I left Buenos Aires at 3 a.m. this morning, arriving in Trelew well before sunrise. I slept through the entire hour and a half flight and missed the pilot’s weather announcement, so you can imagine my shock when I stepped off the plane and onto the tarmac into the biting, 30-degree Farenheit air. It literally took my breath away.

The drive to the hotel wasn’t very sightly, one very long meadow until Puerto Medryn. The sun started peaking out over the meadow around 7:30 a.m. with an effect that made the horizon look like it was on fire. I came to learn that in the winter, the sun rises at 9 a.m. and sets at 6 p.m.

After a much needed nap, we drove to Puerto Piramides, about a two hour car ride, and stopped at two beaches along the way to watch the whales come very close to the shore.

Today was the start of whale season. The whales that spend the year swimming the frigid waters of Antarctica come into the bay at Puerto Piramides to mate; a year later the whales come back to give birth and by the third years’ trip, they return with their young to release them into the wild.

After a delicious lunch of milanesa, we geared up with some very bulky and annoying life jackets and jumped onto a small boat, ready to venture out into the bay and get up-close and personal with the arriving whales. Mind you, even with my arctic gear of tights, thermal socks, ski pants, tank top, t-shirt, long sleeve shirt, thermal shirt, ski jacket and sneakers, it was still pretty chilly.

During our aquatic search for the whales, we met Cormorants (penguin look-alikes that fly and are able to dive up to 240 feet below the waters’ surface), sea lions and seals.

Just when we were beginning to think that a whale encounter wouldn’t happen, we spotted them! A mother Southern Right Whale and her baby. We all bonded and the whales put on a spectacular show of acrobatics as the baby rolled over several times to show us its belly.

It truly was an unforgettable experience.

For more from Agustina Prigoshin, read her blog at www.agustinaprigoshin.com

The world’s largest trout are caught in the streams of Southern Chile in the Andes of Patagonia.ArcticTropic has nearly sixty destinations in Chile.

In Punto Tombo Patagonia a penguin tries to pull at my shoelace. Punto Tombo, on the Peninsula Valdes, about 1000 miles south of Buenos Aires, is home to 400,000 penguins.The climate is not Antarctic here – in fact it is barren scrub desert along the cold Atlantic. In the winter (May to September) the penguins swim north to Brazil, staying at sea most of the time. Arctic Tropic lists several expeditions to this area – click on South America and go right away to the Argentine listings.

In Argentina Patagonia on the Peninsula Valdez, this Sea Elephant couple is about to take a siesta.ArcticTropic has many destinations in Argentine Patagonia – and this is the time of year to visit !

In Chilean Patagonia, around 51 degrees south, is one of the most pristine areas on Earth outside of nearby (1000 miles away ) Antarctica. Though the mountain is only 9800 feet high , it is one of the most difficult on Earth to climb – due to steep grade and treacherous weather conditions most of the year. ArcticTropic has dozens of adventure travel and accommodation providers in Patagonia – both in Chile and Argentina.

On a summer’s day in Patagonia I grabbed this shot of a 100 foot wall of ice calving from Glaciar Moreno, near Calfate in southern Argentine Patagonia. ArcticTropic has many destinations near there – click on the South America map to see more!