Princess and Penguins at Punta Tombo

[juliejoe]

Here is what Princess offers on their current list of shore excursions for Puerto Madryn, Argentina:

 

Penguin Reserve At Punta Tombo

Visit the largest penguin rookery in the world at Punta Tombo Natural Reserve and enjoy a traditional cup of tea in the Welsh town of Gaiman.

 

WHAT YOU VISIT

Punta Tombo Nature Reserve - Magellan penguins - hundreds of thousands of them - return to these shores every year in September. From September until April, the penguins court, mate, and hatch a brood of chicks. By April, both mature and young penguins are ready to migrate to warmer climates in Uruguay and Brazil. Walking marked trails brings you in close viewing range of the penguins, who are quite unfazed by human company.

 

Maybe it will compare to Magdalena Penguin Reserves out of Punta Arenas. Chili. Here's a website about the Punta Tombo - looks good! http://www.patagonia-argentina.com/i/atlantica/puertomadryn/tombo.htm

[Aussie Gal]

Julie,

 

I have read reviews about this trip and it is a long way - 107km, a lot of the time on dirt roads and I believe not really worth the drive.

 

Here are some postings from a few months back which make good reading.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=96966

 

Jennie

[juliejoe]

Just found this from a review posted by Host Cecelia last May. She cruised in March 2002. It does sound like it's a long bumpy ride to Punta Tombo Penguin Reserve! Weather permitting, Puerto Madryn would be our first chance to see the Penguins - can we be confident enough of Falkland Islands or Punta Arenas to pass it up if we get the chance to go there? http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=19567&highlight=Punta+Tombo

 

On March 6 we were in Puerto Madryn, Argentina. The big thing to do in Puerto Madryn is to go to the Punta Tombo Penguin Reserve. It sounds simple enough but it was a journey. Instead of doing the ship’s tour, Shary, Barbara and I hired a car with an English speaking guide and we went on our own. Punta Tombo is about 3 hours away by car. We made it in two hours. Raoul, our driver, drove 160 km an hour on the paved road. We were on the paved road for about 40 minutes. Then you turn onto a dirt and gravel road where we did 100 km an hour for an hour and twenty minutes. It was wild. We were in the middle of nowhere on a makeshift road in a foreign country. FINALLY we made it to Punta Tombo. There are approximately 750,000 Magellanic penguins at this reserve. They’re everywhere and they’re accustomed to humans so it was easy to walk among them. You couldn’t walk two steps without running into a penguin. They were molting when we were there so you could see them scratching away to shed their feathers. Before leaving the reserve we stopped at the little gift shop/cafe and bought souvenirs and ate lambs meat empanadas. After we left there, we went to the town of Trelew and to the Paleontology Museum to see the dinosaur bones recovered from the area. Then we went to Puerto Madryn and got a tour of the city. After that, we asked our guide if we could do a little shopping, go to the post office and go to a grocery store to buy sodas and water to bring back to the ship. We had a wonderful day. The guide we had spoke excellent English and we saw everything there was to see. On March 7 we were at sea again.

 

Julie

[juliejoe]

Jennie:

 

Here's another review from someone who went to Punta Tombo.

http://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=5965

 

February 11: Puerto Madryn. We contacted local tour operator EcoBikes and arranged for a private tour to the Punta Tombo rookery. German was a great tour guide and provided great insight about the region and its fauna. The trip to Punta Tombo is long, but German had a very comfortable minivan and we stopped for snacks on the way to the rookery. I truly recommend German as one of the best guides we had on the trip. German is the owner and tour guide of EcoBikes. The rookery was impressive because of the sheer number of penguins (over 200,000). It was another great day[/u].

 

He posted his contact information for the private tour he used - I'll e-mail German and get some information about his tour price etc. and will forward it to you when received.

 

Julie

[Aussie Gal]

Julie,

 

Thanks for sending the email to German. It will be interesting to hear his reply.

 

Jennie