We took a full day bus from Ushuaia to Rio Gallegos, Argentina. We left ourselves a day to stretch our legs before another long bus ride, and decided to spend it fishing. We went to the sporting goods shop to inquire about taking a taxi to the river and after looking at photos of huge fish caught nearby we left with a fishing guide! Carlos took us to some remote stretches of the Rio Gallegos to fish for sea-run brown trout. As is the case in this area, the wind is brutal but the weather was nice. Carlos thought we were crazy wet wading in our hiking boots and pants, but after wet wading on Isle Navarino, we though the 45 degree water was balmy.
We spotted our largest yet flock of rhea, these ostrich-like birds who travel in groups with 1 male, several females, and up to 40 babies.
While we didn't catch any sea-run trout, meter-long jumping fish, one of which hit Bets' fly, made it a great experience. Dan finished the day with this nice brown trout.
We headed north to Trelew on an overnight bus ride and spent the first afternoon there at the paleontological museum. We thought it was a great museum with a really high level of explanation.
We rented a car for 5 days and set off from Trelew. We first drove south along the Atlantic coast to Camarones and Cabo Dos Bahias park. We saw these flamingos hanging out on the mudflats, right near a bunch of guanacos, a small armadillo, a bunch of rheas, and a dead penguin that had washed up on the beach. Talk about a weird mix of animals.
Guanacos near the coast. These guys are really funny and we enjoyed hearing them sounding their alarm call which sounds like a high-pitched clucking noise.
The coast as seen from a lookout at Cabo Dos Bahias.
Here is a small armadillo running around the penguin colony at Cabo Dos Bahias. Quite a funny site!
Magellanic penguin colony at Cabo Dos Bahias. We walked on a boardwalk through the colony and had the chance to get very close to the silly penguins who made quite a racket.
It was molting/mating seasons so there were a lot of funny looking penguins making very loud noises. We especially liked this guy's mohawk.
We camped out on the beach after enjoying a beautiful sunset over a bay we had all to ourselves.
We left the coast and drove inland to Sarmiento, a small farming town known for its cherry orchards. We camped at the edge of the Rio Senguer and spent the evening and morning fishing. We both caught small fish, and Dan broke off a big fish early on one of the first casts of the morning (he blamed it on a lack of coffee as we had run out of fuel for the stove).
We spent a morning visiting Bosque Petrificado National Park near Sarmiento where we saw many Cretaceous petrified trees.
Some of the trees still had sandstone casts around them.
Here you can see the logs eroding out of the bluffs.
From Sarmiento we headed northeast through 100 km of oil fields with drills and pumps as far as the eye could see. We took a gravel road toward the coast after sunset and found a place to camp near the water. In the morning we had breakfast on the beach watching the sea birds and then drove to Dique Ameghino. After 300 km of flat Argentine steppe, we descended into a beautiful canyon carved into volcanics by the Chubut River and arrived at the little town of Dique Ameghino.
The Chubut is dammed only once, making it the longest undammed river in Patagonia. Here is Bets at the dam which sits above the town of Dique Ameghino.
This is Dique Ameghino as seen from the dam. A precarious spot for a town!
We spent a night at a well-maintained campground that was full of Argentines enjoying a brand new national holiday (as one put it, 4 days to remember a coup that they would otherwise like to forget). We spent the afternoon and next morning fishing the Chubut, which is the same river we had fished months earlier with Patricio. The edge was typically rocky and steep, or heavily vegetated. Here's Dan with the big catch of the day.
The fishing was exciting but frustrating because we could see large fish through the beautiful clear water. They were spooky and hard to get to. Here's Bets trying to get close to one that just wouldn't bite.
In the morning we explored downstream and found a place to wade through the weed beds to the edge of the open water. Such a beautiful river.
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