Hola Chile! Expectations vs. Reality of our King Penguin Tour

My alarm went off at 5:00am on October 31st. The day had finally arrived - it was go time! Bags were packed and traffic was non-existent. We began our 33-hour journey to Punta Arenas, Chile. Planes were on time and our highlight was our newly minted priority pass cards. We are now part of the esteemed airport lounge access class. 

We had a 12-hour layover in Santiago, so we opted to leave the airport and adventure into the city. Our eyes were heavy from a sleepless long flight, but we were excited to spend a day in Santiago. What we did not know is that it was a public holiday so nearly all shops were closed. Expectations versus reality example one. Finding a place to eat was surprisingly difficult. I had a cheese sandwich at 10:30am - options were limited. After hydrating on caffeine, we made our way to Cerro San Cristóbal which is the city’s main hill and viewpoint. After a jaunt around the cerro we headed back to the airport and made it safely to our final destination, Punta Arenas. 

View from the top of Cerro San Cristóbal in Santiago, Chile

Spring hasn’t quite sprung here yet. After speaking with a few locals, it sounds like it won’t. They say they have two seasons - cold and windy. We are apparently in the windy season although I would argue also cold. My eyes have watered a few times already because of the gusts and frigid temperatures. 

Fletch and I didn’t plan much in Punta Arenas since we didn't know what our energy levels and time zone adjustment would be. We were feeling great, and our hostel host was a delight and booked us an all day tour to see king penguins. We could have done a half day tour to see the magellanic penguins but those are one of the smallest varieties and since we’re all the way down here why not see the second largest penguin. What we didn’t realize is that it was truly an ALL-DAY tour, as in 16 hours - 7am pickup and 11:30pm drop-off.

There are moments while traveling when you ask lots of questions to better understand what you’re signing up for and other times you don’t and trust that it’ll work out.

We opted for the later and despite how epic seeing the penguins was, it was a LONG day. 

Our tour guide, Atma, told us one of the first stops was going to be a farm. Great, I thought! We’ll learn about local agriculture and what Chileans are raising and selling here. What he didn’t mention, or I didn’t hear (since it was so early) was that it was an abandoned farm. We spent 25 minutes walking on the side of a highway looking through peepholes into buildings. Please bear in mind this was at 9am and about 40 degrees and gusty outside. The land the farm is on is beautiful and has amazing views of the water. The buildings are in decent shape, and it would be amazing to see it restored. My expectations of when Atma said “farm” did not meet the reality of what we saw. Example number two. 

Next stop on our tour, the driver Don Juan turns into a town off the main highway and Atma gets on the bus radio announcing that we will stop shortly to look at a church and walk up a hill. Did we go into the church? No. Was it a pretty and historical church? No. Did the hill have nice views? Sort of. Was the town abandoned? It felt like it. Did we see other tour groups? No. One would think since we booked a standard king penguin tour that we would see many other tours. 

Big smiles while we take in the church and “view” from the hill.

After milling around for 30-minutes we got back in the van and drove more. Around this time Fletcher and I put it together that Atma and Don Juan were truly filling time because our next stop was Chile’s first oil well. Was there a sign? No. Was there a museum? No. Did we know it was an oil well without our guide telling us? No. I started to downshift my expectations after this stop. Expectations versus reality example three. 

Atma told us earlier in the day that our appointment time with the king penguin reserve was at 1pm. To the credit of Don Juan and Atma they knew how to occupy us and maintain timing. We arrived at the reserve at 12:45 pm. 

We had the place almost to ourselves. Our group was 12 and there were four others. Two of the others happened to be a couple from Santa Cruz, CA. Our guide told us a few facts about the king penguins including that there are less than five colonies in the world, and we were at one of them. Penguins have bad eyesight; however, they have great hearing. Our viewing point was close to them however we had to use our indoor voices. 

We spent about an hour observing the penguins from different viewpoints and looking at them through a telescope. From the naked eye they are quite cute. This time of year, the penguins are molting so when you view them through the telescope, they are less cute. 

Cute and less cute king penguins

We left the reserve and began our trek back however this time exiting the island Tierra Del Fuego on a ferry. Fletch and I got a bit excited wondering if the ferry was going to be like the Grecian ferries we took last summer. I clearly didn’t learn to adjust my expectations yet. In Greece the ferries load 500+ passengers in a matter of minutes. It is madness with cars and trucks offloading as passengers with their floppy hats and linens are hurriedly running up the ramp. The Greeks have mastered organized chaos and you better be there when the ferry arrives, or you’ll miss it. I assumed the same with the Chilean ferry.

Assumptions can be a dangerous thing.

We saw the ferry coming into port and I got a bit anxious that we weren’t at the terminal yet. However, upon viewing it, the cruising speed was a light jog. I could have probably outpaced it on land. I calculated the ferry speed to be about a whopping 10 miles per hour (mph). The Greek ferries travel around 50 mph. It took us two hours to go 20 miles but hey at least it was smooth since I forgot my Dramamine. 

From our 16-hour day my takeaway is to either ask more questions up front, so I understand better what I am signing up for or have no expectations and be pleasantly surprised by what you’re offered.

This tour left us with a good story and lessons learned moving forward to literally the next day. We booked a bus to the next northern town, Puerto Natales. We both set no expectations and we were pleasantly surprised by how clean, spacious, and quiet the bus was. We arrived feeling refreshed and walked 15-minutes down the road to our hostel. 

We’ve been here for a few days in preparation for our upcoming eight-day trek in the Torres Del Paine National Park. On November 8th Fletch and I begin the O-trek which is the older and longer sister of the well-traveled W-trek. The trek forms an “O” shape as we hike around the three towers of the Torres Del Paine National Park. We’re stoked because we sprung to use a guiding service who carries our tent, sleeping pad, bag, and cooks all our meals for us. We just need to get ourselves to the campsite each night. Wish us luck and warmth on our trek!

Salud, 

Dana