Our primary reason for visiting Punta Arenas was to have the opportunity to visit one of the Magellenic Penguin breeding colonies on tiny Isla Magdalena. Luckily, that worked out, because it turns out that Punta Arenas doesn’t have much else going on except a large duty free mall and some sufficiently entertaining packs of street dogs.

These are fairly turbulent seas down here in the south, with churning waters and fast, cold winds. All the same, the 2 hour ferry boat ride passed quickly with good company and a few seal sightings. In no time, the ferry’s ramp descended and we stepped off the boat and on to Isla Magdalena and the Los Pinguinos Monumento Natural.

Tiny, treeless and wind battered, Isla Magdalena is little more than a small hill of sand with a lighthouse on it, in the middle of the Magellan Strait. You could jog the length of it in 3-5 minutes or so. A tiny island… covered in PENGUINS. You see, Magdalena island is where a colony of Magellenic Penguins gather to find romance and breed, tucking their two eggs per year into the thousands of penguin sized holes that perforate just about every square meter of this little land mass. These remarkable little flightless sea birds not only mate with the same partner, year after year, but also return to occupy the same exact nest every year. Well, how about that for learning!?

The truth is, our desire to seeing penguins probably had a lot more to do with giggling at how they waddle around and flap their flippery wings and wiggle their butts than anything very zoological. At this, we were highly successful. What wonderful little ladies and gents our hosts were – doin what they been doin for ages and ages: makin fuzzy babies, dodging seals, and keeping it cute in the cold southern latitudes of the Magellan Strait. Stay warm, friends.