Paleontology, Tea, and Gaiman

30 November 2006

In Trelew, we visited the Museo Paleontologico Egidio Feruglio - a paleontology museum - the study of how geography and climate have affected the evolution of life through the study of fossils. We then hopped on a bus to the Welsh town of Gaiman where one can walk through a site where paleontologists have collected fossils (of sea creatures, ancient armadillos, ancient fish, etc.) from up to 40 million years ago.

In Gaiman, we stopped at a fabulous tea house for "complete" afternoon tea. As you can see from the photos, we were presented with a platter which can only be described as the finest deserts we have ever tasted at one sitting. We were not quite prepared for the sheer mass of "lunch", but fortunately (?) we were able to tackle it entirely. YUM!

magellanic penguin colony!

29 November 2006

We left Buenos Aires at 3 PM on 28 November 2006 after spending the day exploring the Teatro Colon and Plaza de Mayo.

Finally, we arrived in Trelew at 10 AM, after 19 hours on a bus - actually two busses! The first one had a troubled AC unit which resulted in a 10 hour rainstorm in the back row of seats. The second bus was in much better shape, and treated us well for the final 9 hours of our trip. It was a long time of sitting, driving through fairly boring country - flat land and scrub brush vegetation. Luckily, we did an overnight ride, which took absorbed some of the time while attempting to sleep. Andrew and Michael succeeded better at that than myself! Oh well.

We have finally arrived in Patagonia!!!

Trelew was founded in the 1880s by Welsh immigrants; it was "established as head station for the railway track that linked the Lower Puerto Madryn, with railway building equipment and 400 settlers."

From Trelew, we took a day trip to Punto Tombo, where there is a large Magellanic penguin breeding colony. We were told that this breeding colony is the largest in the world that is this accessible to researchers. To our suprise, we were allowed to walk into the colony within inches of their dens; most had one adult penguin with two chicks. Apparently one parent gathers food, while the other protects the wee ones. . . Although the chicks apparently hatched about four weeks ago, there were still some full eggs in the dens, as well as some traces of the broken shells.

Some factoids:
-The adult magellanic penguin weighs between 4 and 5 kg.
-They reach sexual maturity within 4 or 5 years.
-They go to the shores of Punto Tombo in late August, first the males, then the females.
-The males reclaim the nests that were built the previous years
-They next up to 800 meters from the coast
-Females lay two eggs in early October
-Eggs are incubated 40 days by the male and female
-Newborns are coverred with dark grey down which is shed in February


Here we also found wonderfully soft rocks, shaped by glaciers and waves of the shore. Andrew and Michael collected several as I made fun of them.

a last hurrah in BA...

27 November 2006

Well, we could not resist one last visit to La Brigada where we enjoyed a special variety of beef organs... and some good wine too!
















We are off to Trelew in Eastern Patagonia tonight - yeehaw!