Patagonia (Spanish pronunciation: [pataˈɣonja]) refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.

The contemporary economy of eastern Patagonia revolves around sheep farming and oil and gas extraction, while in western Patagonia fishing, salmon aquaculture, and tourism dominate. Culturally, Patagonia has a varied heritage, including Criollo, Mestizo, Indigenous, German, Croat, Italian and Welsh influences.^{[citation needed]} (Wikipedia)

Patagonia is an amazing confluence of cultures, geographies, and wildlife, as the Wikipedia citation above attests. We were fortunate to sample some of them in January, the peak of South America’s summer.

First stop after sailing from Buenos Aires and a quick stop in Montevideo (Uruguay) was Puerto Madryn (circled in red), a small but bustling fishing town halfway down the eastern Argentine coast. While a vacation destination for Chileans, Puerto Madryn is also a magnet for colonies of sea lions and penguins. It also boasts a robust sheep farming industry, a trade imported by Welsh explorers of long ago.

Our destination, almost hidden out in the empty pampas, was a non-working sheep farm, devoted to showing visitors the Patagonian art of sheep shearing, a livelihood refined over the years from the introduction of electricity and better shearing tools.

Four members of our group were recruited to carry pudgy Dolly (my nickname) to the shearing station. Not a peep or a bleat out of the girl. Having done this whole haircut thing before, Dolly let herself be pinioned to the floor, and then languished peacefully like a pet about to get a chest scratch, content knowing the last time she underwent a haircut, she felt a whole lot cooler and lighter.

If you’ve not seen a sheep get clipped, here’s your chance:

When it was all over, Dolly was separated from her heavy woolen coat, and was last seen hustling out into the hot Argentinian summer as a newly cool ewe. Her coat, the sheared wool, was separated into different grades decided by its anatomical origins and coarseness. Then it would be packed for shipment to customers in the UK or Ireland.

Before leaving the topic of sheep, another member of this farm was a lone guanaco, described by Wikpedia as ” a camelid native to South America, closely related to the llama.”

The guanaco is also a cousin to the better-known Peruvian Alpaca, whose soft wool is prized for blankets and shawls. Not so much the guanaco, which sports a scruffier coat.

The girl, however, was cute enough to merit a photo for our friends, Bart and San, who opened an alpaca farm on the Spanish island of Ibiza. That gesture earned me a guanaco kiss, and if reports of North American deer transmitting Covid are true, this moment may be the origin of my subsequent flu and bronchitis.

So, that was sheep farming. Puerto Madryn’s other attraction are sea lions, and we got to see many of them socializing with their neighbors, the cormorants, at a nearby beach.

Squeezed onto the rocks and patches of beach below the cliffs of Golfo Nuevo, the pinnipeds put on a show familiar to spring breakers: husky males showing off for the girls, and some questionable behavior Hollywood would have to slap a PG label onto.

If you arrive from inland, you hear them before seeing them. A cacophony of honking and grunts as oil-slicked bodies slide around in the west sand.

Have a look, and apologies for some shaky camerawork.

The size, numbers and body language made it pretty easy to identify the males. They were the big boys vigorously guarding their females by roaring warnings to would-be suitors to stay away.

Later, after rounding the Horn of South America, we found more sea lions near Ushuaia, the world’s southernmost city. The region around South Argentina trekker’s mecca hosts an abundance of them, and cormorants. And penguins, which I’ll get to in a moment. Not sure why sea lions and cormorants co-mingle, but it seems to be the thing. On this day, the sea lions were tv-sofa lethargic, perhaps having recently eaten a big feed. But they seemed dead tired.

Next, we pulled into the Falkland Islands, those barren South Atlantic rocks claimed equally by Great Britain and Argentina. We were assured we’d be stumbling through penguin colonies.

In the end, we left Stanley, its capital, with an unfulfilled promise and a dashed expectation.

Here’s why.

In Buenos Aires, where we spent almost a week, every municipal bus bears a nationalistic placard boasting an eternal Argentine claim to “Las Maldivas!” – or the Falklands.

Well, our visit ought to be interesting to see this claim up close, I thought.

So, the (not so big) EXPECTATION:

Despite Argentina’s territorial claims, claims that in 1982 triggered a short hot, deadly war with Great Britain, we neither heard, not did we see, a trace of Spanish during our visit. In Stanley, the visitor is greeted in British English, with British pubs, and by British food. No espanol. And not much of a surprise.

Now the PROMISE: the penguins.

Assured, like I said, that we’d see penguins in abundance, we saw exactly four: two stragglers down on the beach hustling to the water to catch up with the hunting parties …

… and two baby Humboldt penguins, left behind in the safety of their hillside condo.

So, we departed the Falklands disappointed at not seeing more of these little critters.

But around The Horn of South America two days later, in Ushuaia, our hopes came true.

We found a thriving community of both Magellan and Humboldt penguins, living side-by-side on a stretch of rocky beach, back dropped by a lovely pastoral hillside and scenic mountains.

Have a look:

Here we were, about an hour’s boat ride from Ushuaia, in a true South Pacific paradise. The area has immense beauty, and the frisky natives were enjoying every second of it.

So, we found penguins after all, and checked one big box set for this trip.

In the third installment (see the first on Buenos Aires), I’ll write more of Patagonia’s spectacular scenery and I’ll have the pictures. And then I will share photos and thoughts from our stay in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

Now, once again, more of the photos above in slideshow format.