Heading North (relatively)

After bidding the crowd farewell in Ushuaia, I took a series of several very long bus rides to go to Puerto Madryn. The bus ride started out well...sunrise over Ushuaia and then through the south of Tierra del Fuego...beautiful snow covered mountains and amazingly rich forests. Then,through the Northern part of Tierra del Fuego which looked very much like Argentine Patagonia...lots of scrubby plants in dirt. Then I got back to Patagonia and saw many, many, many miles more of scrubby land. I did welcome the return of the guanacos, sheep, cows, ñandus, and even a few flamingos and a fox. Finally I got to Puerto Madryn near the Valdes Peninsula. At first it was quite a shock for me as I lumbered off the bus after nearly two days of travel decked out in fleece and wool and saw people wearing sundresses, shorts and frolicking on the beach. It was a far cry from my beloved ice of Antarctica and frankly I´d rather have been wearing my parka and walking with penguins. My walking, by the way, was rather wobbly once I left Antarctica and probably prolonged by the long bus trip but has since returned to normal. I went on a whale watching trip which was fabulous... in the bay there are hundreds of Southern Right Whales and they are quite amazing. They would come right up by the boat and poke their heads up, breech, go under the boat, dive with their tails up in the air. Mainly we saw mothers and their calves...probably about 5 pairs. On a few occasions there were 4 or 5 whales near the boat at one time. I then went on a tour of the peninsula where we saw hundreds or thousands of seemingly lazy and fat elephant seals resting on the beach. We also saw the cute Magellanic penguins that nest on a dirt cliff. It seemed strange to see penguins on dirt rather than snow and stranger still to stand behind a roped off nesting area with maybe one or two hundred penguins rather than the thousands in Antarctica walking right past.
So, I think I´ve rather exhausted Patagonia for this trip and am heading a bit north to Argentina´s lake district. It is reportedly nice. I might meet up with some of the others from the Antartica trip. We´ll see. Just two weeks remaining now...I´m happy and sad at the same time.