Route 3

Route 3 is pretty cool. It runs up the east coast of Argentina and has mostly nothing for 3000km. We managed to find a few surprises along the way!

More Penguins

First thing we learned is that paying a lot to see the island of madgellen (typo) penguins was a rip off, cause the east coast is begging for tourism and all the parks are free and each one offers penguins.

Not a bad life really, except for all the half eaten ones from the Pumas. Still haven’t seen that yet though. Penguins seem to love the sun and sand and warmth! East coast of Patagonia is some 20 degrees warmer that the West. Beach time.

And along with our free Penguins, we got to see our first Sea Lion colony. These ones were just sliding in the water and hanging out. We were far from them but definitely more Sea Lion action to come.

Pope Town

The next thing we learned totally randomly, although not yet verified, is that the Current Pope comes from one of these villages. Piedrabueno or something like that. The town spent all of their budget for the next million years on redoing their Main Street with pictures and quotes from the Pope everywhere, along with typical Jesus stuff. Vatican and Argentinian flags everywhere. Very funny, after all the Pope stuff was the towns previous attractions, cardboard stereotypical cartoon Indians (western style, not bad-code style). Funny switch from Pope to scalping. That and clearly by an act of god, Hells Bells was playing the second I pulled on this street.

Petrified Wood

After plenty more non stop route 3 action…

We visited a petrified wood monument. I remember one of these from my childhood that they were pretty cool, still are. Here the trees were ones from the Jurassic era, things were 50 meters long and damn wide.

Please feel free to add your own further petrified wood jokes. Park was cool, ranger was cool, insanely windy in the middle of a stone desert, good times.

Even more Penguins

Further north in Camarones, a tiny but friendly town where after 3 panaderias, we learned that you need a rotiseria for Empanadas. Still bought some fresh baked sweets (delicious), but no empanadas after another scavenger hunt. After a good more distance of Ripio roads you wouldn’t believe it, more Penguins. These ones were great cause there was this metal gated elevated walkway, they were all below it trying to bite your feet off.

Peninsula Valdez and Puerto Madryn

Pro tip, before going to Peninsula Valdez, find out what time of year you are there and which creatures coincide with that time. The high tide between Punta Norte and Punta Cantor are totally different, and I think Norte is way better. For whales, just wild camp at the bay on the southern side of the peninsula.

So we went to Peninsula Valdez where the stories are that Orcas beach themselves before high tide to eat baby seals. Fact is, Orcas do indeed attack the beach, don’t exactly beach themselves, but to eat baby sea elephants, gigantic seals. I read that high tide was 7pm, no problem, but for some odd reason at Punta Norte high tide was at 9am and Cantor was 7pm. Don’t lecture me about tides, I’ve taken an exam on them. But I am guessing it has to do more when feeding time is cause the 2nd high tide at Norte had nothing. So at the north where you are right next to the elephant seals and their cubs, it was extreme low tide. So no orca eating action, although there were very graphic pictures, quite nice. At Cantor, we waited 4-5 hours, lots of sea lions, I don’t think any elephant seals, but definitely no orcas. Typical whale watching. At least it was free.

Then took a long ripio road out to Punta Norte or whatever it’s called. Low tide, no orcas, but plenty of elephant seals and their cubs:

On our way to the chance to see Orcas, another Penguin stop, probably the last! Enjoyed them while we could.

Then to Punta Cantor where I won’t write how long we waited till hide tide and not see Orcas show up. The sea lions kinda just flop around all day. Nice life till you get eaten.

In the end, a nice spot on a cliff side with a view of the city and ocean during a sunset. Not bad!

Up next, a Patagonian Überquerung and back to Route 40!