Although our time in the Antarctic was short, it was definitely magical. And every cloud has a rainbow or a silver lining, right? We had the Drake Lake, saw unique wildlife, had amazing weather for our penguin colony exploration, saw more seals than expected, and even had an Antarctic barbecue. The only thing we really missed was a leisurely goodbye. Instead we had two full days in Punta Arenas, and could keep the penguin train moving.

There are 17 species of penguins, all of which breed in the southern hemisphere. Many of them call Antarctica home, but some have adapted to warmer climates. There are penguins in South Africa, New Zealand, and even the Galapagos! To stay cool, they live in burrows underground, and some have areas with no feathers to expose when they’re feeling toasty. We were fortunate enough to find two more species of penguins in southern Patagonia, the Magellanic and King Penguins.

There is a colony of Magellanic Penguins near Punta Arenas on an island called Isla Magdalena. We tried to go there a few times last week but were thwarted by the winds. This time the penguin gods smiled on us. They must have known that we are now ambassadors of the Antarctic and their long-lost relatives.

Isla Magdalena is a weird little park where the penguins have free range and the humans are kept in a single file line, confined to a dirt path. Opposite of a zoo? Hmmm… Anyway, the island is covered in penguin burrows, snoozing penguins, peepy hungry fluffballs, and the occasional Skua cruising for a snack. I promise this isn’t getting old. We’ve decided penguins are the gateway bird to convince Kayla to be a real-life bird watcher. I think it’s working.

The next day we did a full day tour of Tierra del Fuego, which was nice because we saw and learned things we otherwise wouldn’t have, and we also saw more pinguinos. This time we went to the only area in the world that King Penguins nest on a continent (all other colonies are on sub-Antarctic islands).

Parque Pinguino Rey seems like it’s in the middle of nowhere and there couldn’t possibly be a penguin colony all the way out there. But then you walk down a little path in the middle of the Patagonian Steppe towards the ocean, and voila. King Penguins. There were around 80 penguins there, many of which were still incubating eggs, some of which had newly hatched chickey-poos! When I was talking earlier about adorable fluffballs, apparently that stage comes a bit later. These babies were still in the ‘naked dinosaur with a head too big for its body’ phase. Still pretty incredible to see such a little, although semi-terrifying-looking, baby penguin.

The breeding colony was in one area, where the adults were all incubating or brooding. Downstream a bit is where the party happens. King Penguins don’t reach sexual maturity until they’re 3-6 years old, and the orange on their head is nice and bright. Until then, the sub-adults hang out away from the colony, closer to foraging areas in the ocean. Our guide said yesterday they were all swimming and tooling around, so today must have been the hangover day since they were all sleeping on their bellies or looking at the water like ‘don’t make me do it, it looks cold in there‘.

Four species of penguins in three days. If that doesn’t psych Kayla up about birds, I think she’s a lost cause. 😉 They are really a unique group of birds. They have some similar life history traits as other long-lived species, with some very cool adaptations.

Land, ho! Today was a big day full of excitement. Today we got to step foot on Antarctica. We also got to explore penguin colonies and see seals! We also had weather change our plans again. I’m starting to realize how much squish time they build into this “6 day” itinerary. More on that later. First, land.

We woke up to Antarctic mountains and islands outside our window. The sun was shining and we were ready for a great day. Our first landing was on Greenwich Island, part of the South Shetland Islands, specifically in Yankee Harbor. We took zodiacs (think heavy duty inflatable rafts) to shore from the ship and saw penguins and seals right off the bat.

The penguin colony in Yankee Harbor is Gentoo penguins, with their bright orange bills. Different species of penguins don’t usually use the same colonies. We also saw 4 of the 5 Antarctic seal species! We saw lots of fur seals (eared seals like sea lions), a few Elephant Seals, a couple Crab-eater seals, and one Weddell seal. So lucky! The only one we didn’t see was the Leopard Seal, which was probably lucky for the penguins since it’s their main predator. The Weddell seal had a speckly belly, with a pattern which scientists can use to identify individuals. I’ll submit my photos to happywhale.com when I get home so I can find out about other sightings of the seal we saw! Most of the seals were chillin’ (ha! Get it? Chillin’ in the Antarctic?? I digress..) but a few of the fur seals were feeling feisty and were fighting one another. They didn’t seem to notice us or the thousands of penguins.

