Punta Tombo

Hundreds of people were very efficiently herded through the theater and onto our respective buses for the day’s excursions.
We faced a two and a half hour ride south from Puerto Madryn to Punta Tombo. The scenery is monotonous, dry, dusty.  We saw some sheep and guanacos before arriving at Punta Tombo, but not much else.

The penguins were numerous and quite unphased by all these strange creatures trekking through their habitat. The rookery is on a beautiful section of the coast and the blue Atlantic is a great relief from all the arid inland scenery.We were visiting at the end of the breeding season. All the chicks were quite grown and molting. There was no need for the adults to take turns guarding the nests. We walked through the habitat on boardwalks which often rose above ground to permit the penguins to cross beneath them on their trips between their nests and the water. They also provided popular shady areas for the penguins to rest in during the heat of midday.

The time seemed all too short. After the dreary ride I would have enjoyed a longer spell with the penguins – and it would have been nice to visit when there were fewer people.  But if you come by cruise ship the crowd is a given and the time is short. We had to make the trip back to Puerto Madryn and be on board by 4:45.

We saw the penguins and walked among them  - and who knows if we will ever have that chance again. The long grey ride will soon be forgotten (in fact, I slept through most of the return trip) but our visit to the penguins will remain with us forever. Just wait, we got some great pictures.
We sat up on deck 10 and snacked on pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, salad and sushi (we each made different choices) as the ship pulled out of the harbor and resumed its southern journey. Two days at sea ahead before we reach Ushuaia.