PATAGONIA-Tierra del Fuego

Once you get to Ushuaia, it doesn't seem like you can get any farther south...but we did. We rented a car and drove south, following the peninsula as it hooks into the Atlantic. Aside from having "tea" at the Buenos Aires hotel, the other activity Liz had her heart set on was seeing the penguins. This was actually much harder to accomplish than it would seem. There is one island in Tierra del Fuego that has a colony of penguins who come to breed and rest during the summer months. This island is a protected wildlife habitat and so only 18 people are allowed onto the island each day. If you can get on it is great because you can walk around with them...if not you can get on a boat that circles the island and you take pictures from the boat...which is lame. We rented to car because the harbor you leave from is about two hours away from Ushuaia and due to annoying circumstances there was only one spot on the bus but two on the boat...so we drove, which ended up being much better. The drive winds through the heard of the Tierra del Fuego wilderness, which is full of dense forests and dozens of beautiful trout streams. If we had more time down there I would have spent 2 days just fishing. As with all Patagonian weather, the wind can be intense...below is a "flag tree". There are not many in the area, but they are all bunched together on a bluff. That is one tree that only clears the ground by about 2 inches in a few places.

More "flag trees".
This is the after driving through the mountains, we began to descend down to the harbor.

These are whale ribs and vertebrae...when Europeans first came here, it is rumored that the beaches were littered with whale bones.

We got to Harborton Estancia and took a small boat out to the island...it was a rubber boat that we slowly beached so as to not scare the penguins away.

There are two species of penguins here. I have forgotten their names but one has orange feet, wings and beak. This one builds a small rock nest on top of the ground and then sits on the eggs. This one is more endangered because the eggs are easier to get.Here you can see both species of penguins found in Tierra del Fuego. The smaller ones to the right are the other specie an they are only black and white and much smaller. They dig burrows and hatch their eggs underground. Almost all of the penguins you will see are of this kind.

The penguins here only have one natural predator...it is this bird below called a SKUA. It eats the eggs. This one was being nice because it had its baby on the log.

The species that burrow are only about 2 feet at the tallest.
This is an adolescent "black and white" penguin. You can tell because they are mostly gray for a month or so.

Mother and baby.
If you ever got close they would lower their head and turn it for some reason.

As usual the area is amazing.
Liz likes this picture....I don't know why.

They are very noisy...it was actually pretty loud with all of them in this field.


There is a new baby.


Our boat driver was wearing this full body, water proof Helly Hanson jump suit when we got in the boat...which made me a little nervous initially.
This is Harborton Estancia where we left from...that boat was not the one we took. That is the one for the losers who don't get to walk on the island...haha.