Day 5 — The Road Less Travelled (is Really Empty)

Most locations we visited during our South American travels were profiled in our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook. If not profiled, they were at least mentioned in passing. Today, however, we resolved to step off the beaten track, to go where no Lonely Planet editor had gone before — to visit the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve.

You see, one of our goals during our South American rambles was to see a penguin. They’re cute, they’re cuddly, and if recent box office returns are any indication, they’re almost as marketable as babies and puppies. Trouble is, we couldn’t figure out how to fit Patagonia into an already packed itinerary. Luckily, it turns out that penguins don’t just hang around the southern parts of South America. In fact, certain species, particularly the Humboldt and Galapagos penguins, are found thousands of miles to the north of the Straits of Magellan. While a trip to the Galapagos islands was unlikely, the Humboldt penguins obligingly nested up and down the coast of Chile and Peru. Some of the largest colonies were in — surprise! — the Humboldt Penguin Reserve. So, with a penguin sighting within our grasp, we struck out to find it.

The trouble with stepping off the beaten track is that it can be very difficult to find your way. To begin with, no bus from Bahia Inglesa made a stop anywhere near the nature preserve. The best we could manage was to be dropped off some 75 km inland from the anonymous fishing village where we hoped to charter a boat. From there, we were told taht we could catch a “local bus” that would take us the rest of the way. We arrived at the drop off point around 2pm. It was a dusty roadside turnout outside the small town of Domeyko. Inquiring with a few locals, we learned that there was indeed a local bus, and that it would pick us up at the next roadside turnout down the highway. When we asked when it would arrived, we received the helpful “despues un rato” — after a while.

Taking this information at face value, we walked to the empty and unmarked bus shelter and began to wait. Time passed. We watched trucks and buses roll by one after another on the main highway, but nothing came or went along the little road to the coast. After an hour had passed, I had not seen a single vehicle turn down the road we were taking. This was not good. (Indeed, we eventually learned that “un rato” in this case was approximately 22 hours, as the bus only came once a day, around 12 noon.)

Bleak as things seemed however, all was not lost. Just as we were assessing our prospects and debating how many days it would take to walk the 75 km to the coast, a car turned onto the coast road and rolled towards us. We didn’t even have to flag it down — the driver stopped as if he assumed we’d want arrive. In the car was a couple and their young baby girl. It seemed to be as safe a ride as one could hope for, so we hopped in with hardly a second thought.

A short drive and a friendly chat later, and we were there. “There” turned out to be a tiny seaside village, home to five families (three of which were apparently not at home). We arrived too late to get a ride out to the penguins’ island fortress, but an old couple named Patty and Jose offered to put us up for the night, and take us out the next morning. They’d loan us a tent, a mattress, and a couple of sleeping bags — everything we’d need to spend a night on the beach. Hotels being rarer than buses in the area, we gratefully accepted.

Later that night, we enjoyed our first home-cooked meal in a very long time, and then were lulled to sleep by the sound of the ocean, just outside our tent flap.