region xii - dia 6

this morning we woke up bright and early in order to explore the city before our pinguino tour this afternoon. i was given a map of Punta Arenas for the tourist agency with 22 marked places to visit. and i wanted to visit ALL of them. So we started at the cementerio, and then to the Shepherd's monument, then up to Cerro la Cruz - where i bought my Pinguino sweater!!!!! it will now be in all of my pictures....get ready. it is made out of wool and is soooo warm and the best part is the fact that it has Pinguinos Magallenicos which is the type of pinguinos that we saw down there!

anyways, one more museo and then Colleens and I stopped by the tour place to pay for the rest of our tours:

Wed. Pinguinera Salvaje (where we trek 2 hours to find the pinguinos) $15.000 pesos

Fri. Pinguinera Isla Magdalena (protected isla with 50.000 pairs of breeding pinguinos) $35.000

Sat. Tour to Fuerte Bulnes, Puerto Hambre y Bahía Mansa (historic stuff and also the furthest most point south on the continente that you can drive) $10.000

Important story: there were 3 little crocheted pinguinos in the window of the agency that were SO cute. they each sported a little chilean gorro. so, i picked one up when we walked in to check and see if there was a price on it. No price. but a man got in my way and i couldn't put in back before i started talking to the tour man. we settled up and finalized everything. at the end of our convo i asked in spanish "Quiero llevar tu pinguino." this was a very untactful way of asking because i used the most impolite form of querer, and called him tú instead of usted. a very blunt way of asking. but, Juan Conejeras (the tour man) must have liked me/been amused by my stupidity and told me "¡Llevatelo! y toma otro por tu amiga." so i took 2. one for me and one for Colleens.

so now, you will see my pinguino, Juan en Serio, in all of my pictures.

we went back to the hostal and had lunch and then Juan called me to say that our tour was cancelled due to the harsh weather where we would be hunting pinguinos. triste! but then Kelly called him back and told him that we WANTED to see pinguinos so we signed up for a different tour - Seno Otway. and she asked for a discount since they cancelled our tour with very short notice. during her phone conservation, which we were all gathered around listening to, she said very forcefully "No. Juan, en serio, ¡necesitamos un descuento!" we all cracked up laughing. she was so intense and serious about getting a deal. and for this reason, my pinguinos name is Juan en Serio.

we then got picked up at 4pm to go see pinguinos en Seno Otway. A little boring because there weren't many pinguinos, but we interesting facts:

• there are 17 types of pinguinos. we saw magallenic pinguinos.
• humans inadvertently kill pinguinos because we eat there food. Juan and I shared pinguino food at dinner - the fish Pejerreyes.
• the macho pinguinos come back to land in September to repair the nest, or nidos
• the hembras come back in October
• pinguinos don't touch land for 6 months of the year
• pinguinos make really weird honking noises. like a goose.
• baby pinguinos have different feathers that are really fluffy and can't swim til they grow growup waterproof feathers.

Juan enjoyed seeing his family members. and I enjoyed learning how to catch a pinguino. our guide explained to me that you grab a pinguino by the neck and the flipper in order to catch it because their beaks are really hard and powerful.

word of the day:

• aleta: flipper or fin
• aletear: Mover las aves repetidamente las alas sin echar a volar. to use the flippers.

region xii-dia 6 city-pinguino (160 photos), by Sarah Moredock

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