Driving up the east coast of Argentina on Rt 3 can be pretty boring. The land is pretty flat, brown and boring much of the time. The ubiquitous guanacos still roam around on the sheep stations and will jump the fence if frightened enough by a vehicle.
This 'sugar loaf' flat-topped hill in the middle of a big field is a 'tourist attraction'. We drove out the dirt road to park at the bottom and have lunch, but we didn't stick around long.
The beaches are all rounded stones and pebbles. Very colorful, and lots of interesting ones (to me), but I had to restrict my gathering. We're going to have to ship the van back to the USA, so I'm trying to control adding weight. Still....these rocks were tumbled thousands of miles from the Andes across the country when this area was all an ocean bottom millions of years ago. These pebbles come from all over and have been smoothed and shined by Mother Nature.
We parked near a lighthouse and the ground and beach was littered with these geodes!
A distant shower at sunset made it look like we were in a huge forest fire.
At low tide, I walked the dried out beach and discovered htat the geodes were 'growing' in the rock of the beachfront. I couldn't pry them loose, but over the years, the beach waves loosen them and toss them around and break them up.
They were just laying on the ground everywhere! Carolin, from the German overlander Strixa, joined me in the rock hunt for cool ones.
These black and white cuties were near each other on the beach and I couldn't resist them.
I whacked open many of the geodes to see if there were crystals in them. They just contained a white grainular substance (not salt) inside that was sometimes still damp and was easily crumbled.
Another nice sunset at the lighthouse cape Faro San Jorge.
Camarones is where we left our power cord and drove away to see the penguins. We were so lucky it was still laying on the ground when we returned three hours later!
There is a Magellanic penguin colony a few kilometers out a dirt road from here, so we drove out to see the cute little birds.
These penguins burrow into the hard dirt on the hilltops.
They dig under any grass or bush they can find. Seems odd to have penguins in such dry and snowless areas, but this breed nests in this kind of environment.
They aren't terribly afraid of people and wander quite near to the boardwalk as they come and go from the water.
This one is squawking about himself, "look at me!"
They can be quite noisy and they sound like donkeys braying when they squawk like this.
Still partially molting, this penguin wanted nothing to do with us.
This one retreated to his burrow when we came by.
Just standing guard over his abode.
Some of the baby chicks were still molting.
It was a very windy day and you can see the line of penguins in the distance going up the hill from the beach. They just stood in the line, facing away from the winds.
More attention-getting squawking from this one.
The chicks look terrible and are probably miserable until their baby feathers molt off them completely. Then they can get into the water.
Pretending to be Arnold Schwarzenager, pumping his fins in front of him.
They walk right under the walkway. Some even have burrows under the walk.
Watch out, here I come!
A group in all stages of molting.
Karen bundled up against the cold wind.
Two young male guanacos bumping chests and heads, wrestling for superiority.
Some 'worked' chunks of chert and other rock I found along a hill near a river. There seemed to be lots of the stuff laying around and locals just drive over it as they use it for road rock!
A broken arrowhead I found under a bush along the river.
We parked on a cliff above these Cangrejales Rocks. The fingers of water reminded us of the Monster energy drink logo. If you look closely, you can see the circle carved into the rocks in 2016 by a group of artesans. It also has wording indicating these are the Cangrejales Rocks and the date. The parking space is note as an overlook for the artesans' work.
Several large rocks on the shore have also been carved into faces here. Interesting rock faces, but we don't know the history behind the carvings.
A lady's face carve on the shoreline rock.
Sunrise over the rocks at low tide, taken out of the van window.
A phallic-looking rock formation farther down the beach.
You can make out the words and the circle from the cliff over 100 feet above the rocks when you stand here. The water color was awesome--azure over the green-covered rocks.
A different view of one of the lady's face. It goes mostly underwater when the tide comes in.
We're a long ways up. Folks found other places to get out onto the rocks below and went walking out to the edges when the tides were out.
The tidal pools around these carved rocks would catch fish that came in too far to turn around. The seagulls took advantage of their situation and made a meal of them.
The color of the water coming up the cracks was beautiful turquoise.
Another colorful sunset along the shore in Argentina.
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