After a week in Buenos Aires we flew to Comodoro Rivadavia, a small industrial city in Patagonia. Our destination was Bahia Bustamante, a privately owned sheep ranch about two hours north. You can also fly into the city of Trelew and travel about two hours south to the ranch. We were fortunate in our choice because the Trelew airport had been periodically closed due to the strong Patagonian winds blowing ash into Argentina from a volcano in Chile that had been erupting since last summer.
When we arrived, we were met by our driver. It is possible to rent a car and drive to Bahia Bustamante, but I always prefer to be met by a driver when I travel to new places. Both the Fierro Hotel and Bahia Bustamante were happy to arrange drivers for us. About an hour outside of the city, we turned off the paved highway and went the rest of way on dirt road. A knowledgeable driver with a good car is very good thing.
I had read about Bahia Bustamante www.bahiabustamante.com in a March 2011 issue of The New York Times and thought it would be a good complement to our urban experience in Buenos Aires. Patagonia is basically the southern section of the Andes that is shared by both Chile and Argentina and runs all the way to Tierra del Fuego. On the Chilean side it is bordered on the by the Pacific Ocean and on the Argentinean side by the Atlantic. I was reminded of the American Southwest when we flew over the Argentinean portion – a vast tract of unpopulated land that looks like high desert with one highway running its length. On the ground it resembled West Texas and New Mexico, large flat, wide-open spaces with an occasional oil rig pumping away amid low-growing thorny bushes, very few trees.
Hand sheep shearing demonstration. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
Once we left the paved highway we started to see wildlife mixed in with roaming domesticated sheep. Guanacos, a cousin to the llama and related to camels, are like deer in Maine. They are everywhere and they seem to get along just fine with the sheep. We also spotted fox, ostrich, rheas and really large rabbits. Above all, it was very windy.
Matias Soriano. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
Located on the northern coast of the San Jorge Gulf, Bahia Bustamante is owned by Matias Soriano. It encompasses 210,000 acres of land (about the size of the island of Kauai). Three years ago the government of Argentina declared the coastline of the bay and the nearby islands a national park, Patagonia Austral. Bahia is adjacent to the recently declared park and controls the access to the sea. Matias’ grandfather started the ranch about 50 years ago when he was looking for seaweed from which to extract a compound used to produce a hair gel. He came upon Bahia Bustamante, then called “the Rotten Bay” because of all the rotting seaweed brought in by the tide. Over the years the Soriano family acquired more and more acres until the ranch reached its current size. They still process some seaweed but the bulk of their income comes from sheep ranching.
Gauchos at the sheep ranch. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
The ranch started taking in guests quite by accident. In 2005 two German couples unknowingly trespassed on the property and Matias invited them to stay for a couple of weeks. Needless-to-say, word of mouth brought more guests until Matias had a third business. Then came the article in The New York Times. When we were there, all the guests without exception had read about Bahia Bustamante in The New York Times. The ranch can only accommodate 18 guests at a time and is open to visitors from August to May, so it is wise to plan ahead.
Oceanside pools on the rocky coast of Bahia Bustamante. Photo by Ridge Art
After lunch we settled into our cottage and laid down for a nap, as we had had a 5:30 am flight out of Buenos Aires. With a banshee wind wailing outside the cottage, I drifted in and out of sleep thinking this part of the journey was going to be harder than I expected. And this was summer. The winters must be unbelievable. Later I found out that the winds are strong in the summer but not in the winter. In fact, the winters are quite mild.
In addition to Matias Soriano himself, there are enthusiastic and knowledgeable drivers/guides to escort guests to the various wildlife locales and hiking and swimming areas. The staff decide each morning what activities they will offer depending on the weather conditions. Because of the uncertainty of the weather conditions it’s really good to plan on spending five days there so you don’t miss anything.
Rock cormorants. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf.
Before dinner we were driven out to a sheltered beach to swim, but the water was truly frigid. Many brave souls ventured in, but not me. However, the coastline was gorgeous, reminiscent of the rocky coasts I grew up with in Maine. We spotted seals and penguins in the water.
At dinner we became more acquainted with the very interesting guests Bahia Bustamante attracts – a pianist who developed a non-invasive therapy for fellow musicians with injured hands and fingers, a novelist from New York City, two young British financial consultants on their way back from Antarctica, and two absolutely delightful much widowed sisters who plan an adventure trip every year.
