March to the Penguins

October 1st, 2007
Puerto Madryn, Patagonia

This is it. My march to see penguins. This wasn´t as monumental a quest as to meet the Dalai Lama, or to visit St. Peter´s Cathedral in Vatican City, or even to see Whitesnake open for Def Leppard at the Sacramento State Fair. This was quite different. These are funny-looking small flightless birds for crying out loud!

As I had read about them (penguins, not Whitesnake) they are truly a remarkable species. They are birds, yet in their evolution they lost the ability to fly, and so, they swim, they waddle, and they nest to survive. They do the best that they can with what little they have.

I wanted to see Penguins before March of the Penguins. But that movie just cemented my desire to see them.

Onward. Monday October 1st, I got on a plane from Buenos Aires to the town of Puerto Madryn, on the Atlantic Coast of Argentina, about a 2 hour plane ride.

Here is the town of Puerto Madryn (below). About 10,000 people. All friendly. This is a cool beach town.

My favorite part of the flight here was this ¨baggage claim¨ at the Puerto Madryn airport. It was a conveyor belt about 15 feet long. And everyone was crowded over it waiting for their bag.

I was picked up by a dude named Gaston, and his driver, a young kid named Fernando. I had arranged to see the penguins through Fernando´s dad and he hooked me up with Gaston´s hostel to stay at for like $30 a night.

We´ll get to the penguins, but I have to mention what a sea-life-rich this place is. I walked down to the beach from my hostel after I dropped my bags off, and as I was walking along the beach, I was hearing these loud noises every few seconds, like something crashing in the ocean. I look...and not 500 yards offshore, are NUMEROUS whales jumping out of the water. People around me (the locals) weren´t even fazed. Whales people. I think it´s called breaching. A way of communicating to other whales.

Dan´s very artistic shot of the beach. Ripples in the sand caused by wind. Send me your credit card number and I´ll send you three 8x10s or 15 wallet-size for three easy payments.

I ended up walking quite a bit, enough to see the EcoCenter (like a small version of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, without the aquarium) and a really nice sunset. Meanwhile, whales are jumping all around out there.

This was an exhibit at the EcoCenter. Penguins are near!

View from the EcoCenter.

Sunset in town.

So the next morning, this 15-passenger van picks me up at my hostel, along with Hete, a husky Belgian fella from Brussels, and Massimo, a very tiny Italian buddy of his. You can see Hete on this boat. He´s the guy with the huge head looking at me. Massimo is to his left. Shortly after this picture was taken, the captain made Hete move to the other side of the boat to even out the weight. Kidding. Sort of.

So the first stop on this Punta Tombo trip was to see dolphins and whales...in a town called Trelew...so we all jump onto this inflatable boat. I had to admit, I was not thinking of dolphins or whales at this point, I was set on penguins. But it was a really nice surprise.

As we set out on the boat, and on our right, yes, pink flamingoes. These aren´t the plastic flamingoes you put in your yard next to the garden gnomes, these things were moving...and flying. They are much bigger than I had guessed from the Miami Vice opening sequence, shortly before they show those pretty ladies in the bikinis walking on the beach.

Here was the closest we got to a whale. The captain estimated this one at 20 meters. 60 feet long. They actually were watching us, you could see their eyes...but they were pretty shy and would disappear after a few seconds.

We also saw dozens of these dolphins, called Commerson´s Dolphins. They look like mini orcas.

Very friendly and playful. Constantly racing along side our boat, and jumping around.

So finally around noon, we jump into our tour bus and head to Punta Tombo, about a 2 hour drive on a very bumpy dirt road...

Clara was our tour guide. A 65-year old woman from Trelew, she was the first tour guide in the Peninsula area...I asked her how she became a guide. She told me basically she was in a local bar about 35 years ago and heard a couple of German guys arguing across the bar. So she broke up the argument by speaking to them - in German (she speaks 5 different languages and smokes Marlboro Reds like a chimney). So they asked her if she would show them around the next day, and they would pay her. So she did, and at the end of the next day, they asked how much. She said ¨whatever you feel comfortable giving me.¨They gave her the equivalent of two months salary...for 5 hours of driving them around in her volkswagen bug. She loved it so much, she decided to quit her teaching job and focus on educating people on the animals of the peninsula...and making some serious cash.

Here she is talking about the penguins we were about to see. And thinking about having a cigarette.

Carlitos, the driver. Also, likes Marb Reds.

It was like an oasis getting to Punta Tombo.



To commemorate the event, I asked Clara for a picture and a drag off her cig. I´m kidding, not really. She asked ME for the picture.

So here is Punta Tombo. A beautiful, untouched coastline, where every year, close to 200,000 pairs of Magellanic penguins come to breed. They are called Magellanic because as you probably guessed, Magellan ¨discovered¨them in 1520 on his voyage around the Cape. There are 15 species of penguins, and Magellanic peguins come farthest north.

They swim for thousand of kilometers, from the tip of south america, up to Brazil and to Punta Tombo, to mate, to nest and to raise a chick. They stand about 2 feet tall, and weigh about 10 pounds. They actually have oil on their feathers for waterproofing.

They start arriving in September, when the waters are getting warmer. Studies have been done that starting at age 2, each one of these penguins comes to Punta Tombo, finds a wife or husband, and a nesting place and will mate. The female will produce 2 eggs. One usually survives. But since the eggs don´t hatch for about 6 weeks, and the penguins can´t survive more than 15 days on land without food or water, they take turns guarding the eggs. To the sea to feed, and back again to the nest, constantly trading places. So all magellanic penguin chicks will have birthdays between Nov. 7 and Nov. 20th. All Scorpios!

Here´s one coming out of the sea, nice and fat.

This is a small hill leading up to all the nests from the sea.

I sat here for like an hour...because it was like a highway. Skinny penguins heading down to the water and fat ones coming back up.

The craziest thing was not their waddle, or their goose-sounding calls...but the fact that there were SO MANY of them, and they didn´t care that there were humans walking around. We all stayed on the marked paths, but the penguins would walk right into the path, and sometimes at people.

These penguins are monagamous for their lifetime, having only one partner. And each year, they come back to the SAME nesting place to meet their significant other.

Clara, our guide told us that there are three types of penguins - the upper class (who had nice nesting areas overlooking the water very close to the ocean), the middle class (in the bushes near the ocean), and the lower class (who have to walk up to 2km to their nesting areas).

It was a very spiritual day sitting on the rocks for a few hours and watching these animals come in and out of the sea, to find their significant other, to be together and brave the elements all to do what they had to do to raise a healthy chick. It was a beautiful thing to witness. It was life. Seeing it over and over again with so many penguins, in such a peaceful place.

I wrote something down a few weeks before my trip started. It was a quote from someone I don´t even remember...but the quote fits this day:

¨You will never experience the earth with all its wonders in this time again. Don´t wait for one last look at the ocean, the sky, the stars or a loved one. Go look now.¨