Cruise day 9

Wake up call came at 6:00. I showered (it is water conservation period) quickly and off to breakfast. We boarded our tender to shore by 7:45 and on a bus to Otway Sound and Penguin reserve. The bus traveled over an hour, mostly over a gravel road. We rode through Punta Arenas and saw trees growing and saw trees growing at a 1 o’clock angle because the wind is so constantly strong--often at 70 MPH--preventing straight growth. Ropes have to be strung on the streets to keep people from being driven into the buildings on especially windy days. But today was beautiful and relatively calm with winds at 20 MPH. We walked to the penguin preserve featuring Magellanic penguins up close. This is the month when the young are learning to swim and we watched. On the way we saw more than 5 condors, an endangered species. Some even landed and fed on something then took off. Many people never see these birds, and the bird lovers were ecstatic. We saw some Nandus--native birds resembling Ostrich) caring for chicks. The males do this. We had driven across the land portion of the Strait of Magellan to get to the preserve. The walkway through the preserve was slatted and dangerous. We saw a man later that had tripped and blackened his eyes. He looked to be in a lot of pain. We returned to the shop for lunch and a nap. I went back to town. I found an Internet spot and dumped 8 pages of e-mail and sent a few. I found an out door market and bought a key chain for the nurse in Weslaco. I returned with another box of wine and it passed the X-ray again. The wine cost 1210 Chilean pecos--about $2. Tom had got sick on the bus earlier and cancelled the wine party for today. Bob came to our cabin for some wine and went to dinner with us after we went to the early show. After that came the required chocoholic buffet. We were somewhat restrained in our consumption. On to bed.