At the End of the World

by Kaley Wetekamp (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Argentina

“Just fifteen minutes till we’re there, okay?” Our guide’s rhetorical question is answered with silent nods. The tarp-topped dingy we are huddled in darts across the midnight green waters of the Beagle Channel. Outside, the wind’s banshee wails cut the air and pound our fragile shelter with determined fists. From around my hood I turn to my friend, Shannon, hunched over next to me and see my expression mirrored in hers; torn between the anticipation of reaching our destination and the reality of re-entering the frigid air. We’ve each worn every layer of clothing we brought and still it is not enough. Albeit bitter cold, the mystic of the southernmost tip of Argentina that claims the title of “The End of the World” proved too much to pass up when Shannon and I were looking for an adventure to go on together. We are headed to Isla Martillo, better known as Penguin Island. While the natural sites of the region are rigidly protected, we had secured a spot on the only tour that allows you to walk among the rookery of 3,000 pairs of Magellanic penguins that nest there. The boat ebbs and lurches as it pushes forward, victim to the whims of the water, while the landscape of Tierra del Fuego waves past. The Martial Mountains are filled with Southern Beech forests boasting deformed, wind-sculpted trees, and the surrounding glacier-made drumlin foothills are covered in fields of wayward grasses stuck in rock-hard gray earth. What creature could survive in this merciless country? As we approach land I’m still not sure what to expect at the end of the world. --- I toss my legs over the side of the dingy’s balloon edge and slide onto the rocky beach of the football field-sized island. Something just off the shore occasionally thrashes its head above water before disappearing below. “That’s a sea lion eating a penguin,” we are told. A blunt reminder of the harsh reality we have found ourselves in, as if we needed one. A short ways down the beach we can see penguins scattered about. Momentarily forgetting the paralyzing chill, our group becomes giddy with excitement. With great precaution our guide leads us to the cluster of knee-high black and white animals. As we marvel at their majesty and pull out smartphones, a gust of sea breeze sends a wave of wet dog and rotting fish stench over all of us. With incredulous glances at each other we all politely ignore the penguins’ intense odor. We coo over them as if they were our own children, and they reply with incorrigible squawks from their agape gullets. We move on to another bunch with each one of them pancaked on top a bed of pebbles, keeping their incubating eggs warm. We again inch our way towards them, although they take no interest in us. Or anything for that matter. Shannon and I take note of the white lines fanning out from each of the rock piles. Lighter stones, possibly? Or salt stains? Suddenly a streak of milky liquid ejects from beneath the tail of a lying penguin. Shannon and I stop in disbelief. She leans towards me, “Is that…?” Yes. Feces. One more among a million other meter-long strokes on the ground. For the next hour we continue observing dopey penguins doze anywhere that suits them, and waddle about aimlessly. The slightest of uneven ground sends them flippers-over-head flailing- a physical comedy routine the likes of Charlie Chaplin. By now Shannon and I openly gawk and laugh at the absurdity of the situation. So this is the highly evolved species that thrives in this stark climate while we suffer. Lazy, whiny, smelly, clumsy, pooping penguins. --- As Isla Martillo fades from view, so the cold does from my body while I rest comfortably in the toasty cabin of the catamaran taking us back to port. Once again, the dark fairytale world floats by- Argentina on my right, Chile on my left. This daunting place that upon first glance seemed to reject all life was hiding an endearing secret. I close my eyes, at last relaxed and unguarded surrounded by what had once been too impossible to imagine.