Chasing Summer –

Today, I had a 7:20 meeting time for my tour, so that means I was up and looking for breakfast at 5 am.

As the boat pulled into port, I noticed some white blobs just below the surface of the water and couldn’t tell if it was garbage or how the light was hitting the water. Then I saw one a little clearer and realized that it was jellyfish. So many jellyfish.

My tour included a 2 1/2 hour bus ride over dusty, bumpy dirt roads. We traveled towards the Valdez peninsula.

Interestingly, even though it’s a national park, the land is privately owned. There are three very large estancias (ranches) dividing up the land. While it is a steppe, Argentinians call it the pampas.

Here, the gauchos maintain the estancia while the domesticated sheep and a few cattle eat the grasses along with the wild Guanacos and mara.

First up, we stopped at the visitor center for the park. They have some displays showing the wildlife that can be seen at different times of the year around the peninsula.

We then continued on to the smallest and newest Magdalena penguin rookery. There are only 1000 penguins in this colony, but it increases by about 20% each year.

After spending 20 minutes visiting the gentoo penguins, we went another 10 minutes down the road to see sealions and seals. The difference being seals move or walk with their two front flippers, and sea lions have small ears and walk using all four flippers.

Walking around the top area, an armadillo almost ran into me, and I saw some lizards running in the very sharp bushes. I was glad I wore jeans, so the thicker material protected me from the sharp prickly plants of this region.

After eating our boxed lunches on the bus, we headed back on the same road we came in on. It took about two hours to return to port.

A group of us met up for chicken wings, nachos, and pretzel bites at the Irish Pub.

The ship has two shows on each night at the theater. One at 7 pm and the other at 9pm. We took in the 7 pm show, which was a tribute to 70-90’s music.