The penguins are wrapping up their breeding season and getting ready to head back out to sea. The chicks were almost as big as the adults, but still kinda fluffy and awkward. I saw one running after its parent so intently that it tripped over another sleeping penguin! The chicks were peeping away, looking for some regurgitated fish from mom or dad. The adults were hopping around on the rocks, making their way to and from the sea to feed their noisy fluffballs. Pretty dang cute if you ask me (or literally anyone).

After we lingered long enough to be the last ones back to the ship, we had a barbecue lunch on deck! Apparently the crew doesn’t usually do cookouts for the shorter voyages, but they did for us because the weather was so nice. Couldn’t pass up a great opportunity! It was hard to imagine that we were sitting outside having a cookout on a ship in the Antarctic, surrounded by penguins and seals. I took a bunch of photos so maybe someday I’ll believe it actually happened.

After lunch it was back to land! This time we stopped at Half Moon Island, just across the bay from Yankee Harbor. The penguin colony on Half Moon Island was Chinstrap Penguins, and man are they noisy buggers! I’m sure penguins are very graceful in the water, but they’re pretty hilarious on land. Then on top of that, here they breed on rocky islands and try to get to the very top for safety. So they use their entire body to hop up and up on those short little legs. I could have watched them cruise around all day. You can tell there are easier ways to go, and they make these little highways, where one by one they hop from rock to rock. Sometimes that was the easiest place for us to walk too, so we’d have little traffic jams, with penguins always having the right-of-way. Words (and probably photos) are just not going to do it justice, but here are some photos, and I’ll just say that this place was noisy, stinky, peaceful, beautiful, and better than what you see on TV.

Half Moon Island was also one of the first places there was Antarctic tourism, beginning in the late 1960s. There was a small wooden boat left there that belonged to one of the tourist vessels from the beginning, and they weren’t sure what happened, but for some reason passengers were stranded on the island for two days! I’m not sure what the weather was like then, likely not great, but there are probably less adorable places to be stranded!

After a day of excitement, we were informed that a storm was on its way that could delay our flight back to Chile for three days, so instead we would have to leave early. We said goodbye to the penguins, tossed our stuff in our bags, and took a zodiac to the airport. Probably the only time we’ll wear a life jacket on our way to the plane! We flew out of the airport on King George Island, where many different countries have Antarctic research stations. We waved hello to the passengers about to begin their voyage, and quickly said goodbye to Antarctica.

After leaving Ushuaia and the safety of the Beagle Channel, then rounding Cape Horn, we were officially in the Drake Passage. They say the passage can be the Drake Shake or the Drake Lake, meaning it can be super rough with huge swells, or like glass. We had a bit of rough seas to begin the crossing, so we took seasickness medication just to be on the safe side. The waves were big enough to have food sliding off tables at dinner! We didn’t get sick, but the rocking boat and meds made us so tired that we slept most of the day and all through the night. Periodically they would have presentations for us and luckily we could watch them from our rooms so if we passed out, at least we could be horizontal.

We watched an old movie about the last tall sailing ship to round Cape Horn, which was pretty comical. The footage was filmed on board and the commentary was from a seaman from that ship who would just tell random stories. We also had presentations on the type of ship we were on and how the stabilizers work, as well as on the types of seabirds, penguins, marine mammals, and icebergs we would see.

We did end up getting to see the rare Drake Lake! We were finally able to stay awake for a bit and get to appreciate the weather, water, and wildlife. We also participated in some of the citizen science activities on board, including taking water samples, and doing seabird surveys.

While doing the oceanography class and data collection, we learned about the polar convergence. This is the line where the Southern ocean meets the more northern waters. At that point, the temperature drops significantly and different animals start to show up. We met up for taking a water sample after dinner and an impromptu discussion on climate change started happening. People had so many questions, which was really cool to see. So many times it’s really depressing to talk about climate change, so it was encouraging that people showed an interest and were open to learning more, even without a prompt. The delay from the conversation actually also ended up being a good thing because then our water sample collection ended up being timed just as we were crossing over the polar convergence and we were biologically in the Antarctic! The political boundary lies at 60 degrees south latitude, which we crossed early the following day. Pretty exciting stuff! We also got to see the bridge as we went up there to get coordinates for our water sample. The captain was sleeping so we had to be very quiet.

