CMR

I'm going to Argentina in mid-November. From Buenos Aires, we will be flying into Trelew late in the afternoon (5pm arrive), spending 4 nights in the area, flying out of Trelew 8am on the 5th day. We want to spend the time at Peninsula Valdes. I'm having a hard time deciding (1) how best to travel to P.Valdes from Trelew, (2) where to stay and (3) who to use to arrange tours.

Some of my questions are - is 5pm too late to travel to P. Valdes from Trelew? I've been told the trip is about 1.5 hours. I don't know what the roads are like.

I'm thinking of staying in Puerto Piramides - has anyone stayed at Las Restingas or Hosteria Paradise? There are a few estancias further out on the peninsula, but it sounds like they drive to them would be a couple of hours longer.

We are planning to stay at a hotel in Trelew the 4th night to be close to the airport for the early flight.

Has anyone used Huinca Tours? Can you recommend another company?

Thank you for your help!

wonderfulargentina

Hi,

there are public buses connecting Trelew and Puerto Piramides, but that is neither a convenient, nor comfortable option.
If you don't mind driving yourself, I would suggest renting a car at the Trelew airport (already a bit outside of town). You should have plenty of daylight hours to get there, and the main roads are well maintained and marked.
Trelew doesn't have much to offer, but you shouldn't miss the dinosaur exhibit at the Museo Paleontologico on your way back.

I can't comment on Huinca Tours specifically, but Puerto Piramides is a tiny town and all about tourism, so there are plenty of tour operators to chose from. I would suggest to just find one there that makes a good impression.

If you like a somewhat livelier place to stay, Puerto Madryn is a good alternative and you can also make the excursions from there.

Also don't miss the penguins at Punta Tombo, about 70 miles south of Puerto Madryn. November is when their young hatch, so your timing is perfect for this wonderful experience.

Have fun!

crellston

Only last we we traveled to Puerto Madryn bus bus from Bariloche and stopped on the way in Trelew.
I have posted below a extract from our blog and, as you will see, we had a few problems with our tour operator (sorry I can't recall the name. There is a tourist info place on the seafront which was really helpful , apart that is from recommending a specific operator.
Given our time again, i don't think we would bother with the day tour but just get a taxi to the beach at the evening high tide and then hire a taxi to Puerto Pyramides, where as teh previous poster pointed out , there are lots of boat companies all offering trips of c 1.5 hours. there are a few nice looking restarants and shops ther ebut it is very small and I am not sure there is any good reason to stay there. I will be finishing of teh blog entry with photos and will post a link here in a few days if you are interested.

THE WHALES ARE SIMPLY AMAZING!

We had managed to book a room at the El Returno Hostel but after lugging our backpacks through the town to the hostel, they had given our room to someone else- just what we needed after 14 hours on a bus (plus Carolyn was feeling really rough with a cold).
We tramped around the town to Hostel Viajero where we would stay for the next 3 days.

Puerto Madryn is a small and very pleasnt town and the gateway tothe Valdez peninsula which is very isolated and very barren. Sometimes you can go for hours without seeing another soul. All roads on the peninsula are gravel, and driving is hazardous to say the least. .

Península Valdés is a World Heritage Site and despite this it is not a national park but a Natural Protected Area managed by the Province of Chubut. Within its protected borders, families continue to run the ranches that they have managed for more than a century, although some are now turning to tourism. Human activity is restricted, and although tourism is now the major player, the balance game between conservation and recreation is monitored closely.

Keen to visit the peninsula and to go whale watching the four of us trawl the local tour operators to sort out the best deal and settle upon XXX. We agree a pick up from the hostel the following day and that evening we, or at least Isabella, does a deal for a taxi out to watch the whales from the beach outside of town. Not sure how much we will see from the beach we are amazed at how close these giants come into the beach and we see at least a dozen female whales with their new born young. A truly amazing experience. Having stayed around to watch the sunset, we drive back towards town and stop at another beach to watch the moon rise which is particularly impressive as it is full moon time.

The next day we are collected by minibus and head off to the Valdez peninsula itself for the whole day. On the way we stop at the Interpretive Center, a museum of sorts and a complete waste of time. Our guide does not even bother to come in with us and we begin to wonder if we have chosen the right operator.makes a good consolation prize if you don't have time for the excellent Ecocentro museum in Puerto Madryn .

Driving east for about an hour on Ruta 2, we reach the tiny village of Puerto Pirámides, which exists only to provide the main launching spot for the whale-watching boats. The Southern Right Whales (so named because they move slowly and float easily, making them "right" for hunters). These gentle giants gather to mate in these bays just off the peninsula from April to December. Weighing 35 to 40 tons they measure about 17m (56 ft.) long. They are BIG! About 800 whales show up each year, after feeding in Antarctica for 3 months. After mating the male whales head off leaving the females to look after the young.

We head out on our boat a couple of kilometres out into the bay and very soon we starto see lots of whales in the distance, a little further out and they start to approach the boat clearly unperturbed by teh proximity of humans (how did they know that there were no Japanese on board?). Apparently at this time of year there are approx. 800 whales and their young in the bay at any one time. After a while we see more and more some of which come within 10 metres of the boat. Quite apart from teh sight of the whales, the other incredible experience is listening to them. These guys are loud and can be heard making there wahle sounds from hundreds of metres away - spooky!

The Valdés Peninsula is the place of choice for the mating of these giant sea-going mammals. The mating rite is marked by the twists and turns of the courting dance, spectacular leaps into the air and crashing dives back into the sea, an exciting show that we are very lucky to have witnessed. It really is a moving experience.

