Elephant seals don't look the way I thought they looked it's only the males with those big fat trunks. We woke up at 8.00 on Thursday morning to go and see these wierd looking creatures plus a few cute little penguins. A person called Juan came and pick us up to drive us out to Punta Ninfas, for our private tour to see the Elephants Seals. We drove until we came to a stop and Juan said "the car can't go any further so we will have to walk", so we jumped out of the car on the beautiful sunny day and did some trekking until we arrived at the beach. We saw from the top of the hill down to the beach 2 groups of Elephants that we could approach and examine what they do during the day. We sat right next to them and took a few photos, then Jaun told us a bit of info about these creatures. Every male has about 20 females and they choose which ones they like, sometimes there might be some conflict between two males going for one girl so they fight with their elephant like noses and they also bite and scratch each other. Their flippers actually have finger nails and are very sharp.
This is the second group we visited and they seemed a little bit more alive, they wriggled and wobbled and occasionally looked at you with there big brown puppy eyes. In this group there was one young male and some females and pups that have learned to fend for themselves. At this time of the year the elephants peel their fur and with their nails they scratch the fur off, I don't know how long in takes I suppose it depends how big they are. After this we walked back to the car and drove back the homestead for lunch. The Goucho cooked us lunch before we set out to see some penguins.
These are the penguins we went and saw, they are only about half a meter tall. They nest in the branches in the shade of these little bushes and make nests by making a hole in the bush. There are different types of these nests. There is this one wich is the most popular then there are the ones where the penguins dig a tunnel in the ground which is nice and cool and in the shade of the branches. Then there's the nests which are basically a hole in the ground, padded a bit with of straw. The penguins are only here to breed, look after eggs and look after their young, then they travel many many miles further South where they are cold or freezing which is just how they like it.
This is the beach that the penguins come in and out from when they have done their fishing. The penguins and their partners take turns in going fishing, one goes out to have a feed and one looks after the eggs. We got to sit on this beach and this is the view we got, we could not go any closer to them because we would scare them away. Did you know that when a penguins finds its partner they stay together forever, they mate and breed with the same penguin every time. Not like the Sea lions and Elephant seals. The penguins still fight for the ladies but they only get one each and forever.
This is a fossil of a sea money and it is a creature from millions of years ago that got stuck in the rock type clay that we trekked on. We saw many of these fossils but they look really weird. They were in the ocean but when the tide came up they got stuck in the clay. Other things got stuck in the clay as well like shells, clams, oysters and lots of coral. After visiting the penguins we drove back to our apartment in Puerto Madryn and got ready for a day of traveling tommorow.
Oscar :-)
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