We didn’t see much on our official bird survey, but we did have some great wildlife sightings on the voyage in general. In the Drake, we saw a Humpback whale, and a Fin Whale. We also saw a group of whales during the Drake Lake that our crew had a hard time identifying. They ended up being Long-finned Pilot Whales, which the crew said were very rare to actually see! Thanks to the calm waters we could spot them from pretty far away.

In the avian realm, we saw lots of Black-browed Albatross, Southern Giant Petrel, Southern Skua, and Wilson’s Storm-petrels. We also saw a couple of Cape Petrel (so pretty!) and a few others closer to shore (Kelp Gulls, Antarctic Terns, Imperial Cormorants). Kayla and I were also the first ones on board to spot penguins! There was a little raft of Chinstraps out foraging! Little cutie patooties. We did a little penguin dance and can only imagine how excited we’ll be tomorrow when we visit the colonies!

We also had a presentation about icebergs, glaciers, and sea ice. I didn’t realize that the ocean will actually freeze over, even though it’s salty. When the sea freezes, fresher water on top is less dense than salty water and pushes salt water down and forms a layer of ice at the surface. The Antarctic continent will actually double in size during winter because of all of the ice around land! Glaciers are land-based ice that are constantly moving and flowing downhill like a frozen river. When they meet the sea, chunks will break off and become icebergs. As water evaporates from the ocean, it will snow back down to land and continue to form the glaciers. Now that the climate is changing, the glaciers are melting faster than they’re forming and all of the land-based ice and snow is being added to the ocean, causing the sea levels to rise. The glaciologist on board described it as if you had a half full glass of water (simulating the ocean) and added ice cubes (simulating icebergs made of land-based ice), the water level in the glass would rise. I’m going to try to remember that. Great visual to explain a complicated concept.

This is the part of the story where we become some kind of southern ocean seabird, maybe a Black-browed Albatross or a Southern Giant Petrel. We boarded the Hebridean Sky and set out to sea.

Walking up to the ship in Ushuaia felt very fancy, and the Maitre’D actually showed us to our schmancy room. Much bigger than our rooms on Semester at Sea’s MV Explorer! There was a welcome letter on the bed that I read aloud to Kayla and all of a sudden shit became real. We’re going to Antarctica!

We got all the welcome info, met a few other passengers, and did our practice muster safety drills. We had the first of many fancy dinners, and were cruising down the Beagle channel.

Our first official stop was Puerto Williams, Chile, the southernmost town in the world. It was pretty late at night, so not much was open, but the harbor was beautiful. It was also pretty crazy to imagine living in such a remote town down here at el fin del mundo.

There was one historical spot to see during our short visit, which was a replica bow of the Yelcho. In 1916, this ship and its captain and crew set sail to rescue Ernest Shakelton’s shipmates, stranded in Antarctica.

The super short version of the story is that Shackleton’s Endurance voyage set out to cross the Antarctic continent. They actually never made it to land, since their ship got stuck in and ended up being crushed by the ice. They spent the dark, cold winter living on the ice, out of their ship, and with whatever they could scavenge from the Endurance before it sank. The crew managed to make it to Elephant Island in their life boats, and by some miracle Shakleton and a few others made another trek to South Georgia Island. Then, as if they hadn’t had enough miracles for one journey, they made a spectacular overland crossing of the island to a whaling town on the other side. The whalers helped him pick up the men he had left on the other side of the island, but had a hard time convincing anyone to lend him a ship or fund a voyage (during WWI) to pick up the remaining men on Elephant Island. Thanks to the Yelcho and the Chilean Navy, the rest of the crew from the Endurance were rescued, two years after their voyage began. It’s an incredible story and I recommend picking up a book about it!

We finished sailing through the Beagle channel through the night, with hopes of landing at Cape Horn in the morning. Unfortunately it was just not in the cards for us, but better to be safe than sorry. Still a beautiful spot to see from the water, and as we rounded the corner, we were officially in the Drake Passage!

