Patagonia: To the End of the World We Go

This is the second in a series of posts on our January 2020 trip to Patagonia. We joined 13 other intrepid travelers (including four friends who decided that they could stand two weeks with us) on the In Patagonia trip offered by Wilderness Travel.

After spending a couple of days in Buenos Aires, we boarded a flight to Ushuaia (roughly pronounced ooshwhy-yah) in Tierra del Fuego. Here is where I get to profess my ignorance. I knew that Tierra del Fuego was somewhere south. I also knew that it was somewhere cold. How did I know this? I surmised it from the lyrics of a Michael Franks song.

You got the nicest North America
This sailor ever saw
I’d like to feel your warm Brazil
And touch your Panama

But your Tierra del Fuegos
Are nearly always froze
We gotta see saw
Until we unthaw those
Popsicle toes

That song was recorded in 1976, so for 44 years my only “geographical” reference to Tierra del Fuego was a song I may have played for one or two college girlfriends in my less mature and overly confident years. I probably should have been paying more attention to world geography (but at least I know that the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs play in Missouri, ahem).

It turns out that Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago and it is very far south. So far south, in fact, that Ushuaia is the southernmost city on Earth and, for this reason, has earned the nickname Fin del Mundo (End of the World). Tierra del Fuego is also cold and windy due to its proximity to Antarctica (600 miles away) and being a group of islands off the southern tip of South America. Now the song makes perfect sense.

A three hour flight from Buenos Aires, Tierra del Fuego, which ironically translates as “Land of Fire”, is bordered by the open-ocean Drake Passage to the south and the Strait of Magellan to the north, with the Beagle Channel in the middle, named after the HMS Beagle, a Royal Navy brig. Charles Darwin was a geologist on the Beagle’s second surveying voyage in the early 1830s, handpicked by Captain Robert FitzRoy, who is also a big name in Patagonia… more about him later. Darwin had his first sight of glaciers when they reached the Beagle Channel in January 1833, two years before he arrived in the Galapagos Islands.

Our arrival in the Land of Fire was much less dramatic than Darwin’s. We disembarked from the plane, rummaged through our luggage for hiking and rain gear, and hopped in a van for Tierra del Fuego National Park, where we would hike through a forest in a downpour while trying not to get knocked over by Patagonia’s legendary wind. Darwin would have made some unflattering notes about human evolution if he had seen all of us trying to put on rain pants inside a van. This was our first official hike of the trip and while we saw a lush forest, open meadows, and a nice stretch of beach, after four miles of cold, soaking wet rain everyone was ready for a hot shower and drinks. 

We woke to clearer skies for day two in Tierra del Fuego and while the wind was ridiculous at least it wasn’t raining. It seems that every trip we take has at least one day that we circle on the itinerary, expecting it to be EPIC. This would be one of those. This would be the day we walk among penguins. Of course, everyone knows that penguins didn’t exist until Morgan Freeman narrated films about them.

Before we got to penguins, we took a Zodiac boat on the Beagle Channel and hiked across Gable Island, where we were treated to a gourmet lunch of grilled fish or steak in an old shepherd’s hut. Even in the middle of nowhere, the food on this trip was pretty amazing. 

After filling up on food and wine, we reboarded our Zodiac, this time headed to Martillo Island with a local penguin expert. I should note that all of our local guides on this trip had degrees in ecotourism, were highly specialized , and very skilled at educating a bunch of English-speaking boomers. We were given a rundown of what to expect when we reached the island, where we would be the only group allowed to disembark and walk among the penguin colony. Argentina strictly limits the number of permits issued to travel companies allowed on the island and requires that groups be accompanied by a licenced guide. This was another perk that set Wilderness Travel apart – while we were on shore, several other boats drifted by with groups that were not allowed to disembark. We tried not to look too smug.

When we booked this trip we both thought that we might see a handful of penguins. We were  not prepared for stepping onto an island with thousands of penguins. Martillo Island is the breeding home for four thousand pairs of Magellanic penguins, a small colony of Gentoo penguins, and a pair of King penguins.  Upon landing, we were greeted by hundreds of waddling Magellanic penguins. 

Our arrival was in the middle of the breeding season, so the Magellanic chicks had hatched and the adults were busy foraging for food and materials for their nests, which are built under bushes or in burrows. Magellanic penguins are monogamous, keeping the same mates for their whole lives. When the breeding season is over, usually in late-March, the Magellanic go to sea for six months, never going ashore, before returning to Martillo Island in September. The male will usually arrive a bit earlier to reclaim his burrow from the previous year and wait to reconnect with his female partner, who will find her mate through his call. The best way to describe the call of the Magellanic penguin is a braying donkey. Imagine hearing this by the THOUSANDS (tip: crank up the volume for a full effect).

The island was also home to a small colony of Gentoo penguins, who are distinguished by a wide white stripe extending like a bonnet across the top of their heads and a bright orange-red bill. As it waddles along, the Gentoo’s tail sticks out behind, sweeping from side to side, hence the scientific name Pygoscelis, meaning “rump-tailed”. I guess that’s better than “fat ass”.

Gentoo nests are made from a pile of stones, jealously guarded and whose ownership can be the subject of noisy disputes. The stones are also prized by the females, even to the point that a male penguin can obtain the favors of a female by offering her a choice stone. Apparently, some things are universal across species. Luckily for me, Bev has never been impressed with rocks measured by the carat but this did remind me of one special stone that we decorated in New Zealand seven years ago.

Alas, after over an hour with our new aquatic flightless friends, we had to board our boat and say goodbye. A couple must have heard Bev inviting them to come home with her.

Next up: Los Glaciares National Park and the iconic Fitz Roy Massif.