Continued with my Day 3 adventure. One
of the planned highlights of this trip is to see the penguin colony.
I was so happy that the tour still run, though I later found out that
it was one of the last ones for this season, last 2nd day to be
exact, because the majority of the penguins had already migrated.
Anyhow, we were told that we would still see at least 2 types of the
3 penguins that colonized that island. The road trip to get to the
tiny tuxedo men was long, a hour and half on the bus, then we jumped
on a small fast boat to the penguin island. The boat ride was about
15 mins or so. It was a private island and only the tour company we
went with run this tour apparently. Samantha, the chinese girl I met
in the morning was also on this tour, so on the way to the penguins,
we talked about travels, various places we visited, exchanging notes
about traveling in Argentina and South America in general. That sure
made the time go faster.
It was a big tour group, and the group
was split into two small groups to go onto the island. I was among
the first group to go. The fast boat landed the isolated island,
something like you would have seen in a Pirates of the Caribbean...
ok, not exactly since there is no penguins in the Caribbean I don’t
think. Anyhow, it sure felt like an adventure like that. We had to
walk very carefully, in a straight line, since there were a lot of
holes on the ground, for which the penguins had dig to lay eggs.
Before long, we already saw some penguins ahead of us, we walked
towards them, they didn’t seem to mind. They just stood there, head
looked up, occasionally yawned, or argued with each other, or sung a
song. I believe that the type of penguins we saw was called
Pygoscellis papua, and there were also two King penguins among them,
the ones with the hint of orange yellow around their necks. Very
beautiful. They stood guard-like still, didn’t speak much, very
majestic.
Overall, I was disappointed to say the
number of penguins were much less than I had envisioned, there maybe
40-50 of them left behind. The guide told us that they counted 6000
pairs of penguins (counted by the holes) on the island during the
summer month (maybe just a month ago), that would have been
magnificent. Instead of writing a blog about it, I might make a
documentary out of this trip. But oh well, I got here, I saw the
penguins up close and personal, that is all matters. They were so
freaking cute. You could not stop yourself from taking one more
picture, very animated, very happy feet, sometimes like a penguin
Juliet running to her romeo. To be able to see that, it was
priceless. 
There also were some unique birds on the island, they were
ok, more like turkey, all I could think of was Thankgiving. The
penguins were not as stinky as I thought, maybe they did take a
shower once in a while, but I am sure I stepped on more dung-a-dung
than ever in my life. Based on the colors of the dung, there were lots of vegans on this island, not a
pretty scene. Before I will depart from Ushuaia, I will need to give
my shoes a bath, or they wouldn’t let me get on the plane.
After the penguins, we went to a really
so-so museum nearby. It is one of those museums you could not really
spend more than 5-10 minutes at, one room with a bunch of giant fish
bones. It is ok. We waited for the second group to finish, followed
by a long road trip back to town. I mean I would still recommend the
penguin tour, but one should do it during the summer months here.
For dinner, I did try that king crab
risotto in the restaurant that were closed the night before. It was
really good. When I got back to the B&B, it was already after
10pm. Wrote a few things down, then I crashed into the bed. That was
a good day, it really was!
More sights and sounds of the day:
More sights and sounds of the day:
