Boating the Beagle

Today we went on a boat to the Beagle Channel. This is the channel of water between Tierra Del Fuego and Antarctica and the place where the Atlantic meets the Pacific. Strangely enough, hangovers were not present today, at least not in my head. And this is strange because we spent the whole night doing the usual, telling great stories and discovering the lot of us to be of the same ilk. Great!

So, the boat was good, cold but good. Fact lovers: We went to an island where the Shaman lived naked in middens (holes in the ground) right up till late 19th century. They covered themselves in sea lion blubber to keep out the cold. And it is cold here (you can imagine... we´re right next to Antarctica). I don´t fancy the stench of seal all over me, but each to their own. There is also a moss-like plant called bollocks (if that´s how you spell it) much to our constant amusment

After beginning to get worried about being bored to death on a cold boat, we saw a penguin colony on a little island. Different kind if penguins that actually have flying wings. Gus got a great picture of two kissing... awww!

Then, the highlight of the day was the sea lion colony. We got right up to the island and they were playing in the water, jumping in and out making rainbow shapes, sitting together on the rock, playing, nuzzling and looking very, very adorable. The noise they make and the smell that they whack out tells a different story, but it was soooo great to be that close to them that nobody minded this.

And after a day of clicking our cameras and blinking etc, I was so tired I went to sleep in the hostel before the night´s game of 21 began (a very funny game that ended with me crawling home from a nightclub at 4am to tell everyone that I really, really loved them - you will get no more details than that).

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