Tuesday, March 5
We are back in Argentina! 27C.
So today was supposed to be at sea, but that was yesterday LOL. The ship docked at Puerto Madryn at 11 am.
https://gentlemansportion.com/2017/11/06/palaver-in-puerto-madryn/
Puerto Madryn is a resort town of 71,000 people. It is mainly known for its nature parks which preserve marine species. This is an area where you will see dolphins, sea lions, elephant seals, penguins, and whales, along with migratory shorebirds.
When they announced this extra day in Puerto Madryn, they also announced that they had added some excursions "for our convenience". Okay, then. We need to do something on that day..... So out of the 3 whole options they gave us, we picked the cheapest one LOL.
The excursion was called "Punta Loma and Patagonian Eco-Estancia". It was a bus full of fellow passengers, today our ship is the only cruise ship in dock. Our guide was a funny local gaucho. One of the passengers asked if the bus had wifi (really?!?!) and his answer was, "There is no wifi here. We are in Patagonia and we still use smoke signals."
This part of Patagonia is dry. We were lucky because it rained a week ago and it wasn't too dusty.
We saw some wild guanacos (related to llamas).
The Punta Loma Natural Reserve was created in 1967, and is a protected area that preserves the only permanent sea lion colony in South America. There was a platform viewing area and also a trail.
They also took us to Estancia San Guillermo Ranch for a sheep shearing demonstration. He sheared that sheep in 10 minutes and the wool all came off in one piece. Tourists paying to come to the sheep farm actually allow the sheep to have long natural lives (ie they don't get eaten 😊). The biggest threat to the sheep comes from local stray dogs. In the city, the latest fashion is to have French bulldog type dogs, so if you are any other type of dog, you get released into the street and you are on your own.
It was a pretty basic tour, but it was a nice day off the ship.
In the evening, we skipped the tango show and tried the Celebrity Game Show Challenge. It was a cheesy version of Jeopardy. Sans Alex Trebek.
No comments:
Post a Comment