Falkland Islands penguins.

The trip to see the penguins began with almost an hour’s drive across the very bumpy and boggy stretch between the highway and the beach. No road, just up and down humps and bumps. We were lucky and got the wildest cowboy driver who had a huge rack of buck horns attached to the front of his Land Rover. Most folks in Stanley seemed to have Land Rovers and they do go most anywhere. Anyway, we got to the penguin beach where thousands of the fluffy little tykes were waddling or standing around, apparently chatting, and grooming a few babies. The babies were darling; brown, fuzzy balls of fur. The “penguin place” is called Bluff Cove Lagoon and the owners, Hattie and Kevin Kilmartin, have opened their beach area to the public where three kinds of penguins gather – the Magellanics, the Gentoos, and the Kings. The feathered friends were molting at the time so they weren’t as active as they normally would have been and the ground was covered an inch deep in a carpet of tiny white feathers (as well as other less inviting things), but they were great fun to watch. After our sojourn with the penguins, the owners of the nearby Sea Cabbage Cafe served a delicious English tea and the best Coconut Oatmeal Lace cookies I’ve ever had.

The next day we headed back from the Falklands to Chile, the Straits of Magellan, Punta Arenas, and south to the “End of the World”, Ushuaia, Argentina. Then (drum roll please) it was time for the big deal -- twice around Cape Horn. We were a bit nervous, expecting giant rogue waves and hurricane winds, but were a little disappointed about the calm seas with only a bit of rain once or twice, and a surprising amount of sunshine. Kind of a let-down, but we now have our official Around Cape Horn certificates to go with our Crossing the Equator certificates. Maybe even more impressive than the rounding of The Horn; it is just a rocky shore with some lumpy granite rocks, after all, was the trip through the Chilean Fjords. There were a number of beautiful, blue ice glaciers, icebergs, and massive waterfalls springing out of the barren brown hills.