Breakfast at the hotel. It’s still nice when it’s there, no matter what :)
Chile 2023
Day 27: October 28
Rio Gallegos - Monte León National Park - Puerto San Julián
Chile 2023
Itinerary
Rio Gallegos. We checked out of the hotel and are heading to the gas station.
At the gas station, another surprise awaited us — yet another very long line.
At first, we didn’t understand why, about 500 meters before the gas station, cars were standing in the right lane with their hazard lights on.
We drove past, realized it was the line for the gas station, turned around... We’re waiting.
Interestingly, at that moment our car was showing that we had 0 liters of gasoline...
Fortunately, the line was moving quite quickly.
We waited no more than half an hour.
Queue at the gas station. We’re almost at our destination.
Next on the plan was Monte León National Park.
We got there after lunch.
The weather wasn’t great, and I didn’t really feel like going there (about 20 km each way on a gravel road off the main road).
But Serzhyk was determined, so we went (after registering at the visitor center. Entrance to the park is free!).
Photographing guanacos in the park. Clouds are gathering...
The park turned out to be really great (despite the weather....)
There are several interesting places here.
The first stop is the place where Magellanic penguins live.
From the parking lot to the penguins, it’s 2.5 km one way.
As soon as we started walking, the rain began... And very strong wind.
How great that we have good windproof and rainproof jackets. Though our pants were half wet...
About 20 minutes later, just as we reached the penguins, the rain miraculously stopped.
The penguins are incredible.
They were so close! You could touch them.
And there were so many of them!
It is now the season when penguins are incubating their eggs. They mostly hide under small bushes.
The coastline. It’s not visible in the photo, but there were also many penguins by the ocean. They can dive to depths of up to 80 meters.
Serzhyk is photographing penguins. Most of the penguins are behind the fence.
The eggs are incubated alternately by both parents
The next stop was the rock where we saw sea lions.
The lions were very hard to see, just tiny brown dots moving around.
But we could hear him growling, so cool, it really sounds like a lion!
Path to the rock with sea lions. There are very beautiful views here.
Lions on the rock. The water here is an incredible color.
The third and final stop is the "island" with birds.
I am photographing the island
There are many, many birds living on the island.
There is a very beautiful coastline here.
We keep going. We arrived at our overnight stay very late.
Today we’re staying in a “modest” house.
Kitchen. There is also a small bedroom separately.
Our route for today (400 km) Rio Gallegos → Monte Leon National Park → Puerto San Julian (overnight)