We decided that the antarctic was going to have to wait for James 50th birthday, so 2nd best, we went to Punta Arenas to see penguins! We’d seen penguins in New Zealand but this was our chance to walk amongst a colony of 150,000 penguins!! Maybe they wouldn’t be amongst amazing ice scenery but we were sure a little island 3hours off the coast would do!
We got our bus from Punta Arenas, as usual it went pretty quickly and we had our little salami packed lunch on board! We got off the bus and took a good hour finding our hostel, when we finally did we’d been so close, and yet so far! On the way I’d been randomly assaulted by a dog who thankfully didn’t manage to bite through my skin, only my trousers! And passed an amazing cemetery, which we’ve now found to be very common, instead of burying the dead, they create almost a block of flats in the proportions of a coffin if that makes sense, and so there are blocks, 5 high, 30 wide of these glass windowed spaces above ground with the coffin visibly inside…. Rubbish description I’m sure! But really unique to any sort of cemetery we’d ever seen before!
We stayed at a great hostel, from the outside it looked like a pretty derelict building, a miss match of concrete, wood, pebble dash, everything, with a lot unfinished. Inside though we were greeted at the door by 2 great kids around 8, grandchildren of the woman who ran it. It was just like staying in someones house, a tiny little kitchen which everyone could use, and narrow passage ways to squeeze through, a living area which got really full, so it had a great feel about it! Inside it maintained the half finished feel, half of the building was one large extension, and had flooring fitted throughout, but all the walls were unfinished, plasterboard in the bathroom, breezeblock and bricks in the bedroom, it was really bizarre but a great place and defiantly made our stay. We had a seriously cheap dinner and watched a spooks in bed! We met an interesting woman who’d been volunteering as a marine biologist nearby, and was on her way to the Antarctic!
We were going to see the Pingüinos early the next morning, when the light was best for photos but it was raining so we stayed in bed for the afternoon trip! I had AGAIN over about 50 bites, again just on neck back and face….. so not feeling the best! We headed to the port (it was still raining!) and got on the ship/boat to the island! It was freezing cold, I suppose it’s allowable seeing as we were so far south! and really rainy! As the boat approached the island you could see black speckles all over it, and as it got closer you could see it was COVERED in penguins!!! It was absolutely amazing!!
The boat pulled in, and we were off it in seconds! We walked ashore and within seconds we were walking amongst penguins!! They were running across our path, they’d just come in from the sea and were swimming and splashing along onto shore!! It was amazing! They then got a little bit scared and ran towards larger groups off the path but we waited until we were right at the end of everyone off the boat, by the time everyone had gone in front the penguins were feeling more brave and wandering all around again! It was absolutely amazing…… We got so close, and there were just soooooo many its impossible to describe the excitement! The whole time it was raining still and absolutely freezing, but hey, you’re around penguins, its supposed to be cold!! We had a really great time, they weren’t on ice in the middle of the Antarctic, but there were still what seemed like millions of penguins happily waddling around us and we were happy!!!
p.s dad – the main pic is off my little camera! not bad ey?!
The best of the MANY penguin pictures are here!!
