"Hola Pinguino"

(Steve posting) As mentioned earlier, we got to Punta Tombo before anyone else and had the place to ourselves. The drive out to the park was so desolate and so poorly marked that I was really wondering if we were going the right way. There was nothing marked for 40 km on a dirt road until we came across a sign about the size of a piece of paper that had a picture of a penguin and "7 Km" on it.

The park rangers were very friendly and we paid our entrance fee... the seemingly standard $30 (Argentine Pesos) per adult and free for Paco for all parks. We walked about 300 yards down and up a gravel path and didn't really see anything... just low Patagonian brush as far as one could see with the Atlantic Ocean about 200 yards away. Suddenly, there's a penguin walking next to the path... just a foot or two away. The penguins appear to nest in burrows underneath the bushes, so at first they are hard to see.

As we continued to walk down the path into the park the birds became more and more concentrated until there were groups of 10-20 at a time. As we got further on, I noticed some high-pitched chirping sounds from under some of the bushes... to our delight, many of the baby penguins had begun to hatch within the past week or so, and in some cases, the chicks were visible right next to the shells of their eggs... just tiny little grey balls of fuzz with beaks.

During this time, Paco was on my shoulders and he would scream every time we saw a penguin "Hola Pinguino!"

When we got to the end of the trail, we were on a rock outcropping overlooking the beach where visitors were forbidden from going. Nevertheless, we were only about 50 feet away from hundreds of penguins and could watch them waddling down the rocky paths to the water front. There was a large sea lion about 100 feet off shore swimming around and we would see the penguins swimming at full speed back to shore every time he got near.

It was quiet, and peaceful and the penguins appeared comfortable (or at least completely tolerant) of their human visitors. We didn't leave the marked trail as instructed, but the birds were perfectly comfortable walking onto the trail and within inches of us. I'll try to load some photos to see if we can do this experience justice.

It was truly an amazing place and we wish we could have stayed even longer.