The bad news arrived a week or so before in Buenos Aires;
our much anticipated visit to see the penguin colony on Isla Magdalena had been
cancelled as the penguins had apparently left the island for winter. We knew that by arriving in mid April we were on the cusp of
penguin season in Chilean Patagonia.
Having already committed to flying out of Punta Arenas we had no room to manoeuvre; we were resigned to making the lengthy bus journey from El Calafate in Argentina down to the southern tip of Chile via an overnight stay in Puerto Natales, with nothing much planned for our two and a half days there.
Having already committed to flying out of Punta Arenas we had no room to manoeuvre; we were resigned to making the lengthy bus journey from El Calafate in Argentina down to the southern tip of Chile via an overnight stay in Puerto Natales, with nothing much planned for our two and a half days there.
Fortunately on our arrival in Punta Arenas – a town of at
the southern extreme of mainland South America - we received better
penguin-related news. We had been advised to drop in at Hospedaje Magallanes – a homely hostel/hub of tour organisation incongruously tucked away behind a tattoo
parlour on a rather plain stretch of Calle Magallanes. After a series of phone
calls we managed to secure two places on a day trip to see some king penguins
on Tierra del Fuego - the island at the very tip of South America, grudgingly divided between Chile and Argentina.
Setting off under the cover of darkness at 6.30 am the next
day we were picked up by our ebullient guide Diego whose demeanour and volume
belied the early hour. After an hour and a half’s ferry ride over the Strait of
Magallen with an occasional glimpse of a dolphin cavorting in and out of the
water from the windswept deck, we arrived on Tierra del Fuego in Porvenir – a
small town founded by Croatian settlers in 1883.
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| A dolphin in the Strait of Magellan |
We spent an hour at the town’s museum – a strange mix of
open air automobile artefacts and an array of glass cabinets. These contained,
amongst other things, a miniature depiction of a traditional Selknam ceremony,
photos of the first settlers on Tierra del Fuego, a mummy and a collection of
stuffed animals.
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| Depiction of a traditional Selknam ceremony |
After lunch, we began the slow drive south into the
wilderness, passing the unusually named Bahía Inútil (Useless Bay) so called
because of it’s uselessness as a port. The journey didn’t exactly fly by as the
emptiness of the landscape began to lose its novelty somewhat, as did the
poorly maintained roads.
After at least two hours of trundling along a dirt track we arrived at the Parque Pinguino Rey.
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| Abandoned farm near Useless Bay |
After at least two hours of trundling along a dirt track we arrived at the Parque Pinguino Rey.
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| The long awaited King Penguin Park, Tierra del Fuego |
At the park’s entrance was a large tent sheltered from the wind; home to two touchingly dedicated conservationists that were monitoring the penguins. Just 20 metres behind them on a grassy islet was what everyone had come to see; around thirty King Penguins.
Amongst the throng was one chick, incongruous with its thick brown fur amongst the sleek black and white bodies of the adults. Whilst most of the group were subdued, there were a handful of more boisterous penguins amongst them.
We spent a good half an hour watching them in near silence,
enjoying their distinctive trumpeting and marvelling at their neck gymnastics. The
elasticity of their necks was amazing; their heads proudly stretching out at
the peak of their hooting before disappearing completely from view.
After half an hour our time was up and we began the lengthy
journey toward Primavera for a shorter crossing back to the Chilean mainland.
Whilst they weren’t the miniature Magallanic penguins we were originally
planning to see, it was still an unforgettable experience seeing these majestic
creatures in their natural habitat.
