Punta Arenas

“Penguins mate for life. That doesn't surprise me much because they all look alike. It's not like they're going to meet a really new, great looking penguin someday.”
~Source unknown

Thursday, January 29nd to Monday, February 2nd 2009

I came to Punta Arenas, the biggest city in Patagonia, for two reasons: to find good equipment and to visit the Penguin colony on Magdalena island. I returned from the Torres del Paine trek just a day before and continued south on my own since Ron was traveling in the other direction after already visiting Punta Arenas. I did however got an hostel address from Ron and started walking for it as soon as the bus stopped. Near the hostel entrance I met Oren, Dani and Roni (despite their names only one of them was a man - can you guess who?). We arrived on the same bus, but their taxi and my walking pace united us again. Turned out that they had a reservation and I didn't. Since the only available bed was in their room, they kindly offered, and I accepted to share the room with them. After dinner at a local restaurant we decided to go see the Penguins tomorrow. The hostel owner, one of the most friendliest and helpful I met in my travels, helped us book the tickets and told us how to pick a local colectivo taxi to the local port. We boarded our ship - a large vessel that once served as a ferry in those waters for a two hours sail to Isla Magdalena deep inside the Magellan's straights. As we got closer to the island we saw the lighthouse on the highest point and something that looked like weird vegetation across the sandy surface. Turns out the the "vegetation" was nothing else but the 150,000 Penguins that populate the Island...

As we disembarked from the ship to steady land we found ourselves surrounded by thousands of Penguins who didn't seem to care much about our presence. They walked around, dug holes, fought, played and ate totally ignoring the large group of humans who suddenly invaded their sanctuary. We were told before going to shore that it is strictly forbidden to touch the Penguins but apparently the Penguins were not told the same as was demonstrated by a couple of them who came to check out my shoes (the common theory on the shore was that after 7 days of trekking the shoes smelled like fish - attracting the hungry birds...). We walked for about 2 hours surrounded by the funny birds and got a unique look into their behaviour outside captivity. As I boarded the ship I realized that this was as south as I'm going to get looked at Tierra del Fuego on the other side of the straights, promising myself to return if I'll find the time. Another 2 hours sail returned us to the city and after a good dinner in a good restaurant we retired to sleep. The second half of my mission was not as successful tough. The next day after getting more information from the hostel owner I took another colectivo to the local tax free zone to look for some good mountaineering equipment but found very few items from my long list. In the next two days I scanned the tax free zone and the local mall finding some of the items I needed but not enough. For that reason I changed my flight and instead of flying directly to Mendosa, I flew to Santiago, slept in the familiar Hostel de Sammy and found all that I needed in the town good equipment shops. It was time to move on to the last and biggest challenge of my travels so far...