Puerto Madryn is a small city (~95,000 people, actually quite large by New Zealand standards!) at the very top of Argentinian Patagonia. It’s a hub for people visiting the Valdés Peninsula for wildlife, Punta Tombo for penguins and dolphins, Punta Loma for seals, and Gaiman for Welsh heritage. None of which I did.
Which I’ll come onto, but first an opportunity to share photographs of the sunset the night before we arrived.
Instead I spent the time exploring the city itself, which didn’t take very long to be honest. It was our first docked port where I was well enough to go for a run, doing a 10km out and back to Punta Cuevas and the Ecocentro. The former is where the Welsh first came to Patagonia in 1865, digging these hollows to provide shelter. The museum had clearly seen better days, but good to see a Welsh flag flying nearby.
The Ecocentro was closed when I visited but I loved the building and setting.
Along the waterfront were a variety of statues and monuments, my favourite being the expressions on the men’s faces below the cross.
The pier at the dock was nearly a 1km long, and where we were joined by the Europa 2, which we had also seen at Stanley in the Falkland Islands.
A later wander around town didn’t reveal much other than a car park filled with street art, the highlight being this memorial to those impacted by the Argentinian military rule of 1976-83, which had the reliefs of faces coming out of the wall.
That evening at sea we were treated by another colourful sunset, a recurring theme of the whole cruise.
The sky must feel endless there 🙂