Punta Arenas – Tour Day – Otoway Penguin Colony

I was a little slow off the mark today. We had a 7:00 a.m. call for our tour today, but I was dragging based on our little party last night. Vince, Karen, Deb and I took two of the cruise staff to dinner last night in one of the specialty restaurants. This was not meant to be a nice gesture, oh no. I'm learning from my now good friend Obie Won Kenobi how to work the deals here onboard the Zaandam. See, if you take officers or entertainment staff to dinner, they have a "comp" card. So for a $10.00 dinner we consumed large in the alcohol department – all no charge. Then it was up to the VIP party for our 4-star friends – we of course tagged along – more free drinks – than after Elvis trivia – Jordan the Entertainment Director came back to our table – more free drinks. What a life if you know how to work the system.

Yesterday we visited our first Glacier. It was 14-miles long, 1.5 miles wide and towered over 250’ from the water. I took lots of shots, I mean, how many shots can you take of a glacier.

Today was Punta Arenas, a city of over 150,000 people and the weather was picture perfect. From what we were told, it gets so windy here at some times of the year that the city installs ropes between the downtown buildings so that residents can hold on to during periods of intense winds. Not today – we’ve got blue skies, warm (47F) sunny weather with calm seas as this was a good thing because Punta Arenas is another tender point. We got ashore without any issue, we got our bus and the 30 of us were on our way to the Otoway Penguin Colony well before the Holland America tours even got off the ship. It was about a 1-½ drive to the colony over a rough, gravel road through some of the local Chilean farmlands. In the end, we did manage to see about fifty plus penguins in their natural habitat despite shipboard rumors that the little guys were not to be seen anywhere. There were only one species here, magellenic penguins but still it was nice to see these little guys waddle around by the ocean.

It was meant to be a “penguin” tour, so we were finished by 12:00ish and we headed back to the city for a walkabout. They have a magnificent cemetery with huge mausoleums in a carefully manicured setting. I came here hoping that we’d get some decent weather – what we’ve seen during most of the trip has exceeded this by a long shot.

Tomorrow, we’re heading to Ushuaia, Argentina – it’s the first time that we’ve hit Argentina and what is known as the world’s most southernmost city. At 7:00 a.m. we enter the Beagle Channel and a string of five (5) glaciers. Get the camera ready. Once we sail through these we’ll be arriving into Ushuaia (pronounced u-shwey-a) around 11:00 a.m.

We’re at Day 29 on the cruise so we have seven days left before we hit Buenos Aires. I can’t believe how easy it’s been to be onboard here.