Home»South America Day 09

The day dawned dry but wiiindyyyy!!  Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan, is renowned for its winds – frequently well in excess of 100 kph - and today was no exception.  However we made it safely to the buses waiting on the dock to take us and many others to the penguin colony at Otway Sound – about an hour out of town.  Unfortunately, because of the extreme winds another trip to a colony on Magdalena Island, reached by ferry, was cancelled so those folks got to come along on our tour instead, nearly doubling our numbers.

The drive to Otway Sound was through farm country – livestock including cattle, sheep and llamas all living off the short scrubby grass which covers the almost desolate looking Pampa here in Patagonia.  The only sign of agriculture was a field of baled hay.  Here trees grow barely 3 centimetres per year.

We passed a family of Reas (emu-like birds) and our guide pointed out an invisible condor soaring high above us.  It took well over five minutes to drive past a now defunct (since 1995) open-pit coal mine identifiable from afar by the long high mound of waste left behind and then we were beside the waters of the sound, wild with cresting whitecaps driven by a fierce wind which whipped at us as soon as we descended from the bus.  But the sun was now shining and the prevailing temperature was quite pleasant – if you ignore the wind-chill.
Well wrapped up we headed out along a narrow boardwalk for the 30-minute walk to the colony and a viewing point on the shore.  As we came closer to the shore we found ourselves among the burrows which these Magellanic Penguins make for themselves in the sandy soil.  Some were lining their nests with bits of vegetation held in their beak as they headed underground, others raised their heads to the sky and called for their mate, while still others marched to the shoreline in search of food.  I’ll let the photos describe them further.

Back to ship for a late lunch after waiting on the pier for some time as they allowed only one bus at a time to unload its passengers – the wind still tore at us, and crew members lined the gangway to hold on to passengers as they made their way on board.

Afternoon saw us taking a taxi into the town of almost all low-rise, one-storey, buildings – because of the persistent winds.  Historically, it’s relatively new, founded as a penal colony with Chile later attracting Europeans (notably Croatians) with land grants.  Today there are some very wealthy families owning huge tracts of land.  Founded in the 19th century the town itself seemed unremarkable, with no distinctive architecture or notable features – apart from a statue of Ferdinand Magellan in the main square – and the best word I could find to describe it was “weather-beaten”.

Tomorrow we sail the Beagle Channel, along so-called “Glacier Alley” which hopefully will compensate for missing the Amalia Glacier, and into Ushuaia, Argentina.

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