Seno Otway penguin reserve and first impressions of Puerto Williams

It's 8:53am on Tuesday 9th Feburary and I'm in the non-international departure area at Punta Arenas airport expecting to miss my flight in an hour's time. The guy at check in just gave me a big plastic card (like the studier kind of "do not disturb" sign in a hotel, without the hole) which they clearly re-use all the time. He told me which gate it was, but if I ever comprehended I completely forgot. I gathered it was on the second floor and indeed security passed me OK, even after I told them where I was flying, but I am now up here and there are three departure gates (admittedly, all within my current range of vision) and no monitors or, as far as I can tell, announcements. And of course there's no one to ask either. So it's quite likely the flight will go without me knowing it. Fingers crossed some people turn up nearer the time. I do happen to recall that boarding was nominally at 9:45 and I guess most people won't check in that early for a local flight.

Sat at a table at the cafe writing this off-line. Maybe I should have bought something, but no one has said anything.

Man, this sucks. I can't relax not knowing where the fucking flight goes from. I mean, the three gates I can see may be within my line for sight, but for all I know there are 30 others round the corner where I can't see.

Anyway, yesterday I got up OK and got the 10am bus back from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas. I was sort of asleep for most of the journey, waking with that inexplicably dry, gritty taste in my mouth. Checked in at the hotel OK, then dashed out to get sea-sickness tablets (sorted, there was a pharmacy basically underneath the hotel, which starts on the second floor) on the offchance I need them on the ferry back from Puerto Williams and something to eat before going on my pre-booked excursion to Seno Otway penguin reserve.

Lunch was pretty crap. I was in a rush and went in this cheap-ish but slightly fancy looking restaurant. They took ages to come and serve me, even longer to bring me my food and when they did it was frankly a bit unpleasant, which they had attempted to cover up with a bit of effort at presentation. Still, it was food within the meaning of the Act and that's what counts.

There was no need to have booked ahead for the Seno Otway trip, the coach had about 10 people on. On the other hand, if I hadn't booked ahead, I might well not have come back from Puerto Natales early enough yesterday to do it, and it would then be something I wanted to do and had to get done on my last day here in Punta Arenas when I return from Puerto Williams. So in a way it was a good thing I had pre-booked.

It was about an hour's drive away. Bizarrely, at the entrance to the reserve someone came on the bus and charged us all CLP1,000. (Me: "Un boleto, por favor", sat on my own, admittedly holding a CLP2,000 note as I had nothing smaller - Him: "Dos?" - Me: "No, uno" - Him: "Dos" - Me: "No, uno" - Him: "OK, uno"), then we drove what seemed like miles further, got off the bus (the driver somewhat surlily indicating we had an hour there only when someone asked him) and then paid a further CLP5,000 to get into the main part. I have no idea why this split pricing scheme is in effect. Maybe a lot of people like to visit the car park without seeing any penguins and this is to accommodate them. Or perhaps they find it handy for the shops, being only about ten minutes' drive down a rather badly maintained road, and they got sick of people abusing it.

Anyway, although the sense of having to rush to make sure I got back to the bus in time definitely didn't help, it was pretty cool. There's one bit where you can peer through a hole in a fence to watch all the penguins on the beach, and as you walk round the reserve on the fenced-off path you can see individuals or small groups walking around a few metres away from you. They don't seem that much bothered by people. I took a lot of photos and even some videos and those are already on flickr.

OK, by sheer luck as I was dithering around I met the three people (from somewhere near Santiago) I had met on the trip to Perito Moreno (I knew they were on the flight, but it was kind of lucky that I met them). They were about as confused as I was. In the end a guy walked through the departure area just before the flight was due collecting us all, then took us out of a locked door across the tarmac to probably the smallest plane I've ever been on. The safety card said DHC-6-300, I have no idea if that is really what it was, but it was tiny. (From a quick image search on the web, that probably is what it was.) One seat to the left of the aisle, two to the right. No overhead lockers, twin propeller engines. No safety briefing, the co-pilot (I know he was the co-pilot because he spent most of the flight reading a magazine) said "please keep your seatbelts fastened during the flight" in Spanish before we set off and that was it. The cockpit door was open the entire time, which I how I know the guy was reading a magazine. Quite an experience, and I got some half decent photos; I had one of the single seats, so got a good view.