Up next: El fin del Mundo! Which does sound a little dark, but I guess in this sense it’s “fin” as in the end of the continental world and not as in the end of humanity as we know it. Haha. Anywayyyyy, since our Antarctic expedition starts in Argentina and ends in Chile, at some point we needed a one way ticket between the two. We opted to fly in and out of Chile and then take a bus from Punta Arenas Chile to Ushuaia Argentina.

As we were boarding the bus they asked us for our ticket, passport, and receipt from customs. Um, what? What receipt? Apparently something they handed us at the airport that looked like trash? First we got the “you delinquents wait over there” vibes, then we got the “whatever get on the bus and we’ll let immigration deal with this” vibes. So, naturally the first half of the 10 hour bus ride we were wondering how important that little piece of trash will turn out to be. I rifled through my backpack and miraculously found it (thanks scrapbooking addiction!) but Kayla’s was in a trash can probably still in Santiago. We both started wondering if they would let her cross the border, I mean they let us on the bus and there’s really nothing out here, soooo…

We went through customs in Chile and they took my little piece of paper, but nobody even asked for Kayla’s. Again, we thought we were in the clear. Nope. Next up: traffic stop by the Argentinian police! The officer got on the bus and walked up and down the aisle with a clipboard calling “Kayla Thompson? Is there a Kayla Thompson on board?” Holy crap. They checked her passport, said thank you, had a discussion with the bus driver, and off we went! Now we were starting to plan our hide out. Or at least flee to Antarctica! Haha. Definitely the excitement of the day.

Otherwise it was lots of flat open scenery, herds of sheep, a ferry, and eventually some mountains as we approached Ushuaia.

Ushuaia is a beautiful town. It’s on the water and built into a side of a mountain. We lugged our stuff to our very nice Airbnb and were happy Kayla wasn’t in any kind of detention.

The next morning, before embarking on our expedition, we wandered Ushuaia and day dreamed about all of the things we would do next time we’re here. It is a beautiful, friendly town with an interesting history.

The town is the southernmost city in the world, and has a lot of history with Antarctic explorers. Ushuaia was first founded by British missionaries, and was the home to many people who were not of Argentinian descent. During the late 1800s, the president of Argentina decided to establish a penal colony in Ushuaia to get more Argentinian residents on the island and establish sovereignty for Argentina. The prison was open until 1947 and being sent to Ushuaia is still somewhat synonymous with being sent to prison!

Torres del Paine is a national park that many people will spend days or weeks trekking around to see all of the amazing mountains, lakes, and glaciers. We didn’t have enough time to really get up close and personal, but we did our best with what we had. That meant lots of getting up early, driving around, and taking a million photos!

Our first stop was Lago Grey to take a boat tour to see the glacier. It was again insanely windy, so the boat didn’t go (seems to be our luck). We’re starting to hope this luck doesn’t follow us to Antarctica! Instead we drove to Mirador de los condors and went for a short but windy hike, before trying to make it on a later boat.

The hike was short and we didn’t see condors there, but we certainly felt like condors! The wind was relentless, we hiked nearly straight up, and felt like we could soar on forever. Just an amazing place.

We ended up with some luck in our favor and were able to catch the third and last boat of the day! The boat left from a little spit of land near one of the only hotels in the park. From there we drove a few minutes down the road, then walked through a forest, over a rope bridge, and out onto the rocky and windy beach to the boat.

The tour overall was three hours and every minute offered new views of the water, glaciers, and mountains. It was amazingly beautiful and I highly recommend checking it (or another glacier) out for yourself. The snow falls each year, doesn’t melt, then forms glaciers that are basically like moving, flowing, frozen rivers. The colors and mass of the ice are just unbelievable. The glaciers are definitely shrinking. We saw some photos of the not so distant past and the changes are undeniable. While we were parked at the glacier, I was feeling fortunate to be there in that moment, but also very sad that these moments are becoming fewer and fewer. Humans are doing this to Mother Earth and we certainly need to be doing more to reverse the negative changes we’ve already made. More on that later. Now for some ice beauty.

Driving around the park just didn’t get old. I even stopped to take photos of the same things when I drove past them multiple times. It can always look different with the light, the clouds, and even maybe a rainbow. We saw some amazing wildlife, had the pleasure of seeing the landscape in the early morning light without many other people on the road, and would definitely come back again.

