Punta Arenas, Chile

Punta Arenas is almost as far south as you can go in South America.  We spent a day and a half here for one primary reason - to visit nearby Magdalena Island which is home to a colony of 130,000 Magellanic Penguins.

After a short boat ride, we arrived at Magdalena Island.  It's a small island and there are penguins everywhere.

The island is cold and windy so we put on every piece of clothing we had

Lots of penguins on the beach to greet us

Getting ready for a swim

Their burrows are all over the island

People have to stay between the ropes; penguins have the right-of-way

Vanessa and friend

Mom and chicks in a burrow

Close-up of the chicks

Magellanic penguins mate for life

Adults are 60 cm (two feet) tall

More chicks

We were just about frozen after our visit to Magdalena Island but it was definitely worth it.

Even in summer, the weather in Punta Arenas is cool as the winds blow through town from Antarctica.  The winds are either high, very high or insane (up to 130 km/h).  This was enough to limit our exploring so we didn't see much of Punta Arenas but here are a few photos.

It's a small town with a population of 160,000

View from our hotel window at sunset

The pool at our hotel was great for warming up and it had a nice view too 

We ordered Canada Dry on the other side of the world

After Punta Arenas, we had one more stop in Chile - the capital city of Santiago.

Vanessa and Blake