After a bit of hanging around I got picked up by the hotel and am now here, latitude 54.93710S, longitude 67.63447W. This is about as far south as I go. The hotel seems very nice (as it ought to for USD200/night) although I don't know if they have wi-fi. It is about 1-1.5km walk into the town, which seems a bit scarily remote but I should be able to walk that, at least in daylight, and if not then it will be a bit of a rest cure.

The programme director was the guy who picked me up and he has invited me to go down to his office later to discuss any activities I might be interested in. I get the impression most people who come here are a lot more activity-oriented than I am. (There are six Norwegians arriving today who are going kayaking at Cape Horn, for example. I really don't think I fit in here.) I also suspect that anything I do express an interest in is going to be very expensive. I am here four days including today. I want to keep Friday free as I need to pay for the ferry that day and the last thing I want is to be worrying about that while doing anything else. I'd also quite like to have a day with nothing planned so I don't have to get up at some stupid time, or even a reasonable but specific time. But if they have anything suitable and not ridiculously expensive I may sign up for a tour or what have you on Wednesday and/or Thursday. I might as well take advantage of being here having spent so much time and money getting here in the first place.

I am a little hacked off actually. It really looks like there's no decent net access here, the hotel is in the middle of nowhere (at least if I was in the town I'm in the centre of whatever there is here) and seems oriented at fit, active people. I stayed here because it's the only hotel, as opposed to hostel, on the island, as far as I can tell. But it seems from my experience in Puerto Natales that although they are not necessarily super-luxurious, hostels are not synonymous with dormitories, as I had imagined. Oh well. We live and learn, and if I'm going to be stuck here for four days with no internet and nowhere to go at night at least it's comfortable.

I am in fact not going to go see the programme director right now. I will try to walk into town, no doubt getting lost, and see if I can get something to eat and if there are loads of ads for cheap tourist activities when I get there. The last thing I want is to have him sell me some overpriced crap filling up the next two days when I could have done something better and cheaper. I am taking a risk here as if I don't get back early enough he may no longer be around today, which would only leave me Thursday to do something, but sod it. I didn't come here to do activities as such, I came here to see the place and just be here, so I will now go out and manage to get lost on the only road on the island. Seriously however, I am taking my GPS so I can at least find my way back to the hotel safely.

Despite talking to the guy in the car over from the airport in English, I am genuinely unclear if there are taxis here. But fingers crossed if I need one. It's 12:24, and I may be gone some time. :-)

Oh, the room has a safe but no instructions on how to use it, just a numeric pad with letters A and B underneath and a few lights. So I'll just leave my laptop out to be stolen. I'm sure no one here is either that broke or would risk the damage to their perfect health that using a keyboard might cause anyway.



OK, it's now 3:30pm. I managed to figure out the safe, being the smart guy I am. I walked into town, which was not that difficult except that I didn't know where I was going, and nothing spoils an otherwise pleasant walk for me like the thought that I might be going in the wrong direction. However, I made it OK. The town is a little spread out but generally very small. I happened to remember from my 2005-era guide that there is a pub called El Pinguino in the Centro Commercial. I found the Centro Commercial, split somewhat pointlessly into Centro Comercial Norte and Centro Commercial Sur. It's tiny. I would say it's far smaller than, to give the only example I can think of, Cabot Square in Canary Wharf. I couldn't see the pub, but everything here seems very low-key and maybe it doesn't have a sign and you can only tell it if you know where it is. Maybe it's shut down.

