The Trip

In April of 2009, my wife Bobbie and I did a road trip across Patagonia in a pickup truck camper; driving down the Andes on Argentina’s western highway Ruta 40, coming back east along the Straits of Magellan in Chile, and then back up Argentina’s Atlantic Coast highway Ruta 3. We camped along the way in national parks, municipal campgrounds, truck stops, and many times just alongside the road; and we stopped at every place possible, both famous and not. You can see our route of travel here.

This travel blog is a daily journal of the trip, along with a few pictures (see
http://parkenbi.zenfolio.com/patagonia for more photos). The "Last Entry" below is the trip summary, but our journey actually began at a train station in Florida so you'll want to start there ... go to "We're Off".

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Day 22 – Penguins!

Caleta Olivia to Camarones

WE HEARD SEVERAL TIMES since being here that all penguins leave Argentina by the end of March, going out to sea or to Brazil and not returning until September; and so we weren’t expecting to see any, but today at Cabo Dos Bahia Nature Preserve there they were!

Earlier, we had decided to escape from Ruta 3’s forever flatness by detouring 40 miles to Camarones – which turned out to be a very pleasant small coastal town, so pleasant that we’re camping there tonight – and from Camarones we took a ripio road about 20 miles south to see the nature preserve, hoping to see more sea lions. The sea lions were there, many more than we saw yesterday but much further away, however the path to the beach went right through a colony of Magellan Penguins! They are mostly interested in each other or in keeping an eye on the sea gulls overhead; and just stood in place looking at us as we walked by. We stayed until the sun went down.



Camarones

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