penguinos!!

trying to figure out what to do near peninsula valdes was really hard. i wanted to go whale watching. but i also wanted to see penguins. the problem was that the prices for activities here were wayyyy more than the guidebook had predicted. to go see whales, although the boat tour costs 20 bucks, you also have to pay another 12$ to get into the reserve, and then another 40$ to take a tour to get you there. so, i wold basically have to spend 72$ altogether. my budget for argentina was set at 30$ a day. hrm. going to see the penguins would cost 40$ for the tour, 6$ for the reserve, and an optional 20$ if i wanted to go see this rare species of dolphin that lives only off this coast of argentina. doing both activities would just be too much money, so in the end i opted for the penguins of course, but decided to throw in the dolphin thing too.

got up the next morning and was ushered into a van w/3 other people who didnt speak any english. the poor guide had to say everything twice, once in spanish, and then in broken english. after an hour´s drive, we arrived near the shore where we had to wait for an hour till the boat was ready to take us out. the people had warned us that although the dophins are seen on 90% of the trips, sometimes none are seen, so i was a bit worried that i might end up being unlucky.

i didnt need to worry. as soon as the boat left the river and got out to the ocean, we started seing the commerson´s dolphins. tons of them. these things were so damn cool. first off, they are fast. super fast. trying to take a photo of them was nearly impossibe, ad tons of my photos ended up showing nothing but ocean. these guy love to play in the boats wake, so as we would speed along, they would folow the boat, gliding on the waves, and leaping out of the water. seriously, this was like being at a show at marine world. the dolphins would surface, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups of 2 or 3, and then either just pop out of the water and resubmerge, or they would literally leap out of the water. they would make this funny little puffing sound “pfft” as they surfaced and blew air out. all around us, these streaks of black and white and constant “pfft! pfft! pfft!”. i snapped away like crazy w/ my camera, and then took some video as well. i was SO glad that i had decided to take the dolphin option. i think this was way more exciting than it would have been to see whales… and then to my shock, we saw a whale too. the cool thing was that we were in this small little boat, so we were abe to approach the whale hella close. it was crazy being in the middle of the ocean, just a few yards away from this MASSIVE thing. the whale would suface, and then submerge, and then come back up and stick just one of its flippers out… and during this whole time, commerson´s dolphins are flying through the air all around us. surreal.

we then went back to shore, and it was off to see the penguins. i was hoping that i hadn´t made a mistake by coming too early in the season. eventually there would be a whopping 400,000 penguins here on the beach, all of them coming ashore to breed. but, this was still early. breading season had just started. the office of tourism had told me that there were ony 100 pengins there so far!! but others had said numbers like 1,000 or even 100,000. who was right?

once again i needn´t have worried. when we got to the reserve, there were plenty of penguins. thousands of them. so many! penguins *everywhere*! at this time of year, the penguins all need to some ashore to make babies. the males come first, and if this isn´t their first time breeding, they´ll come and find the same nest that they used in the previous years. they wander ahout, pick up twigs, bury in the dirt, and fix up the nests to get them ready. then the females arrive. the males make these crazy sounds that kind of sound like a braying donkey to alert the females, and the females come and find the same male that they mated w/ the previous year. it´s kind of crazy to see this faithful monogamy going on in the animal kingdom. then they mate, lay eggs, and take turns sitting on the eggs while the other goes to eat, and then they switch off.

so the shore was full of these penguins, all making their nests, laying around, and… something i never would have wanted to see… having sex. it´s weird because when i imagine penguins, i imagine them floating around on icebergs or all covered w/ snow. yet here were penguins, chilling on the beach and chilling under shrubs… not exactly the kind of environs you associate w/ penguins. the penguins were insanely adorable. i totally love the way they walk all funny. i even got a video of one jumping (they cant really climb over obstaces, so they do this funny little hop). the penguins, when not building their nests or mating, spend a lot of time cleaning themselves and keeping their plumage nice. i dont know if it´s because of that or what, but all of the penguins on the beach kept sneezing a lot. it´s pretty funny to see a penguin sneeze, and they´d often shake their little tails afterwards.

honestly, i think i could have been entertained for hours just walking around and watching the penguins. plus, it was really cool to learn so much about them. did you know that penguins dont have any natural predators? the only things these guys have to fear really is mankind. any kind of oil in the water can get on their plumage, and it messes up their insulation. they become too cold to stay in the water, so they have to go and huddle on land, where they eventually starve to death cause they cant go back in the water to catch fish. so sad!

on the way back, i flipped through this book about the birds of argentina. it turns out that there are all sorts of different types of penguins. the ones that i saw were magellanic penguins, but now i want to see all the other types too. unfortunately, i´d have to go to either antarctica or the falkand islands for that. *sigh* . one totally crazy penguin i found out about was the rockhopper penguin. these guys have this crazy yellow fruffy stuff on the side of their heads. check ot a photo!

after the tour, i got dropped off in Trelew. from there, i hopped on an 18 hour bus down to Rio Galegos, near the south of argentina. this time, i took the third class seating instead of second class. the seats were so much less nice!! oh well.. gotta save money.

sadly enough, after getting to Rio Galegos, i found out that there is one island off the coast of argentina where you can see these rockhopper penguins, but it was somewhere along the 18 hour strecth of road that i had passed. damn!! well, maybe on my way back up north, i can make a detour to see them…

oh, and since everyone asked… here´s the picture of the super penguin, as far as i can remember how to draw it. dont laugh… i was a little kid when i learned to draw this!

*v