i usually have great trips and think of myself as a traveller who can usually smile at most things. but i recently took a trip to puerto madryn and i have to admit to not having a very pleasant vacation. first parts maybe my fault. its not really the season. there are a few whales but the seals penguins sea lions, walrus' etc are not there yet for months. while i suppose to some they may find the dusty, barren, almost plantless landscape beautiful or charming or something, i found it ugly and boring.
i dont think there is anything worth seeing between bsas and penin valdes worth driving thru to see. its empty barren land. and you are right that is an opinion.
when i arrived via aerolineas on a two hour plane ride they made it with delays five hours. then you land in trelew where you get a shuttle that for an hour and one half takes you down dusty bumpy non scenic roads to any house or guest house that anyone who flew in may be staying in on the way to puerto madryn this took time and patience.
then a good friend there set me up for the 12 hours bus tour of penin valdes that included whale watching. 25 minutes of it. the rest we drove up and down dirt roads that seemed to go nowhere some to some cliffs where in other seasons there may be penguins or seals but as of this week aug 22 there were none. so after first day of spending it in a bus with dust it was just heaven to get out of the vehicle. puerto pyrimidales is just a couple of buildings hardly worth a stop only because the whale boats push out from there. not a place to vist for any reason except that. puerto madryn has experienced a boom over the past ten years and has grown from 40k to 80 k people and it actually has built some higher quality structures than one sees in most argentine towns. there are many elegant restaurants, plenty of tourist shops with high end wool products. plenty of hostels hotels etc. i am a long way from an expert on this area and i know people who have enjoyed this area a lot. but i bet it was more like nov dec when all the marine populations are in. i also managed to eat some bad seafood and i think that the four days of stomach problems afterwards has made any good memories disappear.
to try to be more direct and helpful, i think i would think about checking the schedules of when the penguins, sea lions, elephant seals, etc are there so that you have something worth visiting. i only saw two places (old estancias)to stay on valdes one was a place called la elvira and some other one more fancy old estancias........la elvira i would skip as for lunch they served sphegetti plain with no sauce at all for 28 pesos. puerto madryn has things to look at, walk around, visit, do. also you might look at trelew. the welsh heritage town i have no knowledge of that. airfare now was on aero about 300 usa r/t am not sure driving would save you anything or give you any visible pleasure other than i often feel i can say i saw it and now i know what s there.
you know much of "patagonia" is really very barren land that can barely support 1 or 2 sheep per hectare? while other parts of patagonia like calafate etc are stunning but remember the majority is a vast almost desert like area.
i had thought about heading to salta tucuman and wish now that i had. whatever you decide, read up a bit more than i did. look at some pictures of where you are going and then decide what you want to do.
