Wednesday. Oh My Gosh! Penguins!!!! I still can’t get over it. I didn’t just see penguins, I saw lots of penguins and they came right up to me – played with my shoelaces, backpack straps. It was so cool.

OK – I have to confess. When I saw Falkland Islands on the ship’s itinerary I was very much “who cares?” But, whatever - it’ll be a place not many people go to that I can say I’ve been. Prior to leaving home, I had been pleasantly surprised to find out they have penguins on the islands, so I figured that would be a cool excursion and honestly, there wasn’t much else to do except walk around Port Stanley (capital). So, I booked before I left. Good thing. All the penguin excursions were completely sold out before we even boarded in Buenos Aires.

They picked us up in small boats (held 12 passengers) and took us to Sparrow Cove. There we boarded jeeps for a cross-country expedition to the rookeries. This was fun! Basically, we just took off across the fields, bumping and skidding through the countryside. Took about 30 minutes and I banged my head really good twice. There were five of us to a jeep. 

When we arrived, the rangers instructed us where we could go (anyplace outside the rope) and not to touch, feed, etc. There were hundreds of penguins. It was end of nesting season (we were there late January), so most of the juveniles were close to adult size, but easy to spot because they still had down. We spent about an hour and a half wandering around and between two rookeries. The penguins were as curious about us as we were about them and they crossed the ropes to check us out. Guess the rangers didn’t tell them they had to stay inside!!! 

It was fabulous. 

A couple more people joined our solo group last evening. Jim (the guy Mary and I had dinner with the first evening) was on same shore excursion as I was, so I told him where to meet us before dinner and someone invited Anita. We are growing.