Punta Arenas and the lovable Penguins

After our few days in Chiloe it was time to head south to Punta Arenas.  Elise snapped some pictures from the plane of the scenery we'll be visiting over the next few weeks.




We had one full day in Punta Arenas.  It just happened to be one of the most perfect cloudless, windless days (unusual in this part of the world), so we decided on a boat trip to Magdalena Island to visit the local penguin colony.  It's the number one tourist attraction in Punta Arenas.

Magdalena Island

The sea was absolutely like glass.  On the way over we saw many birds, seals and caught a glimpse of quite a few whales - mainly just spouting from a distance so they were hard to recognise but we did see two Orcas and at least one Sei whale (according to the guide) as well as some dolphins.

The island was home to numerous penguins as well as other birds (gulls, skua etc).  The birds seemed rather fearless of humans and we were able (and allowed) to get within a body length or so to take pictures.  In one case we even had to make way for a penguin crossing the marked trail who didn't seem particularly bothered by all the humans.

Lord of all he surveys

 An excellent day was topped off by a nice dinner at a Chilean restaurant in town (salmon, lamb, corn pie, traditional soup, more beer and pisco sour).