Penguins and Sea Elephants

Watching Happy Feet put me in the right mood for our visit to the Magallenic penguins...but what we saw was a little different from Mumbo & Co.

First of all, the Magallenic penguins live in little holes in the sand near the beach. It's actually pretty hot where they live - not at all like the Antarctic ice. At first glance, they look a little bit like badgers curled up in the ground. But their waddling is exactly what you expect from penguins (unfortunately, none of them were tap dancing). The park we visited allowed us to get just a few feet away from the penguins; a few of them were actually living right under the wooden walkway.

From the penguins, we went to another nearby park to see sea elephants. The sea elephants could not have been a sharper contrast to the cute and cuddly penguins. These animals are pretty hideous. Their nose is a like a stout elephant trunk which grows every year. Instead of waddling, they just roll around the sand and sometimes hop into the water for a swim. Orcas sometimes come up to the beach to eat a baby sea elephant, but for better or worse, we did not see that.