With a week left in my trip, I had one last adventure planned.
I knew Punta Arenas doesn’t offer much to tourists except for an airport and Isla Magdelena. I went there for both!
I boated out 2 hours to the island to see the besting spot for thousands of Magellan Penguins. Boy oh boy, are they ever funny!
First of all, the giant boat really only looked like half a boat, which made me nervous. But what was really freaky was that to dock it on the island they essentially beached it on some rocks, making a horrible crunching sounds. And to top it off THEY WERE PLAYING THE TITANIC SONG. ON REPEAT! What were they thinking.
But we arrived to this swell welcoming committee.
Some of the Penguins were swimming, others hunkering down in their nests away from the wind and others just waddling around.
One of them even came over to nibble on my camera and another guys pants. I have it on video but it wouldn’t transfer properly to my blog. Anyway – they were very entertaining.
I could get over the sheer number of them! They are everywhere.
Apparently they only come to the island between October and May when there is tons of daylight. They have their babies then head back out to the ocean heading for their winter home on the Falkland Islands.
When they come back in October the males arrive first and have 2 weeks to party with their bros and build/dig nests for their ladies.
Anyway, it was a pretty cool side trip, though the boat ride back took 3 podcasts (my new unit of time measurement).
After the penguin tour it really started feeling like the real beginning of the end of my trip…. No more day tours left, just some planes, buses and border crossings left between me and Home. I suspect I will still have an entry or two left to write to wrap things up. Until then, happy adventures everyone!
The Adventures of ALi! 