Península Valdés, Argentina, 23 September - 5 October. Whale watch conference 27-29 September hosted representatives from all over Latin America. But more than that it was a chance to join visitors and the local community of Puerto Pirámides at this legendary whale spot on the national day of the whale...

    I arrived at night after a couple days travel and lots of flight changes including change of airport in Buenos Aires and 4 hours bumpy truck ride out to the Peninsula sharing maté all the way. Awfully glad to see a real bed at the end of it. But best surprise was in the morning, opening the door of my room and looking out toward the water, perhaps half a mile away, and scanning the surface for...a whale spouting, easily within 3 seconds of looking. Then another and another. The endangered southern right whales are everywhere here. For the next 5 days while I stayed in Puerto Pirámides, I did the same check every morning. Shortest time to seeing a whale was 2 seconds, longest was 8 seconds except for one hopeless day when it took me a minute and a half. Luckily, there are Magellanic penguin colonies to keep you busy (see above) when you can’t find whales right away...

    By coincidence or design, the calmest, sunniest day turned out to be El Dia de la Ballena - the national day of the whale in Argentina. Everyone in the town was invited whale watching out in the bay. I jumped into the largest boat that carried the tango jazz musicians invited out for the day, The Esteban Morgado Quartet. Stand-up bass, played with a bow, a violin, a guitar and a bandoneón. 20 minutes from the shore, we cut the engines and they started playing - a glorious calm, sunny day to be out on the water and let the music flow. And then half a dozen whales showed up and proceeded to lay around, mostly on their backs, rolling over occasionally to spout but resolutely staying at the surface, all around the boat. Were they listening, enjoying the music? I don’t care what you think; I am sure that they were...

 

© 2006 Erich Hoyt.