Shorthand Patagonia - Day 13

January 28th

8:00am – alarm.

8:15am - hostel’s included breakfast turns out to be exceptionally disappointing. Stealing bread becomes less fun when it’s stale and already eaten last night.

8:50am – off to find bus to Punta Arenas.

9:01am – outside Buses Fernández; 9:30am bus to Punta Arenas appears to be a 9:00am bus to Punta Arenas, currently making a left out of the company station. Well dang.

9:15am – with 10:00am bus tickets secured (actually cheaper than Buses Fernández), we wander down to the lake, pass barking dogs on wall along the way. Take pictures of lake, take pictures of dogs barking on wall.

9:40am – outside bus station, strange man with beer bottles (what time is it?) makes strange gestures to Gras, turns out to be bus attendant.

10:30am – on bus, trying to sleep. Strange bus attendant gives us mints. Strange bus attendant pats my head and makes strange gestures. Strange bus attendant pats Gras’ head and makes strange gestures. Gras gives strange man strange look (she doesn’t like people touching her head, strange or otherwise).

10:50am – I finally figure out strange bus attendant is mute. He continues making strange gestures. We nod a lot.

12:20pm – bus stops at airport. Strange bus attendant apparently things we’re getting off. Oops; apparently the smile and nod approach is not always a good one.

12:45pm – arrive in Punta Arenas! Strange bus attendant is sad to see us go.

12:48pm – crap; I’m halfway down the block, but I don’t have my jacket. Run back to bus.

12:50pm – find strange bus attendant, he finds jacket, he makes me kiss his cheek. It’s worth it; that’s an expensive—and necessary—jacket.

Crisis #4 averted. There’s no way we’re only on #4....

12:52pm – commence with the hostel search.

1:45pm – 7 hostels and some seriously bad map-reading (by yours truly) later, hostel acquired. We make up for the cheap hostel price of 3,000 pesos by opting for the 32,000 peso penguin tour on Isla Magdalena—it’s supposed to be worth it, right? Meet large group of Israelis staying at hostel; they’re nice. Find out large group of Israelis were, until recently, all working in Denver. They ask me if I prefer shopping at Flat Irons or Park Meadows. Hmm, interesting. Food? Yes, please; I haven’t spent nearly enough money.

2:00pm – chosen restaurant apparently out of food. Seriously?

2:12pm – the small selection of food remaining turns out to be quite tastey.

3:00pm – wander!

5:00pm – penguin van picks us up at hostel. We’re once again the youngest ones in the crowd—this time by a good 10 years at least. We drive to the launch site; Gras and I giggle and point at things obnoxiously.

5:30pm – board boat, receive life jackets. Our captain looks like that ship captain with the yellow raincoat on the frozen fish sticks boxes—what the hell’s his name?

5:38pm – I realize I’m in the middle of the Strait of Magellan. Sweet.

6:30pm – boat slows down near Isla Marta where there’s a huge sea lion colony. Ok seriously, there are like a billion ridiculously large sea lions being very loud. We watch them being large and loud, fighting with each other, being fat, rolling a bit, some even swimming. There are also about three billion cormorants flying around among the ginormous seagulls. This is quite entertaining. We take pictures. The other people on our boat take more pictures with their very spiffy cameras (our sole remaining camera is almost out of memory and battery life...must conserve until we reach penguins).

6:34pm – sea lions smell.

6:45pm – goodbye sea lions!

7:05pm – arrive at Isla Magdalena, prepare to disembark (that’s only funny to a select few...). Our seafaring Captain Fish Sticks informs us there will be coffee served on shore in exactly one hour; he threatens to withhold coffee if we’re late. What country are we in?

7:08pm – oh my god, I’m on an island covered with a ba-jillion little penguins!

7:09pm – Gras and I meet our first penguin; I name him Joseph. Gras takes picture. Turns out there’s a string-marked path that leads to a lighthouse, and we can just walk right up to all the little penguins we want—we can even chase them and poke them and try to hug them!

7:09:30pm – excitement overload.

7:10pm – okay, I’m calm; let’s go meet more penguins! Gras and I take pictures of us meeting more penguins. There’s a fair amount of squealing.

7:22pm – Fredrick the penguin falls down after he loses his balance during some high-speed waddling.

7:36pm – we see two penguins humping each other. We find this bizarre, take pictures anyway.

7:41pm – meet lighthouse keeper—he’s short and very round, an odd combination for one who works in a lighthouse. We climb up to top of lighthouse, take our last picture with us and the island in the background. So many penguins! Pretty freakin’ sweet.

7:48pm – wander back down toward coffee.

8:08pm – arrive at launch; coffee has been put away. Captain Fish Sticks tells us we can come on the boat and have coffee if we don’t tell anyone else. I love being a girl in Latin America.

8:10pm – Cristián the boat hand opens up his cooler and takes out a thermos of coffee. He asks us if we want it with or without pisco. I think he’s joking, say with.

8:11pm – Cristián wasn’t joking. I now have a tiny little styrofoam cup filled half with pisco, half with nescafé.

8:13pm – Cristián breaks out the cookies. Why yes, we’ll gladly eat your cookies.

8:25pm – 4 cookies later (each), Captain Fish Sticks getting antsy, yells at slow people to get on boat. We have to hide coffee evidence, I valiantly drink the rest of Gras’ Nescafé-laced pisco for her.

8:26pm – someone asks for a cup of coffee. Cristián says no, it’s too late.

8:40pm – we see dolphins! So many dolphins! I heart the Strait of Magellan.

9:00pm – back on shore; goodbye Captain Fish Sticks, goodbye Cristián.

9:30pm – arrive at hotel, gush to Israelis about 32,000 peso penguin tour, have dinner, steal bread.

10:15pm – Israelis invite us to share their vodka in a bowl with lemon slices with them. How could we refuse? Turns out with enough sugar and lemons, you can make just about anything taste like candy. We love Israelis.

12:00am – off with the Israelis to find some Sunday-night entertainment. We go into Kamikaze, a popular club; there are lots of old people. We order fruity drinks anyway, talk about presence of old people.

1:15am – tired of Kamikaze, we all go back to hostel. Israelis make snacks; we eat their snacks, converse.

2:00am – snacks, penguins, lemon candy make us sleepy—to bed!