This morning we packed up, got our rental car, and headed a bit further north to Puerto Natales. Fairly soon on our trek we came across some unexpected wildlife. Rheas (like an emu or ostrich), guanacos (similar to a llama), and flamingos! Can you believe it?? I knew there were flamingos around this area, but I definitely didn’t expect to see them just while in transit. We stopped and watched them for a bit, but they were kind of far out. Good thing my binoculars made the cut! Kayla, the “non-birdwatcher”, even brought a pair. We were on a roll. Next new bird we saw soaring above us was an Andean Condor! I mean seriously! We weren’t even bird watching! Well, I’m always bird-watching, and Kayla’s getting the hang of it now too, whether she knows it or not. We’re off to a good start.

The landscape is more flat and open than I expected. There are sheep everywhere, so that explains the openness. It did get hilly as we approached Puerto Natales, and either way the landscape is beautiful and fascinating. Not many people in this area outside of the towns, so we saw lots of guanacos, sheep, cows, and rheas along the way.

We reached Puerto Natales in time for lunch. I tried a dish called traditional Chilean corn pie and when I asked what was in it, the server showed me an empty bowl. Whoops. Guess I messed up some Spanish there. Whatever, I like corn, I’ll take it. Turned out to be a sort of casserole with different kinds of meat underneath a creamy baked corn layer with a hard-boiled egg on top. Delicioso!

Puerto Natales is definitely more touristy than Punta Arenas. Lots of shops, hostels, restaurants, and travel agencies. Many people come here as a base before doing backpacking trips to the national park, so there were people from all over the place wandering the streets with gigantic backpacks. We did a little meandering, and of course found ourselves bird-watching by the water again. Kayla’s starting to think I’m tricking her into bird-watching, but that’ll teach her to either make more of the decisions or start bird-watching herself! On the drive up here we only took one highway, so instead of being in charge of navigating the roads, she was in charge of navigating the bird book. She’s learning that she doesn’t have much of a choice. Maybe she’ll even ebird by the time we get home… As a big sister it’s my obligation to show her the way. 😉

When I bought my plane tickets for this trip, I wasn’t planning on going to Easter Island, so I bought separate tickets. I didn’t think it was a big deal, but I actually had to leave the airport and come back through security in Santiago and I had a kind of tight connection. Luckily the agent in Easter Island put a priority tag on my bag and it was the first one on the belt! Off to my new gate, ready to go.

Both flights today were long, 4-5 hours, so I didn’t land in Punta Arenas until almost midnight. Finally met Kayla at the new Airbnb, and am excited for the next chapter!

The next morning, we tried to go to Isla Magdalena, but the ferry wasn’t running due to the strong winds. Let me tell ya about winds. The average wind speed today was 50mph! It felt like you might blow over or blow away, and definitely needed to make sure to strap everything down!

We ended up walking back into town along the water (so windy!) and saw a few new birds (3 gulls, Chilean Skua, Imperial Cormorant, and a Crested Duck). Kayla put up with the bird watching delays, and I dare say even maybe enjoyed it.

We ended up walking around all day, looking for things to check out. We also spent a decent amount of time looking for public restrooms, and started calling our time here Poop Arenas 2019, but that’s all I’ll say about that. 😂

First stop was a cemetery, which was recommended to us by our Airbnb host. Seemed weird to tour a cemetery, but what do we know? Turned out to be quite spectacular. There were many intricate and extravagant masoleums, as well as smaller but still lovely graves. My favorites had little gardens planted in them.

Then we tried to see two different museums downtown, but one was closed for renovations and the other was only open for three hours per day and we had just missed it. Punta Arenas is kind of a strange town. I guess I’m not sure what I expected, but maybe something a bit more touristy. The town is small, and most houses have exteriors made of sheet metal painted in bright colors (and probably also have some graffiti). This time of year there’s about 17 hours of daylight, but I’m sure it’s much more depressing in winter. The bright colors of the houses probably help bring some light and happiness. Either way it’s a tough existence down here at the bottom of the world. Punta Arenas also seems to be more of a jumping off point for people to head up to Puerto Natales, or down to Antarctica. When we told cab drivers we were staying here for a few days, they just asked us why.

