Punta Arenas

Us in the Reserva Forestal Magallanes, with Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan in the background

The Isla Magdalena penguin colony

 

An attention-loving Megallanic Penguin at Isla Magdalena

After leaving El Calafate, we took the bus to Punta Arenas (via Puerto Natales).  The full trip should have been 7 hours, but took around 11 because delays at the Argentina-Chile border caused us to miss the early bus to Punta Arenas.  Regardless, we arrived at Punta Arenas in the late afternoon, with plenty of time to grab dinner and walk around a bit.  We ate that night at a restaurant called La Marmita, which was charming and seemed to be filled mostly with locals (we saw the proprietor of our hostel having dinner there with his extended family).  It was almost certainly the best meal we’ve had since our wedding, and was enhanced by the guitar duo playing interesting folk-like music through dinner.  We bought their CD.

The next day, we had only one thing on the calendar – an evening ferry ride to the Isla Magdalena penguin colony, home to 60-70 thousand magellanic penguins.  The ferry departed that day at 5pm (the penguins can only be viewed in the morning or evening since they’re out fishing all day), so we had no plans until then.  A nice guy at our hostel asked us at breakfast if we’d like to join him on a day hike in Reserva Forestal Magallanes, so of course we said yes.  The hike was good, about 5 or 6 miles with high winds – a great preparation for Torres del Paine.

That evening, we boarded the ferry and were on our way.  The ferry itself was weird.  The company that runs it is government-owned, and the ferry seemed to spend most of its day shuttling cars back and forth to Tierra del Fuego.  So it was kind of weird to ride an empty car ferry, but the ride was quite pleasant, with decent sized seats and a little snack bar inside.  I was worried the strait would be extremely choppy, but the ferry is so heavy it smoothed the ride out considerably.

When we arrived at Isla Magdalena, we were immediately greeted with views of megallanic penguins as far as the eye could see.  They were waddling around, making loud honking noises, and popping in and out of their holes.  Too cute!  We got off the ferry and were told we had exactly one hour to walk around.  It turned out to be the perfect amount of time.  There was a small fenced-in path, maybe a kilometer long, leading up from the boat landing to a lighthouse.  The penguins seemed to be mostly afraid of people, but a few were sociable and would sometimes scurry across the path.  Mostly it was hilarious to watch them move around and nuzzle each other, especially when a baby or young penguin was involved (you could tell the babies apart because of their fur).  We took probably a billion cute penguin pictures in that hour – very fun!