Penguin Fever (Chile)

From Puerto Natales, Argentina, we took a late morning bus to Punta Arenas, Chile.  The border was simple, and it was again nice to not have to think about the car importation.  The ride was easy, and we napped a bit, before arriving in the small, southern town along the Strait of Magellan.  We walked around a bit, shopping for hostels, before settling on Hostel Magallan.  The only real tourist attractions that we knew of in Punta Arenas were the airport and the island of penguins.  To our disappointment, the season for sailing to the island, within the strait, had not yet arrived, and so the main attraction was out of our reach; there was another option to see penguins, but it cost a bit over $100, and sounded like you spent the majority of the day in the car driving.  Bummed, and unsure of what we would do for the next day, we set out for a quick walk around town.  On our way, we stopped into a few travel agencies, and discovered a much cheaper option for what we wanted!    We booked for the next afternoon, and were able to relax the rest of the day.  We ate dinner at the grocery store's pre prepared food bar, and headed back to the hostel for the night.

The next morning, we woke up and ate the best hostel breakfast we have had.  There was pound cake with strawberry sauce, artistically drizzled over, and powdered sugar, artisanal bread with jam and butter, 2 kinds of yogurt and oatmeal.  We spent probably 2 hours getting our money's worth.  Our tour wasn't until the afternoon, so I set out to see the city cemetery, which I had heard was quite interesting.  It was a bit like the cemetery in Buenos Aires, but on a much smaller scale.  One of the most interesting parts was to see all the graves of people from European descent: pioneers, engineers, sailors, and explorers, all with large grave plots.  After a bit of a stroll, I headed back to the hostel to wait for our pickup.  

At about 3pm, our van arrived full of other tourists eager to catch a glimpse of some penguins.  We drove out of town for about an hour until arriving along a beach.  After a short walk toward the water, we looked out through a small wooded barrier and saw...penguins!!! Holy moly are they cute!!  Especially when they walk!  Eek I just wanted to scoop one up and keep it!  There were probably about 30 of them congregated on the beach, paying us no mind.  After about 30 minutes, the penguin group split up, and half started walking inland.  We got to see them waddle  in a single file through the fields to some unknown location.  After about an hour of oohing and ahhing, we walked back to the van and headed to the hostel, our penguin curiosity satisfied.  That night, we had dinner with a surprisingly good box of wine, and watched tv until bed.