Punta Arenas, Patagonian Chile

Punta Arenas is one of those outposts at the end of the world, which, because of its unique energy, attracts wanderers from all corners of the planet. There is an intense creative energy here, and passionate people with myriad talents and strong intelligence.

Our guide, Dominique, is from Lille, France. She moved here some years ago and married a local man. She speaks French, Spanish, Greek, and English. Her background is in zoology - she seems uniquely suited for guiding people through this wonderland of flora and fauna. She communicates the present conflicts facing Chile in terms of environmental protection versus exploitation of the tremendous natural resources here by the northern part of Chile. Only one percent of Chile's population lives in the Patagonian region - 150,000 people.

It is vast and silent here. These people are the guardians of the third largest fresh water source on the planet. Do you know that it takes 20 gallons of water to process one gallon of oil? Chile has no guidelines in place for cleansing the used water before it is dumped back into the pristine glacial melt....therefore poisoning the water, the fish, the animals. If the old ways of doing things continue,soon this magnificent area will no longer exist.

Our mission today was to go to the Pinguinera of Otway Sound, a special preserve for the Magellan penguins. There are about 2,000 nesting couples who return here every year. Their offspring hatch between mid-November and early December, so we missed the downy gray chick phase, but got to see lots of the young penguins hanging out in the crowd scene down at the beach. The young will leave by the end of March, and not come back for 5 years, when they reach maturity.

I got to see such funny behavior - a male trying to steal someone else's burrow, and that couple coming out and doing this low-pitched 'hoo hoo hoo' sound as they approached him menacingly. Do you know why penguins are black and white? It's all about body temperature control, and survival camouflage. On land, when they are cold, they turn their black backs to the sun to soak up and store the heat; when they are too warm they face their white bellies to the sun to provide some air conditioning for themselves. When they swim in the ocean, their black backs are invisible against the black water to their avian predators; at the same time, their white bellies are invisible to a predator looking up to the 'white' sky seen from underwater.

Nature is perfect in every respect - destruction as well as creation.

I had thought that Chile and Argentina were still not too friendly with each other, but Dominique corrected this impression. She said that, in years past, when no one understood the vast mineral wealth lying beneath the pampas of Patagonia, Chile gave away much of that land to Argentina, including Tierra del Fuego. She says that Chile's history in Patagonia is unique, in that they have never been martial towards the other countries. I don't know if this is true or not, but it is one local person's perspective.

As we have moved south along the tremendously long Chilean coastline, I have come to a greater appreciation of this country. It covers so many degrees of latitude that the physical environment from North to South is greatly varied. The South is incredibly beautiful, and incredibly harsh to live in. The people here are strong, resourceful, independent. I think they want to secede from the Northern part of the country as they give most of their natural resources to the North, and receive no benefits in return.