On Sunday, 21 October, Claudia met me at the hostel to come with me to pick up the rental car at the airport. She needed to go to Puerto Natales to plan a trip later in the summer and joined me in the path to the North.
The day was wet and grey, but the trip was full of interesting animals. We saw Patagonian foxes with its two-spotted tails, geese, gulls, guanacos (Llama sp.), ñandus (Rhea sp.), falcons and eagles, and many more. But what I really wanted to see were penguins. I had found out that not far from Punta Arenas you could find a rare, but large colony of Magalleanic or Humboldt penguins nesting on the mainland. The Otway colony had been a tourist attraction for decades, and it was my best chance to see my favourite animal. But Claudia had broken some disturbing news about the penguin colony in Otway. “Se acabo la colonia”, she said. “Se la comieron los perros”. Gone? Eaten by dogs? I heard in disbelief. She told me how about three years ago the penguins had dropped in numbers rapidly, probably due to the dynamite explosions and pollution of a nearby mine. Or it could have been changes in food availability in those over-fished seas. Or it could be that global warming had pushed the colony further south. Or all of the above. I started imagining the poor penguins laying dead in the sand, partially eaten, a few feathers attached to their tiny skulls, and wind-blasted sand polishing their bones. One of the saddest images I can imagine, and one that I couldn’t completely shed in the rest of the trip.
