Puerto Madryn

Yesterday morning, we arrived in Puerto Madryn which is on the smaller side of the ports compared to the rest of our stops in South America. We are starting to get in to colder waters and seeing more things like cold weather birds and penguins along side the ship. So Friday had us going on a tour of the interior of Argentina to a Welsh village and touring an eco farm there that has all kinds of fruit and vegetables. This is in Patagonia and is very different from things we’ve seen so far. The land is much flatter and more of a desert. After a 2 hour ride, we arrive in this valley at the town of Gaiman. The valley has a river flowing through it that has a source in the Andes and is the reason there are so many farms there. After all that desert, you’re now in an area filled with fruit and vegetable farms. They keep all this growing through a series of canals that run throughout the valley. The canals were built back in the early 20th century and mostly dug by hand and steam shovel. After the farm tour, we went to a historic church where a local lady, who is somewhat of a celebrity, told us stories of the history of the area and the church. After that it was off to a lunch in a building that was once the local flour mill and then a tour of the valley followed by high tea and all sorts of desserts. Finally, after all the food we head back to the ship. We were greeted at the ship by our butlers and then back to the room where we decided for a quiet evening in the room and ordered a pizza.

So, about 15 minutes before lunch an announcement was made that in 15 minutes the captain and expedition leader would be in the show lounge for an important announcement. I’ve not seen so many older people move so fast to get there 🙂 It turns out the weather forecast is very bad for the Falklands with winds 40-50 mph and high seas. As we have to anchor there and tender in, that wasn’t going to work so the decision was made to skip the Falklands and head straight to Antarctica. This means we’re now on a 3 day sail to get there and will arrive on Tuesday the 4th. The good news is this gives us an extra day in Antarctica plus a stop at another location there. So it’s sad we won’t get to the Falklands but good that we get an extra day to explore Antarctica.