Patagonia

5 days in BA and we were ready to continue our journey. I could feel the difference in the way we approached travel.  We were cooking a lot more, making and hanging plans after chatting with fellow travellers, and taking decisions a lot easier. I began to feel the need for a netbook. Every place we were in had wi fi and using Yannick's I touch and Nu's I phone was ok for email but tough when you need to research the next destination. Watching films on long bus rides would be nice too. Anyway did not fond a decent prized one in BA.
We were headed to Puerto Madryn on the east coast of Argentina. It is the stop for a fascinating peninsula in the Atlantic called Peninsula Valdes, home to Penguins, Elephant seals , Sea lions, huge number of birds like the condor with a wing span of 3 m, and whales. We arrived whenthe whales had not yet come in, and the penguins were leaving.
Patagonia, the aouthern most province in Argentina iis one of the most blessed places in the world when it comes to nature and marine wild life. Beatiful coves, bays, glaciers, desidous forests and unbelievble wild life. Peninsula Valdes is special not only because of the marine wildlife but also because it is the only place in the world where the Orca or killer whales as they are unfortunately called in English, beach themselves to catch baby sea lions. They have learnt to, and teach their young this belly leap technique. This means we have the chance to see Orca on or really close to the beach. We need to be real lucky! From June to december this is where the whales breed so huge numbers of them can be seen from real close quaters. Of course all this makes Patagonia near unaffordable even during the off season.
Patagonia also has the most unpredictable weather, they say you can get all 4 seasons in one day. We had to finally open our vacumm bags and take out the warm clothes. The wind in Patagonia regularly blow at over 60 k , add to that temperatures below 10 C and we realised how under prepared we were.
We lucked out and found La Tosca, by far the nicest hostel we've stayed in. The trip to the peninsula turned out to be fantastic. We saw the last 5 pengunins, 2 elephant seal colonies, sea lions and finally something leapt out of the ocean 10 metres from the beach. Another followed almost immediately. I thought they wee dolphin but they had the black and white bodies and were larger . THE ORCA , 4 of them majestically leaping in and out of the water! To be in the presence of such a being is to be blessed! We watched mesmerised hoping they would beach. We did not have ti deal with The ethical conundrum of wanting to see a beaching and seeing the life of a baby sea lion taken. The orca sliced through the waters and finally disappered!
In silence we continued our trip.