We wandered along the main street on a mission, to find a hire car and get outa here. Our two compadres rejected the first and closest car hire. As we trudged further away in search of another, Tricia was asking how we would ever get the last 20 minutes of our lives back.
Our compadres sneered at the next one, it was Greek, so on we trudged. More sarcasm from Tricia.
The third one offered us a cheaper deal on a four door (not a three door golf as at the first place) and despite the severely cracked (in multiple places) windscreen, the “engine fault” light that was mostly always on, and the solid coating of dust on the interior (everything), we relented to Tricia and grabbed it.
We were headed for Punta Norte, haven of the Orcas. A 170Km trip down a very dusty and bumpy road. But first we had to get supplies from the supermarket. Bread, cheese, ham, fruit, water, and a couple of sun hats for me and Tricia. The only hats available cost more than our entire food bill and were of course the Argentinian national flag colours, with a zipper pocket on one side, classy!
Back on the road, the bumps quickly stirred up all that dust embedded in the seats, carpets, roof and door linings creating a billowing dust storm bringing tears to our eyes and near zero visibility. We had to open the windows.
Our chauffeur, David, is a big guy. When Tricia found she only had six inches of leg room sitting behind him she exclaimed that she was glad we hadn’t taken the golf.
David kept veering severely to the right side of the road. Drifting, drifting, DRIFTING!! I screamed. We don’t have any “roll” cover because it is too frequently the cause of fatalities on Argentinian roads. There are no lane markings, no road edges, just a vertical drop into a ditch a metre or so deep.
When our front seat co-pilot started moving her visor around I could no longer see the edge. OMG, get your arm out of my way, I can’t see when we’re all going to die!
It didn’t help that they kept spotting critters along the way. EYES FRONT, HANDS ON THE WHEEL, STOP TRYING TO PHOTOGRAPH WHILE DRIVING, AAAARRRRGGGGHHH, whimper.
We somehow got to our destination 2 hours before high tide, perfect. The seal pups like to frolic on the beach. The Orcas like to swim directly at them and hopefully grab one whilst beaching themselves, and then wriggle back to sea. They need near high tide for this stunt.
In the car park there were armadillos scuttling about all over place, also a very curios grey fox. Good start!
We had waited an hour and half in baking sun and severe sand blasts hoping to see the fabled Orca beaching eating seal pup event. Nothing.
We all had our super zooms focussed on the group of seals right in front of us and slightly off to our right, a perfect angle with the sun behind.
Its not going to happen, not even a hint of anything bigger than a seal.
Then, all the people at the high lookout point were charging down the hill at us. We know what this must mean and wheel around to our left. Orca fins, five of them, and ridiculously close to shore. They are a long way from our group of seals, here they come.
But no, they wheel around and start beaching almost out of sight. There must be seal pups around that headland we couldn’t see. Our little corner at the end of the path is now jammed with bodies and cameras clicking furiously. I got a couple of shots through peoples arm pits but our David is a Goliath and he was on the perfect corner, his years of training had paid off. He got off hundreds of shots which could be played back quickly like a movie of the whole joyous/macabre event.
The seal pup they targeted appeared briefly to have escaped, but the Orcas were just fooling around a little to make it interesting for us. After two minutes of action they then headed out to sea to rip up their spoils.
We hung around another hour or so hoping they would come back for the tantalisingly nice seal pups in front of us. They did, but just to saunter back around the headland from where they originally came, leaving our seal pups unharmed. We are coming back tomorrow, we lust for more seal pup deaths, er?
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