Around the World in 180 Days: Trip on the Tres Marias

Though yesterday wasn't our penguin expedition day we still saw a few Magellans. From a distance, because they floated on their stomachs and curved their necks back, they looked like regular seabirds but when we got close enough we could make out their coloring and features better.

It was the first time I saw Magellan penguins, skuas, rock cormorants, king cormorants, dolphin gulls, or kelp gulls. The first place we sailed by was a king cormorant colony. Different from the Oly variety because they have white breasts, there were hundreds fishing, swimming, gulping food, sitting, and drying their wings on this tiny rock. None of these had any babies, but the dolphin gulls at the edge of the island had three puffy grey ones. The birds weren't bothered by us, but croaked a little as we passed.

A ways farther on we sailed back and forth along the shore of a larger island, covered again in cormorants and with one side piled with sea lions. A few lay along the slope leading down to the water, but most were in a huge pile on the top. Being mostly blubber lets them ooze along the rocks to a comfortable dozing spot and let one sleep with its head curved back to rest along its back. Our guide barked at them once, and they all barked back noisily, I think because their mothers bark at them when it's time to feed so they tell her where they are.

The dominant male was a huge gelatinous sack of fur and malevolent little eyes, and it briefly exerted the energy necessary to glare at us as we passed before the effort of rasing its massive head became too much and it went back to sleep. In the mating season the males can go for a month without feeding because, in their absence, another male will try to take over the colony. We weren't told how often they eat during the rest of the year but presumably they aren't afraid of the coup because they need to eat sometime.

For a little over an hour we hiked on the H island. With a fairly symmetrical shape and a bay on each side, from an aerial view the island gets its name from the shape.

There are is a large variety of plants on the island, carried there from the birds who land there. Pointed out to us were the orchids that grow a millimiter a year, Chilean fire-orchids, and a ground-cover that smells like honey to attract birds. The tour was very small--only us, the guide, the captain, and a French couple--and we were very lucky in that because the average tour runs 40+ people.

On the side of the island opposite from our boat there was a nesting colony of rock cormorants. They make their nests from kelp dragged up from the bottom of the channel, and as it rots and dries it keeps them warm. Nest is built on top of old, hard nest, and the oldest has been there about a thousand years.

The adolescent rock cormorants are almost as big as their parents and seem bigger because of the fuzzy dark-brown fluff. I think there were about 15 nests there and had between one or two babies. One pair was molesting their parents for food, tapping insistently at the white spots on their cheeks. In a way similarly boneless to the sea lions the parents didn't fly away but bent their necks over backwards and sideways to avoid their offspring. Just before we left we got to see them feed.

Going back to Ushuaia we were able to sail for most of they way as a strong westerly wind was coming through the Beagle channel.

This area is unique in that it has mountains, forests, glaciers, and sea united in on relatively small area. For hundreds of years there were a native people called the Yamani living here but were wiped out by the arrival of Europeans in the 19th century. They canoed and hunted in the water and, unbelievably if you have been chilled standing in the wind on a summer day, wearing your coat and sweater and long-sleeves, were naked. They carried fire with them wherever they went and our guide explained that no clothes were better than wet clothes.

Today we went to the Tierra del Fuego national park around 11 and hiked 8 kilometers along the coast and in the forest. At the 'post-office at the end of the world' I bought a postcard to send back to NOVA for the postcard wall but it probably won't arrive in Washington long before I do.

A few kilometers into the forest I was surprised to briefly glimpse what I thought was the back half of a cat before it stepped out from behind the tree and locked eyes with us. It was utterly curious and unafraid, and we stared at eachother for a few moments before a couple of noisy hikers walked up from behind and this red fox kit turned and ran silently back into the forest.

When we stopped for lunch it must have been in a place where people often stop and eat and feed the wildlife for, a few minutes after we sat down, a shadow wheeled over us and stopped five feet away to watch us expectantly. Some type of hawk walked in our direction and briskly circled us for a few minutes, stopping every now and then with its head turned to the side, waiting for an offering. A second soon joined it but, upon seeing that no food was availing they flew to another group of people.

We arrived at the end of the trail a little before 3 and could have caught a bus then but decided to wait until the next one at 5. In the little restaurant we had drinks, then hiked around the area for about an hour and a half. From a distance we saw black-necked swans and storks that turned out to be flowers.

I can't promise a post tomorrow because we are leaving early for the penguin trip and then have to float around town for a few hours because we'll have checked out before we leave. At 6 we'll take a plane back to Buenos Aires, but won't get there until after 10.