Puerto Madryn is one of the very few dive sites in Argentina. The most advertised excursion is to go diving with sea lions. It is ridiculously expensive, though, so I chose to do a regular dive instead and have a look at another shipwreck, the Albatros. The underwater environment here is very different from the Caribbean, to a big part due to the water temperature (15 degrees here vs. 28 in Cuba). The wreck was completely covered with sea anemones - which may even be more beautiful than coral. There were a few nice starfish and jellyfish around, and some relatively big fish who were quite interested in us divers. Looking out of one of the wreck's doors, one of them came to about 15 cm from my face and then stopped to inspect it for a minute. Incredible!
In the afternoon, I persuaded a swiss girl I met in the hostel to join me for a cycling tour to the sea lion colony at Punta Loma, about 17 km one way. What we didn't realize, however, was that for most of the way we had to use a dirt road - which made cycling a lot harder. Add to that the pitiful state the hostel's bikes were in, and you can imagine that the mere 34 km were a rather tough tour after all.
Luckily, the scenery on the way more than compensated for the hardship :-)
The sea lion colony was another highlight. We couldn't get very close to them - the viewpoint was at the top of a cliff and the sea lions were in the bay below. But I thought that it was rather good this way. They are free animals after all, and the viewpoint allowed us to observe without disturbing them. I probably could have stayed there for hours, just watching them play in the surf, swim, jump off stones, and lie around lazily. So cute!
In the afternoon, I persuaded a swiss girl I met in the hostel to join me for a cycling tour to the sea lion colony at Punta Loma, about 17 km one way. What we didn't realize, however, was that for most of the way we had to use a dirt road - which made cycling a lot harder. Add to that the pitiful state the hostel's bikes were in, and you can imagine that the mere 34 km were a rather tough tour after all.
Luckily, the scenery on the way more than compensated for the hardship :-)
The sea lion colony was another highlight. We couldn't get very close to them - the viewpoint was at the top of a cliff and the sea lions were in the bay below. But I thought that it was rather good this way. They are free animals after all, and the viewpoint allowed us to observe without disturbing them. I probably could have stayed there for hours, just watching them play in the surf, swim, jump off stones, and lie around lazily. So cute!
