Departing again from Erratic Rock II on a 7:00 bus meant another early start. Luckily, the TV alarm clock worked well again, and we were able to catch our bus after another nice breakfast (prepared and delivered the night before by Marcela, the owner of the hostel).
We were also lucky, that our laundry was, uh, done. Having brought nothing more to the south than what we were going to take on the trails in Torres del Paine, we were in desparate need of fresh laundry before heading back to Punta Arenas. As luck would have it, we found out that Isabel, a friend of Marcela's would do our laundry overnight for us. Although we'd planned on finding a laundromat and doing it ourselves, it was really hard to argue with the convenience of the deal, even if the price was a bit high. Maybe we should have argued a bit.
It became clear after agreeing to have her do the laundry that Isabel did not believe in using dryers. Not really a big deal, but our laundry was well short of dry when it was delivered at 6:30 the next morning. Even worse, as we donned our clothes, the stale reek of cigarette smoke became immediately apparent. Still, better damp and smokified than stinking like 3 days of hard hiking (at least I kept telling myself that).
After arriving in Punta Arenas around 11 (Bus Sur on the return trip also), we set out to find a place to stay for the night. We were lucky that Julie´s steel-trap memory led us to the ¨Downtown Hostel¨, about 8 blocks from downtown. We were even luckier that they had a vacancy in the overflow section, given that the town was packed with the binational youth games, essentially an olympics for the youth of Argentina and Chile. The overflow section was actually the son´s room in the owner´s house, now that he´d left for college. It was great, and we got some friendly advice from Sonia, and later from her husband, Jose Miguel on trying to make it to see the nearby penguin colonies.
I say trying to make it, because due to the liveliness of the town with all of the extra visitors around, the boat cruise to the Isla Magdalena was booked ´super full´. So we bought bus tickets for the 4:00 departure to the Seno Otway penguin colony (a significantly smaller, privately owned penguin reserve about an hour north of Punta Arenas), and went to get some lunch.
Our internet store is closing for the evening, so you´ll be left in suspense.
Lunch was relatively simple. A few empanadas from a fairly tourist-friendly place in Punta Arenas (Fabrica was its name). These were again the slightly more healthy and much more delicious baked variety of empanada (horneado), which seemed to be favored in the south over the fried variety (frito) more commonly found in the north.
After lunch we went to conduct the usual important business on the internet, and found a fairly nice looking place to do so. Apparently we were not the only ones who thought it was a nice looking place, as we ran into Morgan sipping a coffee in the back of the cafe. Apparently she had seen us boarding the bus to leave Torres del Paine the day before, also. It was quite a coincidence running into her again, though, and soon Becky and Terri came back from the errands that they had been running also. After a little more discussion (including about the stellar election results!), and they went to get some lunch also, but not before determining that we'd be seeing them again out at Seno Otway.
We'd seen mention of the Sent Otway tours in a couple of guidebooks, and they seemed a much more reasonably-priced adventure than the Isla Magdalena tours. The way to keep them more reasonable, though, was to simply buy a bus ticket. Our Bus Fernandez fare was 5,000 pesos, a bargain next to the Turisma Comapa tour that we nearly bought and would have cost 20,000 pesos, with the only added benefit being a small snack on the ride to the colony.
It was a great thing that we just bought the bus ticket. Although the 'bus' was actually one of those improbably narrow Mitsubishi passenger vans, our driver was incredibly friendly, and stopped many times along the road to point out various wildlife (ranging from rabbits, to more ñandús, to the unusual skunk-like chingue). Upon reaching the colony, we had about one and a half hours to stroll along the boardwalk and watch the penguins.
That's right, I said watch the penguins. Yes, we've all seen penguins in the zoo. But never did I imagine that I'd ever see real penguins, living in the wild. It was surreal, seeing these Magellan's Penguins waddling about their business. In surprisingly organized lines, they bobbed along from the water to their burrows. They were unbelievably cute, and amazing to observe up close and with the binoculars (thanks, mom and dad!) preening their feathers and building their nests within their burrows.
Amongst the penguin crowd on the beach, there was a lone Emporer Penguin (you know, the starring breed of March of the Penguins). Much larger, and sporting arguably more formal plumage, he stood on the beach preening and looking a bit morose. What was he doing there?
Magellan's Penguins, we'd been informed, return to the same place every year to mate with the same partner. Even more remarkable, a penguin will become sterile if its one partner should die. Newly armed with that information about Magellan's Penguins, we extrapolated a bit, and guessed that it was the remaining half of a mating pair of Emporers that called Seno Otway home.
The real story, though, is somewhat more exotic, though maybe no less lonely.
We were told that the lone Emporer, looking large and awkwardly out of place, like the first of the penguin classmates to hit puberty, was not actually from Seno Otway. Rather, it had been found out at sea, stranded, and picked up by a well-meaning fisherman. This fisherman, the story goes, then brought the penguin back to one of the places where he knew that penguins lived, Seno Otway.
Los Pingüinos (Joy's favorite Spanish word!):
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/555606793oxhKnG
We'd made plans with Morgan, Becky and Terri for dinner at Bar Sotitos, which had been recommended by our friend Mario on the flight to Punta Arenas. "Not really a bar!" he assured us, but "less refined" than many other options in Punta Arenas. Clearly, his definition of 'less refined' was a bit different than ours (i.e. that restaurant was completely out of our league), though, and we opted for a tasty, cheap Italian option, O Solo Mio (also South of the Plaza de Armas). The gnocchi with chunky king crab cream sauce was different and delicious, and the lasagna was bubbly and hearty. mmmm.
After some fun dessert with the girls, they were off to catch another red eye flight. And we were off to the hostel for some entertaining spanish conversation with our hosts before heading to bed. What a day. Penguins!
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