, jump out of the water a lot, and move in perfect formations of sometimes four or more.  They can swim rapidly along with the boat or dive over bow waves.  They can get some serious air beneath them when they put their minds to it.  You can be looking at one group - sorry pod - and then one of the boys will urgently call “Daddy, Daddy, over here” to look at some other ones. There seems to be so much going on at once, over here, over there, in front of the boat, behind the boat, it can be quite chaotic, but the very clear water helps to see their activity below the surface, and observe how little effort they seem to be putting in to achieve such great speed.

Commerson's Dolphin......just

With the whales however, everything happens much, much more slowly.  The orcas were amazing, their special colouring making them a favourite with many people, even though to be fair, we only saw them at a distance. 

The southern right whales are incredible when you witness them, even though you know what to expect.  The first whale we saw was a mother, 15 metres long, and she was quite happy to float lazily towards our motionless boat.

They are strange creatures to look at. Its very hard to make out exactly what’s what on their head, as there are no obvious eyes, ears or mouth, it just looks like a large black shape with what looks like curious white limpet-like objects clinging to their head.

Every now and again, a powerful jet of spray shot up, accompanied by a loud exhalation, almost as if someone enormous was blowing through a huge wind instrument at slightly the wrong angle and not quite getting a musical note, but you heard the enhanced sound of the air rushing through. 

Other whales soon joined and the most amazing moment was surely when the mother passed just in front of the boat, directly under the ledge we were lying on that protruded over the front of the boat.  We had never seen anything so vast, it was enormous, quite extraordinary. The water was crystal clear, so you just saw this giant green-blue body passing by - and keep on passing by - until finally the tail, all one tonne of it, slowly swept through.  

Maybe its the sheer size of these giants, that subliminally reminds you of dinosaurs, or just the fact that they are so huge but so gentle and harmless (unless you are a krill), but the boat went completely silent, save for the odd click, whirring and bleeping of cameras. Truly awesome in every sense of the word.

A little later there was another lovely moment when there were two “babies” (Ha - a five metre baby!) lying on top of their mothers next to us. They were all stationery, just floating peacefully in the sunshine. 

She held the tail to give us plenty of time for a photo.

But the clincher for me in choosing between these two water stars comes down to photography.  Dolphins tease you.  They say: “Here I am - ha! - too slow. See ya!”  I have too many shots of just water to count.  In the end I just sat back and enjoyed the dolphins and forgot about the camera, and it was only with a huge amount of cropping that we managed to have anything at all for Louis to put with his “Bottlenose Dolphin” entry on our "Animals we have seen" blog.  And even then I missed the most crucial asset - his nose!

The southern right whale on the other hand, understands.  She takes her time, gives you ample opportunity to change your battery, fiddle with the zoom, make sure the sun isn’t directly in front of you and is still there holding her tail in the air as if to say “Go on, take a couple more, just in case, try and get one with the sun reflecting off my tail in the water too!”

On that basis therefore, the southern right whale gets my vote!