If their is one place that could win the award of Awesomest Nature Place in the World, it would be Bahia Bustamante. Isolated in the Patagonian Desert, this hostel faces the Southern Atlantic, and the steppes of Patagonia back it up. For four beautiful days my mom, my brother, my mom's friend Emma and I walked the beaches, learned of the seaweed harvesting that first started the place, hike through a petrified forest and explore the untouched by man-kind islands full of penguins and sea lions that fill the bay. We saw sea lions, penguins, llama/camel-like "guanachos", ostrich-like reas, tiny armadillos, and much to my brothers delight, lots of sea birds and birds of prey within 500 yards of each other. It was an experience of a life time. On the first two days, we went on a historical tour, went to Penguin Island and hiked along the peninsula to a wonderfully secluded beach within a cove. Here are some pictures of day 1 & 2 of our beautiful vacation to the coast, as well as the link to the NY Times article that brought most of this seaside paradises publicity.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/travel/06bahia-bustamante.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
| The restaurant were we ate at Bustamante. |
| The barn where the seaweed harvesters store and bail the seaweed, before shipping it out to various Japanese companies for food and mysterious French companies for facial products and spices. |
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| The drying racks for the seaweed. The high temperatures and fierce Patagonian winds make the seaweed dry in 24 hours. |
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| Mara, rabbit/deers of the desert! |
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| Steamer ducks, they only nest in Patagonia and there is only 2,000 couples in the world! |
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| This little guy is one of the many members of Bustamante's "Penguin Island" |
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| The swimming hole where we had a dip. |
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| The beach on the peninsula. |
Taylor, this sounds AMAZING. Is that little guy a full grown, fuzzy penguin? and do those rabbits have ears like mice? They look like wee little ears!
ReplyDeleteKate, I think a mara's ears are a little bigger than a mouse's because a mara is about 10 times the size of a mouse. But, they are the same shape. NAd, the fuzzy penguin is actually a about 6 month old penguin chick!
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