CRUISING AND PUERTO MADRYN

Tuesday Dec 9

After our day at Montdvideo we had a day of rest and cruising we did what one is suppose to do on a holiday REST. I picked up a book in Banff, that I had started reading and got back into it a little. For me that is a big change for Ray it is normal (Ray had already read the book). As normal we went to the evening show in the Star Dust Lounge, it was a great show as usual.

Wednesday Dec 10

To day we arrived in Puerto Madryn, Argentina another day or touring. We had to be up early to catch our bus at 9 am. As usual on tour days the food lines are long as everyone is rushing to get off the ship. We were off to a penguin rookery. What we did not realize when making the booking was that the trip was going to be so long, it was a 200km ride each way with only one and a half hour visit at the site. With weather being so good we could have used more time though I did not need any more pictures of penguins. It was quite a site to see thousands of these birds, and they did not show any fear of people. The chicks had hatched but very few were visible as they had not yet come out of the dens. the adults had a long way to go for fish up to 2km. On TV most penguins are shown near ice but this is not the case with these birds. We arrived back at the ship about 5pm and set sail at 5:30. Again had another nice meal and went to the Star Dust lounge for another top notch show.
What we are finding that was not expected is how flat and desolate the country is, no mountains just low hills and very little vegetation all low brush except near a river which we only saw one. Water for Puerto Madryn, had to be piped in from about 100km away, as compared to Uruguay that has water and exports it. The land/vegetation supports mainly sheep which are allowed to run free. The average homesteader runs about 800 sheep over 2000 acres.

Tomorrow another day of cruising and rest.