Day 32 - 06 Jan.2012 - Peninsula Valdes

Over night the hot weather from yesterday afternoon cooled down a lot and at about midnight a massive storm went through. The wind was blowing the dust of the campsite everywhere and really everything inside and outside the tent was covered with a fine layer of dust.
Today we went to see the penguins. The Peninsula Valdes is famous for its wildlife and at this time of the year Magellan Penguins settle there to bring up their chicks. It took us about 190km to get to the penguins, half of it on gravel road but it was worth it. The penguins are naturally curious and are not afraid of people making it possible to watch them from very close. Normally one would associate with penguins places like Antarctica, who would have thought that they are that far north as well. Another spectacular attraction of the island is whale watching, especially the beaching of the Orca whales to catch seals lying on the beach. Unfortunately we would have to leave this for next time as the season for this is only from April onwards.
On our way to the penguins we were approached by a couple from Buenos Aires asking if we really came all the way down from Recife (in Brazil the Number Plate states the city where the car is registered). They were travelling by motorbike and during the chat they gave us some travel tips for Argentina and Chile. In general we see more and more people looking at our car probably wondering if we really made it all the way down from Northeast of Brazil but not all approach us to have a chat.
On our way back from the Peninsula we had an emergency breaking as Lamas suddenly crossed the road in front of us.
Back on the campsite we met a couple from Switzerland. They brought their Swiss VW campervan over and are planning to spend 8 months travelling though South America up to Venezuela. Quite a task, considering they have to go through countries like Equator and Colombia, not to mention Venezuela.
In general the weather today is significantly milder than yesterday and sleeping in the tent was actually quite pleasant – this time without night storms.