The Whales of the Strait

One major highlight of any Patagonian cruise is the wildlife. From the decks of any vessel, and on land excursions, passengers can enjoy the sight of countless birds – many of them unique to the Southern Hemisphere – and marine mammals such as elephant seals and sea lions. Literally and metaphotically, though, the biggest attraction is the whales.

On Argentina’s Península Valdés, Puerto Pirámides (pictured above) is the continent’s main whale-watching site; from July (mid-winter) to November (late spring), pods of southern right whales arrive to mate and give birth. Most visitors arrive from the town of Puerto Madryn, which has cruise-ship facilities, though Madryn gets many more overland travelers. Most Pirámides vessels are larger catamarans that can seem crowded, though it’s not quite mass tourism – some smaller rigid inflatables get closer to the animals.

For visitors to southern Patagonia, though, there are more intimate options, viewing southern humpbacks (pictured above) in the western Strait of Magellan. In January and February, operating out of Punta Arenas, Cruceros Australis does special whale-watching itineraries that make a detour to Isla Carlos III before returning to their usual Beagle Channel route to Cape Horn and Ushuaia. In rigid inflatables, passengers can get even closer to these gregarious (and enormous) animals.

I’ve never taken that specific itinerary, but I have visited the western Strait on two other occasions. A decade ago, I took one of the earliest trips with Whalesound, which converted a small river vessel from Argentina in a comfortable shuttle for a dozen or so travelers to Isla Carlos III, where it had set up a dome-tent camp (pictured above) connected by boardwalks to its dining room/clubhouse (pictured below). During the day, the ship took us to see the whales, but it was also possible to hike to sea lion and penguin colonies.

More recently, in January, I took a two-night one-day excursion on board the M/V Forrest (pictured above) with Punta Arenas’s Expedición Fitz Roy, which has rehabbed a vessel that formerly hauled wool around the Falkland Islands, where I first saw it in 1982. The accommodations are cozy – cabins with two or four bunks each – but the dining lounge is comfortable and the exterior decks provide plenty of opportunity for cetacean close-ups. The Forrest also makes a side trip to Isla Santa Inés (pictured below), shuttling passengers ashore for close-ups of the glacier there.

Refueling at "Patagonian Prices"

Though it may not look like much, Sierra Grande is still a welcome sight to southbound motorists on Argentina's Ruta Nacional 3, the highway that starts in Buenos Aires and ends, 3,200 km later, at Bahía Lapataia, in Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego. That's because Sierra Grande is the northernmost point where motorists like myself can fill the tank at, "Patagonian prices," a discount from rates in the rest of the country.

That's presuming fuel is available, which is no sure thing this summer. Monday morning, I left the city of Viedma with three-quarters of a tank, plenty to cover the 300 km to Sierra Grande, where I could fill up more cheaply. When I passed the city of San Antonio Oeste, though, I became a bit concerned – a little more than halfway to Sierra Grande, it had huge lines at its only service station, and I wondered whether northbound drivers had been unable to fill up there. I’d already seen long gas lines in Villa La Angostura, San Martín de los Andes and elsewhere, so this might become an issue.

As it turned out, my concerns were overblown. Sierra Grande has several service stations, and the longest was at the state-run YPF, which is the cheapest – high-octane super costs 7.14 pesos per liter (roughly US$3.94 per gallon at the official rate, but only $2.71 per gallon at the “blue dollar” rate). This is about 20 percent cheaper than fuel farther north.

Some years ago, longer than I care to remember, “Patagonian prices” for fuel were barely half what they were in the rest of Argentina, thanks to a tax break that supposedly encouraged settlement and economic activity in this thinly populated part of the country. Given how the differential has declined in recent years, that may be on the way out and, in any event, the price doesn’t matter much if there’s no supply. When I arrived at the village of Puerto Pirámides (pictured above), gateway to the wildlife paradise of Península Valdés, its only station had been without fuel for several days, with the nearest available at Puerto Madryn – a distance of nearly 100 km.

Winter Whale Watch: the Word from Madryn

Recently I wrote about the Southern Cone winter, stressing skiing in Argentina and Chile, but the Patagonian coast is also a worthwhile winter destination – in Argentina, at least. Except in the desert north, where upwelling from the Humboldt Current keeps the waters cool all year, the Chilean coastline tends to be wet and inhospitable in winter.

On the Argentine side the climate can be cool but, by contrast, the air is dry and the famous Patagonian winds tend to abate at this time of year. That’s partly why coastal Chubut province, in particular, has become a popular destination for Argentine winter holidays.

Primarily, though, it’s the abundance of wildlife on nearby Península Valdés that gives the city of Puerto Madryn (pictured at top, courtesy of María Alicia Sacks) a longer tourist season than most of the region. The village of Puerto Pirámides (pictured above and below), which is actually on the peninsula, is more convenient for watching the southern right whales that frolic along the eastern shore of the Golfo Nuevo, but its accommodations and other services are fewer than the larger city’s.