WHALE FACTS
Several males at a time stir the foamy sea with antics that have little to do with their habitual behavior. They become aggressive with one another in their attempts to seduce the same female. The female resists at first, but eventually gives in to the charms of one of her suitors. The male's reproductive organs store an enormous amount of semen (some 500 kilograms per testicle), enough to impregnate several females. When the female finally accepts the male's overtures, sex takes place with both whales in a vertical position, facing one another, with their heads out of the water. The joyous result of this encounter is the birth of a whale calf, about five meters in length, that grows at a rate of 35 centimeters a day thereafter. Whale cows give birth once every three years and the gestation period is 12 months.

We head north to Caleta Valdés, which is the place to see the elephant seals (all of which are sleeping). By this time our guide, who was not very good to start with (how can she translate 5 mins of Spanish into 30 seconds of English?) deteriorates rapidly, brushing her hair, chatting up the driver, sleeping - anything to avoid being a guide!

At the northeastern tip of the peninsula we reach Punta Norte where hundreds of sea lions congregate from January to June. Orcas can sometimes be seen off this point too, attracted by the sea lions -- their favorite snack.

It is the wrong time of the year so we settle for the really cute penguins haging around on the clifftop. It has been a long hot day cooped up in a crowded minibus with lots of sweaty strangers with possibl;y, the most useless guide in Argentiana, but we have had a great day.

We head back to Puerto madryn and ask to be dropped off at the tour operator so we can complain about teh guide, but even Isa, who is Spanish and who has spent most of her life in the tourism/hospitality industry can't get us a refund so we just put it down to experience.

That evening, after a few beers on the terrace at the hostel, at Claudio's suggestion, the four of us decide to head down to the pier the next morning at high tide so see whetehr we can see any more whales.

Surprise, surprise, we see several whales and their calves just metres from the pier and further out they are leaping up right out of the water. This is the closest we have got to these amazing mamals and all without a guide (unless you count Claudio!).

Lil1210

My friend and I were just in Peninsula Valdes last week.

I would suggest heading to Puerto Madryn your first night rather than Puerto Piramides. Puerto Piramides is super tiny and has relatively little infrastructure, whereas Puerto Madryn is a nice-sized, reasonably charming town to stroll around. You can have an excellent seafood dinner (Mariscos del Atlantico was outstanding--try the grilled abadejo!) and walk down the pier. When we were there last week, high tide was around 6 pm, and, like crellston, we were able to see whales swim extremely close to the pier.

From Puerto Madryn, there are tons and tons of tour operators who make daytrips to Peninsula Valdes. However, if you have four nights, your plan of staying in Puerto Piramides at least one night sounds good--that way you can take a regular daytime boat trip and a more private sunset whale tour. (A taxi ride from Puerto Madryn to Peninsula Valdes costs ~$80 US.)

We only had two nights in this region, so we went with the tour company recommended by our hotel, Ryan Tours, which offers transport in mini-buses with a max of 22 people. I have mixed feelings about this company. On the one hand, our bilingual guide, Rita, was excellent. She spoke very good English and extremely clear Spanish such that we had no trouble understanding her in either language. She was also high energy and extremely personable and offered excellent detail about the region's wildlife, industry, and history. Along the road to Peninsula Valdes, we stopped several times to see local wildlife such as the Mara or Patagonian hare (actually a giant rodent) and the burrowing owl.

On the other hand, I was not thrilled with the itineraries of our tours. On day 1, we were picked up from our hotel in Puerto Madryn around 7:30 am and drove to Peninsula Piramides for a 9:30 whale watching boat ride. The boat ride lasted approximately an hour and a half. Then, we drove to Estancia Elvira where we had lunch and saw a few elephant seals. Our last stop was the Interpretive Center, which as crellston mentioned, has little to offer other than one cool whale skeleton. We were very disappointed that the tour did not include a visit to Punta Norte, which our hotel had promised.

On day 2, our tour went to Punta Tombo, which surpassed my expectations. I had always associated penguins with ice, so imagine my surprise when I found penguins living in dirt holes like groundhogs. The panoramic view from the cliffs of the penguins swimming into the sea is unforgettable. We also came closest to guanacos at Punta Tombo than anywhere else in Argentina.

In the afternoon, we went to Gaiman for Welsh tea, which we thought was a complete tourist trap. One plate of buttered bread and cheese sandwiches, one plate of sweet torte pieces. We found it to be nothing special. Finally, we drove to Trelew for a 45-minute stop at the paleontology museum, but not a single person from our minibus was interested in going in. (Not surprising since the signs advertising the exhibits seemed quite basic, e.g. "What is a fossil?&quot I wish we had gone to the ethnographic museum instead. Then, we were dropped off at the Trelew airport, and everyone else returned to Puerto Madryn.

In short, if I were to go back, I would learn to drive stick shift and rent my own car (there seems to be a dearth of automatics in Argentina). Or if I could afford it, I'd hire a driver and do a private tour. However, given our budget and time constraints, the tour was okay. After all, Peninsula Valdes is all about the wildlife, and the whales were truly spectacular and wildly abundant. We were able to see whales even from our hotel room window! (We stayed at Hosteria Solar de la Costa, which was peaceful and charming and a short taxi ride away from the main tourist hub of Puerto Madryn. If you want to stay within walking distance of the shopping and restaurants, there are plenty of options there too.)

Hope that helps.

CMR

Thank you! I really appreciate the information. I am now thinking of staying Puerto Madryn instead and renting a car.

ToddPBrown

I'd like to jump a tangent here if I may since the initial point seems resolved. My wife and I are in Puerto Madryn for one day with our cruise ship on December 3. We ha ve chosen, while here, to go on an excursion floating down the Rio Chubut ending at a Welsh farm house and having lunch there and returning on a bus. Anyone done anything like that in this area?

ToddPBrown

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Anyone onthe Rio Chubut float trip?