Day 4 (Feb 23) - Isla de Magdallanes

We woke up around 6 am to get ready for Isla de Magdallanes. Since the hotel offers breakfast from 7 - 10 am, we ate as soon as it opened and quickly gathered snacks and water for our trip.

We originally tried to catch the #15 collectivo, a car that delivers groups of people along a specific routes, in this case the port from which the ferry would depart: Tres Puentes. After about 15 minutes of trying to hail a collectivo (they were all full!), we decided to opt for a taxi. Fortunately the port was only about 5 km (10 minutes) away, so the taxi only costed about $3000 CLP ($4.34 USD).

We arrived at the port at 8:20 am, with plenty of time to spare before the 9 am departure. Once we departed, it took almost exactly 2 hours for us to arrive at the island. Penguins were everywhere!

Our vessel, the Melinka!

Isla de Magdalena from the ferry.

Isla de Magdalena with penguins!

Penguins!

The lighthouse at Isla de Magdalena.

Ducks with orange noses.

More penguins!

Penguins and the sky!

The penguins had little burrows in the ground like this one.

Penguins and kelp/seaweed!

Short clip of penguins waddling around.

Closeup of a penguin!

Penguins like hiding in little places like under this little shack.

After an hour of roaming with our penguin pals, we took the two hour ferry ride back and waited for a taxi. A foreign couple from the tour were going into downtown Punta Arenas near where we were going, so we split the taxi ride and walked the remaining few blocks back to the hotel to recharge.

That evening, we decided to go to one of the two restaurants about which we had read good reviews: Toques de la Patagonia and La Marmita. Around 5 pm, we went to Toques de la Patagonia, but it was closed between lunch and dinner, so we then walked to La Marmita only to discover that it too was closed between lunch and dinner. We ate some street empanadas and waited at Toques for it to open at 7:30 pm for dinner.

We had our first pisco sours (national drink of Chile) at the restaurant while we waited for them to officially open for dinner. Then I ordered salmon (forgot to take a picture!), and Sof ordered lamb. We tried the brownie with calafate mousse for dessert.

Toques de la Patagonia!

My first Pisco Sour, the national drink of Chile!

Sof's dinner: lamb (cordero) and potatoes and strawberry salsa!

Dessert: brownie and calafate mousse (calafate is a berry from Patagonia).