Among the most precious pearls of my adventure in Patagonia is certainly that of the sea lion colony in the province of Rio Negro. When I was on the plane that would take me from the capital to the new province, an elderly lady sitting next to me was telling me that for more or less a month the coasts of Argentina had been affected by a real virus that was killing several sea lions.
I was very worried and also feeling very unlucky about it. Indeed, the following day, during my first day at work, I was able to verify the truthfulness of the terrible fact. I had gone to photograph the largest parrot colony in the world and along the first stretch of beach (after just under a km) I had already found 4 or 5 dead sea lions, buried in the sand. A truly terrible fact.
Continuing the long dirt road that ran along the sea I found several coves that descended into the sea and in each of them I found at least one sea lion killed by avian influenza. But I also found beautiful specimens alive and well and in addition to occasional single individuals, I was lucky enough to find myself immersed in an entire colony with thousands of specimens playing, courting, fighting and making noises.
The majesty of male sea lions
I was fascinated by the males, by their majesty and their beautiful mane which really makes them look like lions, especially due to their pastel yellow colour. I was so busy that I forgot the tripod in the hood of the quad with which I went to photograph and document the colony, so much so that to get stable videos I had to look for a rock that would allow me to keep the telephoto lens nice and stable.
What made this adventure thrilling and exciting at the same time was how it was carried out: I met Pablo, a gentleman who lives in a city in the province of Rio Negro who took on the role of (unofficial) tour guide in impeccable manner and seemed to have more desire than me to look for the local fauna and this had a huge advantage due to the fact that, being a local, he knew the area and above all had the contacts.
That’s right, contacts, the most important thing when traveling independently. He was aware of the existence of this enormous colony of sea lions which was located 12 – 15 km from a fishing village and which could only be reached by sea, walking on the sand. Pablo had the brilliant idea of asking a friend of his in the village to lend us the quad with which we would travel those kilometers of sand (complete with a slalom between the rocks) to get to the colony.
The encounter with the sea lion colony
It was 11 in the morning and we had to wait a few more hours for the tide to go out. Here the tide cycle changes more or less every 6 hours and through an application we had seen that around 1pm it would start to drop but this does not mean that the coast becomes immediately accessible as the water takes a long time to drop in level. We began our adventure in search of lions, occasionally stopping where the rocks blocked our access and therefore we had to stop and wait for the tide to drop.
After exactly 13 km, here they are, I can see them on the left, under the cliff sheltered from the wind: there were more or less seventy of them. Initially they seemed a little scared by my presence and started walking (if I can call it that) towards the rest of the colony until they got used to my harmlessness. Pablo had stayed behind to observe everything with binoculars while I was there, immersed in my moment of making love with the present.
