Goodbye to the Kates and more Penguins!

New Year's Day ended up being a pretty relaxing day for us because everything in the town is closed. No tours. No stores. Only a few restaurants.  We spent most of the day sleeping, catching up on internet related chores, and taking walks around town.

We ended the night with a memorable (but not for the food or service) dinner at a local hotel. It was a great note to end our time with Kate and Kate, as they headed back home the next day. Thanks for visiting us, we had a great time exploring Patagonia with you!

Scott and I left left the hotel early in the morning the next day to get on our boat to Magdalena Island, where we were hoping to see many more penguins!  The boat ride was about 2 hours long, as we headed into the Magellan Straits toward the island.  The boat ride was also bumpy (especially on the way back), as the waves were getting higher.  Luckily, I made it to land without getting seasick....but it was close.

Following are only a few of the MANY penguin pictures we took.  They were so cute! I particularly loved to watch them walk around.  Again, these are Magellanic penguins that migrate to southern Chile for mating and nesting. In the winter, they migrate back north to places like Brazil.

Here you can see how they were spread out on the island, in burrows.

They're pretty small little guys.

The gray one is a baby.

We had a lot of fun exploring Magdalena Island and later got on a bus headed back to Puerto Natales, where we enjoyed the beautiful weather on the waterfront before heading back to Argentina the next day.