On Monday I had heard that there was a large population of Magellanic Penguins on a beach near Punta Arenas so I decided to check it out. I took an hour and a half bus ride out of Punta Arenas to a beach with a settlement of penguins. They were just chilling on the beach and waddling, doi
ng what penguins do. The wind was blowing with great forc
e making it generally quite hard to walk. As far as the eye could see, was knee high grass until the beach. About 60 or so penguins were huddled in the sand relatively immobile as they seemed to be sleeping. They had their backs to the forceful wind so as to allow it to blow over them without pushing them over. A couple others had huddled into a log where they were protected from the wind. Every so often a number of them would flock into the ocean for their daily fill of fish. Within the knee high grass, a number of penguins had made underground burrows where they seemed to be keeping away from the cold. I must say it was quite a strange sight to see a group of penguins and not 20 yards away, a group of cows.On Tuesday, I said farewell to my Spanish friend and took a bus to nearby Puerto Natales, the starting off point for treks to Torres del Paine National Park. I found a backpacker's hostel where there were tons of backpackers just as me. The hostel was probably filled all w
ith backpackers, I want to say probably 70% of which were from Israel, some from Santiago, and some Europeans. As I was walking down the street while doing some errands it was completely sunny, and not 10 minutes later a typical thunderstorm was pouring down upon the town with its dark grey clouds. The wind is so forceful that the weather changes in southern Chile within minutes. That night, the Israelis wanted to go for a night on the town to some pubs so I decided to go along. It was at the bar, that I saw where they stereotype about “don’t be a jew” came from. The whole time during while we were at the bar, the group of Israelis were continuously trying to bargain with the waiter. If the menu said a Rum and Coke costs 2 dollars, they would say “we’ll order 5 for 7 dollars”, always trying to get more for less. I feel that there are some situations where bargaining is appropriate, but not in a formal establishment like a restaurant with set prices. I asked them why they tried to bargain so much and the response they gave me was that as Israelis, they majority travel for 8 months while the rest travel for 2 months. For that reason, they have to save all the money they can or by the end of the trip they’ll be completely broke, hence their incessant bargaining. So that’s their reasoning, although I probably wouldn’t do the same.
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