Consequently, most visitors to the region stay at Madryn and visit Valdés as a day trip – although, in fact, whales also breach beneath the headlands at Playa El Doradillo (pictured below, courtesy of María Alicia Sacks), only 15 minutes from downtown. This year, though, the June eruption of Chile’s Volcán Puyehue has reduced air travel to the city, which is 1,300 km south of Buenos Aires, making long-distance buses the preferred option. That’s a 20-hour marathon from the capital, but services range from merely comfortable to fully reclining seats that provide nearly as much space as business class on international flights.


The View from Buenos Aires and Puerto Madryn
For the latest from the region, I recently exchanged emails with two friends, Silvina Garay of Say Hueque Travel in Buenos Aires and María Alicia Sacks of Puerto Madryn’s municipal Secretaría de Turismo. I translate their comments in the following paragraphs.

WBB: Has the ashfall affected flights to Puerto Madryn and Trelew?

Silvina Garay: Yes, Puerto Madryn’s airport is very small and normally has only a few flights. All the same Madryn, and the principal airport at Trelew, have had no flights for a month. Most of our clients have decided to take buses.

María Alicia Sacks: The real problem is that suspended ash is keeping the flights from arriving. This is because of the ash plume that’s blowing over Patagonia and, depending on the wind, is reaching our coast, just as it’s affected Aeroparque [Buenos Aires’s domestic airport) and Ezeiza [the capital’s international airport].

WBB: Have you noticed any reduction in the numbers of foreign travelers because of the volcano, as they would usually travel by plane?

SG: It’s really hard to measure because it’s low season here, when passenger numbers always decline. And we don’t work much with the Brazilian market, which is the biggest national market in winter. It’s true that most of our clients travel by plane, but we haven’t received any abnormal number of cancellations because of the ash.

WBB: What about the whale-watching season at Península Valdés? Has demand for hotels and tours fallen because of the volcano?

SG: I can’t say in detail. From our point of view [in Buenos Aires], it’s about the same as last year.

MAS: All the services are operating fully. Just the other day we had a great whale-watching trip in Puerto Pirámides.

WBB: Is there anything else worth mentioning?

SG: I would re-emphasize that Península Valdés and Bariloche are both destinations with good long-distance bus service. Many of our clients who had to take the bus because the ash closed the airports were glad they did so.

MAS: I can’t say exactly when the flights will start up again. It all depends on the ash. Clearly this has had an economic impact on us.

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Argentine and Chilean Coastlines Rate Highly

Annually, National Geographic Traveler magazine (for whom I write occasionally) produces an annual survey of “destinations rated” and, in the new November-December issue, this year’s list evaluates the “world’s great islands, beaches and coastlines.” In a print magazine, of course, there’s not room for much more than a list of all 99 places - Newfoundland’s Avalon Peninsula comes in first - but the online version goes into more detail.

I was pleased to read that two Southern Cone destinations - the Chilean fjords (No. 4, pictured above) and Argentina’s Península Valdés (No. 10) made the top ten of places “In excellent shape, relatively unspoiled, and likely to remain so.” Chile’s Viña del Mar (No. 56) made the mid-list as “a mixed bag of successes and worries, with the future at risk.”

In fact, there are two sets of Chilean fjords. One lies along the west coast, where Navimag passenger ferries between Puerto Montt and Puerto Natales make occasional incursions from the inland sea of the Aisén and Magallanes regions to the edge of the Southern Patagonian Icefield, and the Skorpios cruise line visits Parque Nacional Laguna San Rafael and offers a longer tour of the continental glaciers.

In this case, though the article doesn’t make it clear from the beginning, the fjords in question are those on the south side of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, visited only by the relatively small vessels of the Cruceros Australis line. Traditionally, their Mare Australis and Via Australis vessels (carrying about 120 passengers each) shuttle between the Chilean city of Punta Arenas and the Argentine port of Ushuaia; this season, they will be adding the Stella Australis, capable of carrying about 200 passengers with greater amenities, to the fleet.

This, of course, contrasts with huge cruise ships that carry thousands of passengers and are, fortunately, incapable of navigating the narrow glacial channels in question here. According to one of Traveler’s anonymous panelists, “Local officials are aware of the damage cruise-ship operators have done elsewhere and working to create a sustainable tourism strategy.” Cruceros, for its part, has created an elaborate statement of its own environmental goals.

Meanwhile, on the Atlantic coast of Chubut province, Argentina’s Península Valdés draws praise for facilities “that are set up in a way to minimize their impact on the local environment.” The anonymous commentators, though, differ in their assessments: One dissents that “Development is relatively unregulated” and, from personal experience, I would say that the growth of the gateway town of Puerto Pirámides (pictured above) is cause for some concern.

Península Valdés, like most of Argentina’s Atlantic coast, is a desert, with no surface streams and an annual rainfall of only 246 mm (less than ten inches). Over two decades and at least half a dozen visits to the reserve, I have seen Puerto Pirámides expand from a oversized fish camp to a substantial village, with many more hotels and restaurants, that depends on groundwater for its existence. Some of those hotels, such as the Hostería Ecológica del Nómade, are designed to limit their environmental impact, but the town’s growth is nevertheless a serious concern.

