Nov 25th: Sunday
We woke up about an hour before we were supposed to be at check-in for the penguin tour. I grabbed a quick shower and some cake and then headed down to the bay to start the trip.
As it was explained to us before we left, we would be taking an hour or so bus ride through the mountains to get to private farm where we would then take a 15 minute boat ride to the island. Once we landed on the island, we would be staying for about an hour and then have to make the trip back to Ushuaia. The whole thing was to take about 5 hours. Penguins! I’m going to hang out with wild penguins! So excited right now.
The hour bus ride wound up being a little tour on it’s own. There were 12 or so of us all together and the guide talked about various points of interest along the way. I learned a lot about Ushuaia and beavers killing trees with their dams. Apparently some dolts brought down a bunch of beavers for some reason and the spread to crazy numbers because they don’t have any natural predators around. This led to lots of dams in the rivers and drowning of trees all around. The trip seemed like a tour of a forest graveyard.
One of the stops along the way that we made was at the one point where the wind was so strong almost constantly, that all the trees in the area were best way over. Looked pretty trippy considering that where we were there, there wasn’t any wind.
A little while longer in the bus and we arrived at the farm where we were to switch to a boat. We all boarded and were off to penguin island (Not the real name, just what I call it). It’s one of the little islands at the very bottom of continent. When the boat came to shore, we all jumped off and stood very silently for the first few moments. We were surrounded by penguins!
There were these three, that were already pretty close to us, that waddled up to check us out. None of birds on the island were afraid of us. Not used to that too much.
After a little discussion from the guide about the surroundings, she lead us around the island pointing things out and making sure everyone stayed a safe distance from the penguins. The were nesting all over the place and sometimes didn’t care if it was in the middle of the tour path. Before leaving the beach area, we were all allowed to take a photo with with penguins. We didn’t hesitate.
We then walked around the beach and up into the nesting area where we saw two different types of penguins nesting. One would build little pebble mounds, and the others would dig holes about three feet into the ground.
We walked around for a while in the nesting area and I got a couple neat photos of the penguins in the brush, but my crappy canon lens is broken or something, so most of my shots came out too blurry for my taste. I think it’s time to get a new all purpose lens =(
When we left the nesting area and were returning to the beach to get back on the boat, one of the other tour boats showed up. This was the tour that didn’t get to go on the island and was about $20 cheaper. I felt bad for them. They were probably pretty jealous of us. There were probably 30 or 40 people on the boat trying to cram up to the front to take photos and see the penguins. Sucks to be them.
We hung out with the penguins a little while longer while our boat came to shore, then we boarded and began our trip back to the farm where we were going to have cake and tea (yay cake!).
I think the penguins enjoyed our company, and were sad to see us go. One of them even hung out to say goodbye to us =)
We ate some cake, Nicole had some tea, then we all got into the bus for the trip back to Ushuaia. I think most of us slept a good portion of the trip. We walked around town a little while when we returned looking for a place to grab some dinner. We wound up eating at a place that was right next to our hotel. The food was overpriced and not too hot. Oh well, can’t have a great meal all the time. I don’t remember what I ate (the food made that good of an impression on me), but Nicole had the king crab something or another. The only reason I know this is because we took a picture of it. Once we paid our check and skidaddled, we went shopping. Well, Nicole went shopping, I tagged along. Around 10:30pm or so the crazy, “there’s still light in the sky” was going on. I told Nicole that I wanted to head back to the hotel so I could grab my camera and get a photo of it. She told me it wasn’t possible. I think I proved her wrong…
Getting ready for bed, we packed up all our things so that we would be ready to leave in the morning. We needed to grab a couple things from around town before we left and our flight was at noon, so we would be a little tight on time. Hopefully, everything will work out.
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