Penguinos

How weird are these birds? I love them. I could have stayed at the colony all day and night.
Unfortunately I took the same tour company and the bus broke again!! The drive to the colony was quite far and hot, but well worth it once we arrived.
The penguins lay their eggs on land just up from the beach. Some of the sorryer guys end up in some real estate up to 2km from the water. It is such a bizarre scene to drive through scrubby desert and look out of the window to see penguins under the shrubs in their nests. The lay their eggs in a small depression on the ground or in a burough. Some shrubs have up to 4 nests underneath, other nests are pretty well spaced out.
I was expecting a sea of black and white wobbling to and fro, in and out of the water. This time of year the eggs are just beginning to hatch so the birds are mostly sleeping in their nests. It ends up being less a sea of black and white and more a dotted landscape of them. There was at least one chick that hatched today, but the mother was too stubborn to get up from off the baby while I stood there and stared at her for a half hour. Their were some hanging out in the surf. One area served as the penguin freeway with constant wobbling traffic back and forth. I think the freeway headed to the undesirable neighborhoods in the back.
So cute.
The weird thing was how close we were able to get to them. You could literally man handle them if you were a moronic tourist with no respect - which according to the guide some people are. Some researchers are comparing this colony with other secluded colonies to see if all of the people wandering around impacts them.
The more exciting part of the day for the locals was the thunderstorm. I am starting to worry that the rain if following me. It didn´t start until after we left Punto Tombo and it is always cool to see a thunderstorm in the desert.
Tomorrow I leave for Rio Gallegos - last stop before Punta Arenas at the southern tip of Chile.