15 Dec 2024
On this tour we got to see so much wildlife.
After we were picked up it took about an hour for Juan, our tour guide, to drive our group to the shore. The drive was largely through scrubland. Juan was very observant along the drive, stopping to point out guanacos, rheas, maras, and a rarely seen tinamou. He also answered questions we had along the way.
When we arrived at Caleta Valdes we saw many elephant seals laying out on the beach and penguins along various parts of the beach and in the brushy areas. Juan scanned the shoreline with his binoculars and kept track on his phone with other people there to know where to go/look for orcas. Sure enough, we saw several orcas (killer whales) prowling along the shore looking for seals. It was amazing.
Then we drove again and arrived at Puerto Piramides where we hopped on a large boat and found a few pairs of mother/baby Southern right whales. (The males had already migrated away by early November.) The whales were near our boat, swam around together, occasionally spouted, and also dove down and showed their flukes.
The drive was very comfortable car-wise and temperature-wise. We also enjoyed getting to know the other tourists in the car on our drives. Juan was very focused on identifying as many animals as possible on our trip and his English was perfect.