Since the penguin boat was cancelled and the museums were closed, we were kind of running out of ideas. We stopped in a travel agency to ask for recommendations of how to spend an afternoon in Punta Arenas, and after hemming and hawing, he suggested El Museo Maggiorino Borgatello, “it’s a Catholic museum of animals from other places and Antarctic animals.” Done. Let’s go.

Turns out his strange description was surprisingly accurate. The museum started out as a collection of a priest, but then he also added collections of missionaries. It started out like a natural history museum with animal mounts and a herbarium, but then there was also dioramas of missionaries teaching native people, random cultural artifacts, different stones and minerals, belongings of people who rescued Shackleton’s crew, a chair the pope sat in, strange animal deformities, a pair of scissors (?), a pile of whale bones, and just when we thought it couldn’t get weirder, there was a whole section on energy development. So we had that going for us (which was nice).

That was all for today in Punta Arenas, tomorrow we’re off to Puerto Natales!

It’s a bit bittersweet to leave Rapa Nui, but the show must go on! I enjoyed one more relaxing morning in Hanga Roa, then back to Santiago and onto Punta Arenas!

It must be so strange to live on such a remote island. Rapa Nui is the most remote inhabited island in the world! There is only one flight that comes in or out of the airport at a time, most if not all are from Santiago, but the planes are huge. The airport is tiny, not even big enough to hold all the people that fit on the plane! Luckily they have good weather because the one gate is mostly outside. Then you walk out of the tiny airport and onto a massive plane, and off you go!

As with any vacation, it always feels as if there isn’t enough time. I’m trying to balance making the most of my time here, but also leaving enough fuel in the tank for the rest of the migration. It is vacation after all, and when you’re traveling alone, you can do what you want! 😁

Apparently today what I wanted was to get up early to see the sunrise. Luckily for me (but probably unlucky for Rapanui people), the island is actually in the wrong time zone. Since it is a part of Chile, they are only two hours behind Chile when they really should be 4-5 hours behind. So sunrise wasn’t until 7:45am and sunset was also late, at 9:15pm. So I rolled my butt outta bed and enjoyed a lovely sunrise.

Then I headed to the south end of the island to see the Rano Kau crater and wetland. From there I walked around the rim of the crater to the historic village of Orongo, where the bird-man competition took place.

Each year the clans would gather at the Orongo and hold the bird-man competition, where men would go out to the tiny offshore islands and try to be the first to come back with a bird egg. It started with frigatebirds, but eventually was a Sooty Tern egg they were searching for. The man who brought back the first egg would then gain special powers and authority on the island for the next year. He would also live in isolation and couldn’t cut his hair or fingernails!

Next I went to Vinapu, a site most known for its stonework. The stones of this ahu fit perfectly together, similar to Machu Picchu, leading some to believe Rapanui learned this skill from Peruvians.

Last stops were a few inland moai, the top knot quarry, the museum, and some seaside caves with paintings.

One quick thing about my rusty Spanish. I’ve been holding my own, ordering food, renting a car, buying gas for said car (trickier than I thought), and talking to my neighbor on the plane. I’ve remembered surprisingly more than I would have thought, and am probably messing up more than I know, but it’s going okay. Today I stopped to see if someone with car trouble needed help, and in Spanish asked if he needed anything. His response was “lavanderia”. For a second I thought to myself…. A place to wash things? How am I supposed to provide a laundromat? Am I going crazy? Then his girlfriend replied, he’s fine, he’s just sweaty. I did the car version of awkwardly back away, and slowly drove off. Good thing I didn’t stall getting into first. 😂

Anyway, then said goodbye to my car Jimny, and had my first pisco sour. Lastly, because I do what I want 😉, I had that exact same tuna meal again, and it was delicious! I also watched the surfers at sunset, saw a sea turtle, and really felt at peace. I think I was some kind of sea bird in a past life because I really feel like I belong on the ocean.. #reallifemoana? Haha. Speaking of Moana, I learned that “moana” means “ocean” in most Polynesian languages. If you didn’t want your daughter to leave the island, maybe don’t name her Ocean? Am I right?!