The chef at Bahia on pizza night. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
The food was quite good overall with more of an emphasis on vegetables than meat. Argentineans eat a lot of meat, beef in particular. In the restaurants in Buenos Aires it was hard to find any vegetables other than lettuce, pumpkin and eggplant. The chef at Bahia even introduced us to a new vegetable, salicornia. Salicornia is a low-growing succulent that thrives in brackish water. It can be eaten fresh or steamed. Sometimes it’s called “sea asparagus” or “sea bean.” It tastes a little bit like salty green beans. I liked it. In Bahia it is found where the penguins hang out. We even had guanaco stew. Like deer, guanaco don’t have many natural predators these days, so they have to be culled from time to time to keep the species healthy. I liked the guanaco, too. My main food complaint was the instant coffee in the morning. Opt for tea.
On our second day it was still too windy and dusty to visit the petrified forest, so we did some hiking along the coast and saw wonderful birds – sandpipers, oystercatchers, kites, falcons, flycatchers, hawks. At one point we actually walked over 23,000-year-old oyster shells imbedded in the rocks along the shore. We were warned not to try to dig any of them up. There are lots of hiking opportunities, so if the winds are too high to boat out to the islands where the sea lions mate and the penguins nest or to see the petrified forest, there are interesting alternatives. The ranch offers horseback riding and kayaking at additional costs. Being outside in Patagonia with the strong wind and sun is an assault on your body when you’re not used to it. You tire out in a few hours, at least we did, so we didn’t mind taking long naps in the afternoon or holing up with a good book in the rec room.
Opalized wood in the petrified forest. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf.
On day three we were finally able to visit the petrified forest. Patagonia was heavily forested until the Andes emerged sixty million years ago. Opalized remnents of that forest are what we saw. We were supposed to walk toward the Pyramid, a tall free-standing rock structure on a point that offers a panoramic view of the lunar-like landscape, but again the wind interfered, so we cut our outing short.
Male sea lions surrounded by females. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
There are a few images in my lifetime that will be forever etched into my brain. As we approached one of the larger islands, we were suddenly engulfed by the loud raucous cries of seagulls and the roaring of the male sea lions. There on a rocky outcrop was this huge creature enthroned like an Ottoman sultan surrounded by five or six of his adoring female concubines with their pups.
Caught in the act. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
After the noisy welcome, the next assault on our senses was the smell. It was overwhelming and sexual. Then I realized that this same scene was being repeated dozens of time all over the island.
This was a sea lion bordello.
Post coitus. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
The actual mating seems to take place in the water because sea lions don’t maneuver well on land. There were both mating and birthing taking place at the same time with giant petrels fighting over the afterbirth.
Meanwhile, the little Magellan penguins were doing their Charlie Chaplin walks seemingly undisturbed by the sturm und drang around them.
The highlights of our last two days at Bahia consisted of a tour of the sheep ranch and a low-tide walk to an island where the penguins nest and raise their young. We had somewhat of a personal encounter with a nesting penguin on the island.
Penguin encounter. Photo by Jan and Richard Metcalf
We were quietly walking in small groups of six looking at penguin chicks in their nests under the low-growing shrubs when a single bird started gingerly to approach us. She/he stopped, then looked, advanced a few more steps, stopped no more than five feet away, then turned its back to us and put its head down. It dawned on us that it had a nest with hungry chicks close by and we were blocking its way. We stepped aside and the little bird turned around to face us and ducked into the underbrush. Delightful but don’t try to touch. I was told they can bite your finger off.
Depending on the time of the year it’s also possible to see elephant seals, southern right whales, orca and more. It’s a birdwatcher’s paradise. There are literally hundreds of species, many that don’t exist anywhere else.
Matias Soriano has embarked on a very interesting journey – combining ecotourism with commercial ranching while serving as a guardian of the precious environment he has inherited. In concert with other Patagonian sheep ranchers, he is experimenting with rotating where his sheep graze in order to give the native grasses time to recover. His goal is to return the grasslands back to where they were before the sheep arrived and still raise them economically. He approaches his tourism venture in the same way. He can protect the environment and the animals because he can limit the number of people who visit his world. We were privileged to be among them.
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