Today the ship visited Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
We headed north up to Punta Norte (north of Puerto Madryn) to the San Lorenzo Estancia to visit a colony of Magellanic Penguins. Of course, the only way to get there was by spending 90-minutes or so riding in a shock absorber-free bus on an unpaved, bumpy road (sponsored by the makers of Tylenol, we’re guessing). There’s nothing like “off-roading” in a bus in far-away lands.
Once we arrived at the estancia we moved into smaller, shock absorber-free trucks & headed out towards the penguin colony.
These penguins were much different than the ones we saw in the Falkland Islands. They live in burrows instead of nests and return to the same burrow each year. As we walked around the colony we had to be careful as to not step on either any burrows or penguins. Chicks were everywhere!
Afterwards we headed back to the estancia for an “authentic” Argentinean lunch. This meant lamb, lamb and then more lamb (hunted down by the penguins earlier, of course) and lots of other Argentinean protein (dust).
We then all excitedly reboarded the bus to spend more time on the unpaved Tylenol Highway & head towards the Atlantic Ocean to see a ton of sea lions & sea elephants.
On the way back to the ship we saw all sorts of creatures roaming free from the South American “ostrich,” wild llamas, burrowing owls to the largest rat/bunny ever seen.
