After dropping the car back in Santiago we had only one night to catch up with Carmen Gloria and Alastair. As the boys discussed England's success in the Rugby Cup, the girls discussed the englishmen from our shared latin point of view. I was at the time reading a book called Watching the English (which I deeply advise to anyone living in England, both natives and foreigners) so it was good fun to reminisce about all the things I'm starting to miss about London. Anyway I didn't have much to contribute to the rugby discussion as Portugal was already out of the cup by this stage...
The next morning something really weird happened: as we were on our way to the airport I felt really nervous about this trip. Now I usually don't have this kind of premonitions and so attributed it to tiredness. But man, I was so right! The next time I feel the same, we are postponing the trip! Things went badly from the begining, with our plane to Punta Arenas making a longer than predicted stop at Balmaceda. We were told we would have to stay there for five hours until the next plane flew down from Santiago, carrying a mysterious but apparently crucial extra part. In fairness to Lan Chile, we were bussed to a really nice restaurant for dinner in the meantime. Still we weren't exactly full of confidence when we reborded the plane, without knowing what had been wrong with it in the first place. Fortunately the new part worked as it should and we arrived in Punta Arenas late at night...
There actually isn't much to talk about Punta Arenas except for a couple of things.
Firstly, Punta Arenas is bathed by the Magellan Straight. What makes this notable is the fact that the guy who discovered it was actually called Magalhaes and was portuguese. This might seem very pedantic of me but please forgive me this moment of nationalistic pride - I really needed it after spending three months travelling in ex-spanish territories, discovered by spanish navigators, who gave them spanish names and forced half a continent to speak spanish. AHHHHHH!
The other noteworthy fact is the existence of several penguin colonies. The largest one is Isla Magdalena, a small protected island which houses thousands of marine birds during their breeding season. Unfortunatelly we were too early to visit this island, but some penguins had already arrived at Seno Otway so we could visit them instead. And these had the bonus of being Magellanic Penguins, hurrah! Now here is where the second thing went wrong: the tour company forgot to pick us up for the penguin tour. It would have been too bad except that we were running on a tight schedule and this small mistake cost us one day in a place where there was nothing else to see. Eventually we found another way to visit the little ones and it was well worth the waiting!
For one hour we watched them swim around and bask in the sunshine. They are just so cute! Forseeing the temptation that the penguins provoke on some tourists like me, the people running the place built wood fences and walks around the area.
These try to minimise the impact visitors have on the colony (including penguin-napping) but the reality is that every year fewer penguins come to nest in Seno Otway. Fortunately their population isn't decreasing, they are just choosing more private settings for their romantic encounters. Apparently penguins mate for life but are only together during the breeding season, spending most of the year apart. It was really hard for us to leave them but we finally moved away once Tom promised me one for Christmas!
Bye for now,
Vania
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