I did manage to find a restaurant/bar, El Resto del Sur, which appears to be part of the Hostal Cabo del Hornos. That is the kind of place I should probably have stayed, it's in the town, such as it is, and the restaurant was acceptable. I ordered a pizza which turned out to be pretty good but enormous and (partly because I'd eaten four bread rolls while waiting for it to turn up) could only finish a bit more than half. The guy offered me the rest to take away, so I figured why not. It is sat unappetisingly in a plastic container by my bed now, I doubt I will eat it but the option is there if I want it I suppose.

There seem to be a lot of dogs barking here, which made the walk back a tiny bit fraught. The odd street dog I have seen seems as affably quiet as the average Chilean street dog, so I might infer the barking ones are pets and hence not able to get near me. It's a good job I brought the GPS, it gave me a lot more confidence when coming back to the hotel. I think it's actuallly more like 1.75km from the Plaza to the hotel, but that's OK. There was a light rain shower coming back but my non-waterproof coat held up fine. If it doesn't get any heavier I will be OK.

Amazingly enough I can now connect to the wifi network I saw here which didn't work earlier. I think my laptop must be a bit ropy about moving between networks while hibernated. Still, I have a connection now, which is the main thing.

I am going to make a few blog posts (this one, and some pending ones which got lost due to the weird behaviour with e-mails to the blog not working from my phone) and then go and find the programme director and talk to him. I think I can do no better than put myself in his hands. I saw one tour ad (a home-printed A4 page in the window of some tiny shop) offering various trips in a small boat, the cheapest being USD100 for a half-hour trip round some bay or something, most of them weighing in at USD600 or more. So unless it turns out to be insanely expensive for the hotel-organised stuff, I am better sticking with them. At the lower budget end, I have a suspicion I may be able to hire a bike from the hotel and it might be moderately pleasant to go for a ride if the weather is OK. (Lest anyone should laugh, I am a) not thinking about anything serious off-road b) I do have my own bike in London, for all that I hardly use it, so it's not as though I'm completely unable to ride a bike and c) the roads here are so quiet I can hardly get myself into trouble, especially if I take the GPS with me.)

I need to ask that programme director chap about the weather. I have this fear that unless I'm clad in £500 worth of Gore-Tex rainproof, windproof, everything-else-proof bad weather gear I am going to get stuck in a torrential downpour and catch hypothermia. I half expected the receptionist to call me back and say in a horrified voice "You're not going out dressed like that?" when I left to walk into town.

(Oh, they all speak English here very well, based on my limited experience so far. Even the guy at the restuarant did, and it's obviously a bit touristy but nothing fancy. I feel an idiot as I keep saying things to them in Spanish after they speak to me in English. And in any case I seem to be a in lose-lose situation, since if I speak bad Spanish when I know they speak good English, and they know I know, it looks a bit rude, but then if I speak to them in English am I falling into the "arrogant tourist" class? Sigh.)

I will also have a chat to the programme director about the ferry, they say they will do me a transfer there on Saturday morning (included in the room price) but I need to go over there on Friday to pay, so I need to find out where it is. I hope it's not miles away, as I still have my doubts about the existence of such a thing as a taxi in the area. (And, for that matter, a cash machine. I withdrew a further CLP200,000 this morning, so I have a fair amount of cash on me, but I need around CLP100,000 just to pay for the ferry on Friday.)

I guess I came here in part for the experience, so I shouldn't be too bothered that it's not quite what I expected. I expected something a bit like Puerto Natales actually turned out to be, in hindsight, and it's a bit shocking just how much smaller it is here. I do feel a bit better for having been able to get into town and back though. There are no streetlights on the road outside the town as far as I can tell, so unless something turns up I definitely won't be having any late nights here.

It does feel a bit less like the back of beyond now it turns out I do have wi-fi here. Good job too, that hostel in the centre has it, and I'm sure it's a damn sight cheaper than this place.

(Oh, it seems some of the blog posts from the phone did work after all. I am so confused. I was just about to give up on that and now it seems to work a bit. Oh well.)