Our last day in Puerto Madryn, upon the recommendations of our Australian friends (the same twosome that joined us for the bike ride of death) we took a jeep ride out to Punta Nifas with a ranch hand from a local estancia. The idea of the tour, of course, was to get out of town, and see some more animals!
The cost for a day out of the city was 950 pesos each (which is a high price to pay) but seemed to be the going rate for activities here. (One more reason I haven't really enjoyed Puerto Madryn.)
After about 90 minutes on the mostly gravel road, we arrived at the ranch.
Patagonia is so big that it's common for ranches to be hundreds of thousands of acres large.
The very first thing we did--and probably the highlight of the day for me, was visit the elephant seals.
Apparently, if we had come one or two months earlier, the beach would have been FULL of them, but at the high point of Argentinian summer, there were only a few.
To get close without bothering/scaring/pissing off the seals, we slide down the beach on our butts/shimmied. I got my last clean outfit completely trashed in the process, but, that wasn't the top concern on my mind.
One observation after watching these animals for 45 minutes--it would be incredibly easily to outrun an elephant seal.
While the elephant seals were extremely cool, there was wild life everywhere. Foxes, rabbits, birds of all kinds, and big herds of sheep and cattle. And while I love exotic animals, even seeing the animal life on a ranch is interesting to me.
For example, when our truck startled a giant group of sheep, I learned that sheep can RUN.
Sheep sprinting across the desert at the approach of our car.
Even the lizards are pretty cool.
After an awesome lunch of choripan on the ranch, and some spirited political conversation with our guide, we headed back out for penguins--the bird I will never get sick of.
All-in-all, this was another overpriced tour to see less animals than I expected (which seems to be the theme of Puerto Madryn). Although this was an easy way to see animals, I am SO glad we made the trek to Punto Tumbo on our own. While I felt a little bit non-plussed, in a city where we felt a little lost, I think the best option was to find as many opportunities as possible to get close to the animals. So, with that, I think we made the most of our last day in town.