PUNTA ARENAS CHILE

Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Today we will tender in Punta Arenas, Chile. This is the first of two ports where we plan to see penguins!   I do not like tender ports.  They are always unorganized and everyone gets mean in their haste to get off the ship.  This day was somewhat better.  They put our group in a room by ourselves and called us so we could all get on the same tender.
The tour guide was there to meet us as soon as we arrived, we jumped into one of 3 vans and off we went to the Penguin Colony at Seno Otway.
Today was a day of dissappoint for us.  First, our van got not one, but two flat tires!  While we hoped to get the penguins early to beat the crowds, we were stranded on the road twice.  It caused us to arrive 3 hours later than we planned.
Our second disappoint came when we arrived at the Colony.  We paid approximately $100/couple for this tour and were sadly diappointed to only see a handful of penguins.  We had to stand behind a wooden wall with holes in it to take their picture.  They basically just sat there looking sleepy.  They were cute...obviously.  But our guide had to have known there wouldn't be many and I felt she should have forewarned us before we got there.  We would have still gone, we prepaid the tour...but at least we would have known what to expect.
After snapping a few pics we headed back to town in our van without any more road mishaps :)  Later that evening some fellow passengers share photos of the same penguines and they were jumping in/out of water swimming, talking, walking around.....I think we just arrived at their siesta time...
This being said....I would NOT recommend this tour operator to anyone.  Not because the penguins were scarce, (we understand it is mother nature), but because she did not take the time to forewarn us of the truth.
So our first penguin adventure was a bit of a bust....but we have another chance on Thursday... :)