We’ll start off with a couple of sunset pictures from last night, unfortunately they could be better as they were taken through a salt stained window.
I think the “double” sun in the top picture is caused by the angle the photo was taken through the thick glass.
We arrived in Puerto Madryn, Argentina some time before the sun (and we) rose. Although we docked at a pier, said pier was 1km long! We had originally planned another penguin viewing trip for here, but we cancelled it about a week ago as it was a 9 hour round trip, with about 7 of those hours travelling.
As it turns out, we were ok as we had our fill of penguins in the Falklands. Being the lazy type we are, we were happy to discover that there was a free shuttle along the pier, so we jumped on it. The guide on the shuttle said that the service was provided by a co-operative of tour companies and if we were interested in any of the tours…………….
As it turns out one of the tours was just right for us, a tour around town then out to a cove to see sea lions and other wild life. The tour was 2.5hours long and probably half the price of the shipboard ones.
We were put on a coach of Spanish speakers with a guide who did not speak English…. uh oh! Then another guide said she’s come with us to translate, looking better. Finally they took us off the the bus and introduced us to a young guy who was to be our guide. Off we went to his new car and started a private tour!!
We started with a tour around town
The town was founded by Welsh settlers way back when. Some of the streets still have Welsh names. There is a village about 60kms away where Welsh is still spoken. Not a good picture, but there is a statue to the Welsh women (I guess the men didn’t deserve one) along the water front, thats our little boat in the background!
The city has just over 100,000 inhabitants, about 3000 of them are employed by the towns largest industry, the aluminium smelter. The raw goods are shipped in and aluminium bars are shipped out. Employees there are amongst the best paid in the town at $1000 US per month. The average wage is $300 per month. However there is free medical care, schooling and University plus some subsidised housing. The second largest industry is fish processing with exports to Europe and China, followed by tourism.
Below are a couple of murals painted after the end of the Falklands Islands war. It shows Argentinians who were evacuated from the island arriving at Puerto Mandryn. On that day, the city ran out of food.
Below is a view from the lookout, behind the large caves is a bay, that’s where we went to next.
We drove for about 20 minutes on gravel roads, luxury compared to the Falklands! On the beach at the bay we were met by a number of sea lions. Most of the ones in the pictures were born in December.
On the way back we passed the now defunct railway station.
As we walked back along the pier (yes we walked this time) we saw a couple of guys out with a large net fishing.
On the other side of the pier there was a tractor towing a fishing boat out of the water.
Below is a “selfie” of Lyn and I. It’s actually our shadow cast on the sea.
So all in all it turned out to be a pleasant and relaxing tour. The skies are blue, the air is clear and the temperature is around 30C (86F).
Tomorrow is our last sea day, then we dock at Montevideo, Uruguay.