Península Valdés, Argentina
Our bus swayed along the road like a ship upon a sea of grass stretching beyond our gaze to the horizon’s edge. Creosote and saltbush shrubs were the waves, undulating upon its surface. Newly shorn sheep lifted their lazy heads to watch us pass. In an attempt to bring familiarity into someplace new, the mind kept searching for cacti, for signs that this was the region it resembled so. But it wasn’t west Texas and there were no spiny arms. The creosote, so much a part of North American deserts really belongs here, on the continent it originated upon. Guanacos stretched their long necks above the shrubs, their ears pointed and alert making them appear taller yet. Curiosity conflicted with timidity and they hesitated. Should they stay or should they run? Rhea dad’s, their progeny in tow, zig-zagged a slalom course around the vegetation while Pagagonian foxes and hairy armadillos zipped across the way.
Squeezed from the north by Golfo San José and from the south by Golfo Nuevo, the Valdés Peninsula is a diverticulum upon the coast of Argentina. At its far eastern edge it seems to dissect, to peel away a gravelly tongue forming a Caleta, a protected cove. Sausage-like forms littered the beach from end to end. Some squirmed, pushing elephantine probosci into the rounded pebble ridges and tossing sand upon their itchy backs. Some arched and stretched hind flippers into graceful waving fans. The tiniest, snub nosed and big-eyed, cried in search of mothers who had abandoned them there. Slowly the elephant seals return to the sea, another breeding season completed for the year. When hunger is satiated, they will return for a few weeks more to shed their worn, dull pelage.
The warm and shallow waters of the bays and coves are a haven for a myriad of marine mammals. South American sea lions lounged on wave scoured terraces. Dolphins splashed through the waters. And southern right whales kissed our boat! Well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but they were very close.
The event started oh-so-bizarrely. There we were, three clusters of folks decked out in orange life vests, clambering up three sets of stairs to small vessels cradled in trailers on a long and gently sloping beach at Puerto Pirámides. Matching tractors hitched themselves to the tongues and we started our whale watching journey traveling on wheels into the quiet waters. Each vessel became its own entity and each had its own experiences among moms and calves of various sizes. What strange smiling faces these large baleen whales possess! Their lower jaw wraps around their upper, framing a callosity-covered rostrum. Even the tiniest of babes have lumpy countenances. One wonders if the adult feels the scraping scratch when her youngster rests its head upon her back or nuzzles against the mammary slits. Rolling, their short pectoral fins were like paddles in the air, and white underbellies glowed green just beneath the surface. With graceful arching of thin tail stalks their massive flukes rose high streaming a cascade of glittering jewels from the edges.
Life was plentiful this day both on land and in the sea.
Our bus swayed along the road like a ship upon a sea of grass stretching beyond our gaze to the horizon’s edge. Creosote and saltbush shrubs were the waves, undulating upon its surface. Newly shorn sheep lifted their lazy heads to watch us pass. In an attempt to bring familiarity into someplace new, the mind kept searching for cacti, for signs that this was the region it resembled so. But it wasn’t west Texas and there were no spiny arms. The creosote, so much a part of North American deserts really belongs here, on the continent it originated upon. Guanacos stretched their long necks above the shrubs, their ears pointed and alert making them appear taller yet. Curiosity conflicted with timidity and they hesitated. Should they stay or should they run? Rhea dad’s, their progeny in tow, zig-zagged a slalom course around the vegetation while Pagagonian foxes and hairy armadillos zipped across the way.
Squeezed from the north by Golfo San José and from the south by Golfo Nuevo, the Valdés Peninsula is a diverticulum upon the coast of Argentina. At its far eastern edge it seems to dissect, to peel away a gravelly tongue forming a Caleta, a protected cove. Sausage-like forms littered the beach from end to end. Some squirmed, pushing elephantine probosci into the rounded pebble ridges and tossing sand upon their itchy backs. Some arched and stretched hind flippers into graceful waving fans. The tiniest, snub nosed and big-eyed, cried in search of mothers who had abandoned them there. Slowly the elephant seals return to the sea, another breeding season completed for the year. When hunger is satiated, they will return for a few weeks more to shed their worn, dull pelage.
The warm and shallow waters of the bays and coves are a haven for a myriad of marine mammals. South American sea lions lounged on wave scoured terraces. Dolphins splashed through the waters. And southern right whales kissed our boat! Well, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but they were very close.
The event started oh-so-bizarrely. There we were, three clusters of folks decked out in orange life vests, clambering up three sets of stairs to small vessels cradled in trailers on a long and gently sloping beach at Puerto Pirámides. Matching tractors hitched themselves to the tongues and we started our whale watching journey traveling on wheels into the quiet waters. Each vessel became its own entity and each had its own experiences among moms and calves of various sizes. What strange smiling faces these large baleen whales possess! Their lower jaw wraps around their upper, framing a callosity-covered rostrum. Even the tiniest of babes have lumpy countenances. One wonders if the adult feels the scraping scratch when her youngster rests its head upon her back or nuzzles against the mammary slits. Rolling, their short pectoral fins were like paddles in the air, and white underbellies glowed green just beneath the surface. With graceful arching of thin tail stalks their massive flukes rose high streaming a cascade of glittering jewels from the edges.
Life was plentiful this day both on land and in the sea.