That happened a long time ago in Viña del Mar (pictured above), Chile’s traditional seaside resort, whose proximity to the capital city of Santiago ensures an invasion of tourists not just in summer but year-round on weekends. According to Traveler, “overbuilding has damaged the ecology of its beaches, and peak season crowds and traffic are poorly handled.” For my part, I prefer the neighboring city of Valparaíso, with its quirky geography and colorful hills neighborhoods.

One other coastal destination caught my attention in this month’s Traveler, but it’s not part of the ratings game. A photo gallery on animal migrations includes a nesting colony of black-browed albatrosses - to my mind, one of the world’s most beautiful birds - in the Falkland Islands. I’ve been to several albatross colonies there, most notably on Saunders Island (pictured above), but I don’t recognize the one in the Traveler photograph; from the topography, my guess is that it’s remote, hard-to-reach Steeple Jason Island.

Patagonia's Penguin Season

It’s approaching spring in the Southern Hemisphere, and that means that migratory penguins are returning to their Patagonian nesting sites in Argentina, Chile, and the Falkland Islands. From Argentina’s Península Valdés, all the way around Cape Horn to the Pacific archipelago of Chiloé, Magellanic penguins - colloquially known as “Jackass penguins” because of their braying call - are the most abundant and easiest species to spot, but determined or fortunate penguin seekers may also see several other species at various locales.

Península Valdés is a prime wildlife site because of the whale-watching industry at the hamlet of Puerto Pirámides, but there are also several colonies of the migratory Magellanics scattered around the reserve. Occasionally, though, startled visitors even find themselves swimming with penguins in the shallow waters just off Pirámides’ beach (usually in summer, after the right whales have returned to the open Atlantic. Most visitors, though, go to the colony of Magellanics at Punta Tombo, south of the Atlantic beach resort of Puerto Madryn, where hundreds of thousands of Magellanics waddle ashore to mate, hatch their eggs, and raise their chicks before returning to the ocean in March or April. Occasionally there’s a surprise - last season, for instance, a wandering king penguin (not the one pictured here) made its appearance.

Other good Argentine sites for penguin-watching include Bahía Bustamante, Puerto Deseado, Parque Nacional Monte León, and Cabo Vírgenes. Puerto Deseado makes a particularly interesting detour because it’s the gateway to Isla de los Pingüinos, which has not just Magellanics but also the world’s northernmost colony of rockhopper penguins. Elsewhere along the continental coast, rockies are a rare sight, as they are most abundant in the Falklands.

In southernmost Chile, the most accessible penguin-watching sites are at Otway Sound, barely 45 minutes overland from the city of Punta Arenas. Isla Magdalena, in the Strait of Magellan, is a little harder to reach but worth the effort because the ferry voyage there is an opportunity to view Commerson’s dolphins, black-browed albatrosses, and many other seabirds that nest on the island. Across the Strait, on the Argentine side of Tierra del Fuego, the historic Estancia Harberton conducts trips to offshore Isla Martillo, where a small but growing colony of gentoo penguins (pictured to the right) shares the island with much larger numbers of breeding Magellanics. For visitors to the city of Ushuaia, this is the best opportunity to see gentoos (which are not migratory) without continuing to Antarctica (more than 90 percent of Antarctica-bound cruises leave from Ushuaia).

On Chile’s Pacific coast, near the city of Ancud in the Chiloé archipelago, the offshore Isla Puñihuil is particularly interesting because it’s where Magellanic and Humboldt penguins - which look very similar - overlap their ranges and breed almost side by side. The Humboldt’s range, though, stretches north through Chile and into Peru.

The Falkland Islands, meanwhile, are more expensive to get to, and to get around, but dedicated penguin watchers will find it much easier to observe gentoos, kings (Volunteer Point, at Johnson’s Harbour ranch, has a huge breeding colony), and rockhoppers as well as rarer macaroni penguins (pictured here) that breed among the rockhoppers in a few sites. Occasionally, as well, a wandering chinstrap penguin - they are most abundant in Antarctica - will put in an appearance among the gentoos.

Chubut is a Whale of a Place

In March, when I visited the Península Valdés hamlet
of Puerto Pirámides (pictured here), the elephant seals and penguins had mostly left, and business was slow as local operators awaited the arrival of the ballena franca (southern right whale) that supports the local economy in the winter months.

Normally, the whales arrive in the Golfo Nuevo’s shallow, sheltered waters in June but, according to the Buenos Aires daily Clarín, about 50 whales are already cavorting in the waters at Playa El Doradillo, only 13 km northeast of the city of Puerto Madryn, the gateway to the peninsula (click on the map to see an enlarged version for details).

It looks like a strong season, as local authorities anticipate up to 100,000 whale-watching visitors - 25 percent of them foreigners - will visit tiny Pirámides this winter. Most of them will stay in Madryn, where accommodations, restaurants, and other services are more abundant, but Pirámides also has fine accommodations and food in all price ranges.

Meanwhile, starting this Friday the 29th, there will be a live feed of the whales’ arrival on the Chubut coast. The Vigilia de las Ballenas (“Vigil of the Whales” will continue through Sunday the 31st.