Punta de Choros

Hola!! My phone is being stupid and I cannot sync any of my photos or get them off my phone onto the computer, but I do have my pictures from my camera and luckily I used that a lot this weekend!

We left Friday evening after work for La Serena and arrived at about 1:00am. We checked into our hostel, went right to sleep, and had to be up early to begin our tour on Saturday morning to Punta de Choros. Our original plans were to have all 6 of us interns go together: Me, Katie, Natalie, Mahathi, Dakota, and Madelyn. However, Madelyn ended up having to work and Natalie ended up having an emergency surgery, so Dakota stayed back to take care of her and just Katie, Mahathi, and I went.

Punta de Choros is a beach pueblo about an hour north of La Serena with a population of 1,000 people, most of them fisherman. The drive up there was so rural and on dirt roads, a lot of it through the mountains. It felt so normal to me, like life back home! (Minus the mountains). The reason a lot of people go visit Punta de Choros is because there are two islands off the coast that are home to the Humboldt National Penguin Reserve!

The tour guide picked us up at our hostel at 8:30am and we headed up north. The rest of the group consisted of various Chileans from different parts of the country, and one Indian. We were about 15 in total. We arrived at Punta de Choros and got life jackets and everything set up to go out on a boat! Our boat tour consisted of a boat ride out to Isla Choros, where the penguins actually live, and to Isla Damas, the neighboring island where we got to disembark for an hour and explore. The third island in this triangle is further north off the shore near the Atacama desert.

Here is our trusty boat, Doncan Aaron!

It was a cloudy, gray day which was kind of sad, but the water and the islands were still so beautiful. The water was absolutely gorgeous! A bright aqua color I've never seen before. I am sure it shimmers when the sun is actually shining.

We headed out to Isla Damas and got close to the edge, but we cannot disembark because the penguins are very scared of humans. As we got closer to the island, we saw a couple of sea otters and a lot of birds. Finally, we saw a penguin! They are SO hard to see though, because they have great camouflauge. Can you find the penguin in the photo below? Points to you if you can. He is tricky.

We actually only saw two penguins on the island which was sad, but it is their nesting season right now so they stay high up on the island to protect themselves and their babies from predators and humans. It makes sense. However, we did get to see a ton of other birds, sea otters, a whole pile of sea lions, and best of all, dolphins!! The Chileans say you have to get lucky to see the dolphins because it doesn't happen very often, but we got to see a whole pile of them! My best dolphin pics and videos are on my phone, but I do have this one to share!

It was so fun! They came up close to the boat and were swimming and splashing around. They even started to jump out of the water and do some tricks in the air. They sure like to entertain, and these are wild dolphins! 

Here are some of the tons of sea lions we saw! It is crazy to me that their fins are strong enough to allow them to climb on top of big rocks like that. But in these cold waters, it's necessary so that they don't get too cold and contract tuberculosis.

Then we headed to Isla Damas to explore. It was such a picturesque island. White sand, aqua water, beautiful scenery. I can only imagine how amazing it is in the sunshine!

It is a very small island so we were able to walk across it and see the ocean on both sides which was really cool. I picked up a bunch of shells on the beach and Katie and I explored the island. It was such a cool experience. I have never really been out in the middle of the ocean before!

Then we headed back toward Punta de Choros. I was getting splashed like crazy on the way back, and the water was SO COLD. No wonder penguins are able to live there even though it is in the northern part of Chile. We got back to the shore and then our tour group stopped at a cool olive farm restaurant for lunch! I have never seen an olive tree before, so that was cool, and they made us delicious homemade Chilean food. It was so great. I chatted with a young couple that was on the trip with us and they were super nice. We actually ended up running into them in Vicuña the following day!

There was also a swing at the olive farm. Obviously irresistable to college grads. 

We headed back to La Serena and I think all 3 of us fell asleep in the van. I know I did! We got back around 7pm, and walked to the supermarket to get some food to make for dinner at the hostel. We were exhausted. We ate, showered, and went to bed at around 10pm. It was a full, busy day after a long night of traveling!

There's a brief recap of Day 1 in La Serena! (Even though it was spent in Punta de Choros).

Giant whale pelvis! Haha 

It's like being on Survivor.