And Now, Penguins

Okay, the moment I’m sure you’ve all been waiting for–here come the penguins!

We visited penguins in two locations in Chubut Province in Argentina. One area was Peninsula Valdes, which we accessed by car from Puerto Madryn on Wednesday, 2-March. It was a 3hr drive on endless dusty dirt roads, so I have to say that we earned the experience. It was a full day circumnavigating the peninsula. We saw penguins at both Caleta Valdes and Punta Cantor on Peninsula Valdes. Two days later we made the 2 1/2 hour drive to Punto Tombo from Gaiman to see the largest colony of Magellanic penguins on the continent. At peak season, the estimate 400,000 birds! If you’re getting the impression that nothing is close to anything in Argentina, you’d be right on. Here’s a lovely picture from us on the road.

The only reasonable way to reach all of these places was to rent a car. Here’s our lovely Chevy Joy. We beat the hell out of it on unpaved roads and it survived.

Caleta Valdes

Caleta Valdes is a very, very long spit along the peninsula. the penguin colony area is very small, and we were quite close to the birds. Here’s a penguin selfie. Obviously, it was very windy.

The distance down to the water from the observation platform was fairly far and the hill was steep. The penguins are amazingly dexterous. Just check out this little guy making his way down to the beach.

Here’s another of the penguins hanging out at Peninsula Valdes.

Punto Tombo

As mentioned above, Punto Tombo has a huge penguin colony at it’s peak. It is a vast desert region and the penguin burrows are everywhere in the desert scrub. We visited on 4-Mar, which is late in the season and may of the birds started migrating. Some were molting and others had finished the process. Seeing the penguins in the desert is completely contrary to the disney vision of arctic penguins we all grew up with. Here’s a typical group seen from the viewing platform.

And another group hanging out off the beach in the desert landscape catching some shade from the bushes.

To give you an idea of how close you could actually get to the birds, here’s a shot of a group enjoying the shade of the boardwalk itself while tourists viewed them from above.

The area really is a vast desert landscape. The penguins walk vast distances to their burrows. Here’s one headed home past a juvenile guanaco.

Of course, they are water birds, and enjoy a good swim. Here’s a group coming out of the water after a dip.

To finish, here’s a couple of videos we took. In the first one, Ande captured one little guy showing off for her. In the second, we capture a group swimming from a distance on the boardwalk. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did.