by Tom Michell
“Oh, he’s just a boisterous puppy. He’ll calm down soon enough,” she said as she rearranged her coat and recovered her breath. “But it would be an error for anyone to enter my brother’s property uninvited. Come and meet him. Ah! He’s here now.”
An unoiled gate squeaked and was held open for us by a stocky, swarthy man, well advanced in years. His still powerful frame spoke of a lifetime of labor, and his twinkling eyes matched his smile.
Inside the gate he shook my hand and said, “Welcome to our home, señor. I am Mano. I hope you weren’t alarmed by Reno. Sometimes people are, you know, but he wouldn’t harm a fly, would you, boy?” The dog’s tail stirred up a cloud of dust as he wagged it even faster. Reno was lying on the ground at his master’s feet, head erect and at attention. His tongue lolled out of his mouth as he panted, more in restraint than in recovery, awaiting a command. One of his eyes was green, the other brown, and both were watching me intently. There was something about that dog’s demeanor that suggested he was laughing at me.
“Ah! And this must be Juan Salvado,” Mano continued, making a deep bow and looking at the penguin, who was walking forward as he examined the unfamiliar surroundings. “You’re both most welcome. Come in now and we’ll have something to drink. Nola! Our guests are here! Reno, bed! Mateo! Donna, Gloria! Where are you, grandchildren? Come and see our guests! Come!”
No sooner had these commands been given and we had started walking toward the house, than a woman whom I took to be Nola approached with a large tray of mixed refreshments, and young children appeared from different directions. One of the girls was clutching a nervous-looking white rabbit while the boy whittled a stick with his penknife. Reno instantly ran toward the house and into a wooden kennel.
Mano turned and led the way to a corner of the courtyard in front of the house, which was shaded by an ancient bougainvillea creeper with many purple bracts surrounding the little white flowers; the plant had been trained to grow through a wooden frame supported by poles.
Mano sat in a chair, which was clearly his, and motioned me to another. “Would you like a drink?” he asked, “I myself will have mate. Do you like mate?” But before I could say that the Argentinean tea (pronounced “ma-tay”) reminded me of nothing so much as an infusion of dried grass taken from a field too recently grazed by cattle, he had ordered Nola to bring some more, a command she had already anticipated and carried out. As she passed she offered to put the fish I had brought into the fridge, but after she did she brought a few back on a plate so that I could show the children how to feed Juan Salvado.
And so began a delightful interlude, in which this charming, extraordinary, and exasperating man ordered the people around him to do things that they had already done and kept up a continuous commentary about things everybody could see perfectly well for themselves.
“Donna, put the fish in the fridge. Quickly, girl, before it goes bad.”
“Maria, get another cushion for the señor. He needs another cushion.”
“Mateo, where is your brother Ernesto? Tell him to come here at once—I need him.”
“Donna! Where are you, girl? Never where you should be. Here, girl. Go and tell the neighbors to come and meet the señor and Juan Salvado the penguin.”
“Gloria, get some fish and feed the penguin. He must be tired after such a long walk. I want to see him eating.” Nola had already put a few sprats on a dish and placed them beside me.
“Good, here you are at last, Ernesto. Go and get some more chairs.” (This to a young man who staggered in beneath an armful of chairs, which he then set about arranging for a large party of people.)
“Nola! Come here, woman! Come and look at this penguin, he is such a handsome bird, don’t you think? Look at him scratching his head with his foot! Did you know, Maria, that the señor found him in Brazil and brought him home? Nola! Where are you?”
“Now, Ernesto, I want you to put the chairs around for lots of people to sit down. Ernesto!”
“Ah! There you are, Nicolás and Martina. Welcome, neighbors. Come and look at this wonderful penguin. Look, he can scratch his head with his foot. Did you ever see the like? Sit down, there—good.”
“Ha ha ha! Look at the penguin! Martina, go inside and get some of the fish from the fridge—I want to see the penguin eating some fish, don’t you, Nicolás?”
“What’s that rabbit doing here? Take it away, girl!”
“Ah! You’re back at last, Mia. Whatever took you so long? Never mind that now! Come and look at this penguin!”
“Martina! Have you found the fish? Maria, go and show Martina where Donna has put the fish.” I pushed the dish over toward him.
“Oh! Here they are, everybody, I’ve found them! Now come here, all of you, and look at this! Juan Salvador is going to eat some fish! I’m going to feed him. Have you ever seen a penguin before, neighbor? Look how he can scratch his head!”
And so he picked up a fish and held it out. Juan Salvado stood patiently for the fish to be dangled within his reach, but Mano’s attention was taken by the next event, so penguin and fish remained about a foot apart.
“Look, everybody, Joaquín’s just arrived. Did you get all that done? Just as I told you, Joaquín? No problems, I hope? Come and look at this penguin, Joaquín. He was rescued, you know, and now he is going to stay with us for a few days. Now, I have some wire, I want you to make sure that the old chicken run is secure for him. Oh! Where is the wire? Maria! Where did I put that wire? Agghhh!”
At that very moment Juan Salvador snatched the fish from Mano’s hand and almost took his fingers, too; his arm had slowly been descending while he was talking, and once the fish was in range, Juan Salvado didn’t stand on ceremony. The fish was gone with the familiar resounding clack. Mano’s hand shot up. “Oh!” he said, checking his fingers. “Did you see that? Come and look at this, everybody! Look how quickly the penguin eats the fish. Oh, I’ve never seen anything like it! Gloria, child, come here—you can be next to give the penguin a fish. Do it as I have just shown you. Well, go on, girl, it won’t hurt you.”
Gloria took a deep breath, picked up a fish, and bravely held it out for Juan Salvado in a much more considerate way, quite unlike Mano’s demonstration.
And so Mano kept up his running commentary. More and more people kept arriving—friends, relations, and neighbors—and I quickly lost track of his careful introductions. They sat on chairs or on the ground, drinking mate in a semicircle around Juan Salvado, who, as always, loved being the center of attention and did everything he could to steal the limelight from Mano. He preened his feathers and ate fish to the great appreciation of his audience, who watched spellbound.
Juan Salvado appeared to be totally content, as always, in appreciative company, so it was easy for me to make my apologies to Maria and to leave unnoticed to set off for my trip to visit wild penguins, completely happy that she and the others would look after him over the four or five days I would be away.
“But will it hatch?”
The next day arrived and with it my long-promised expedition to Peninsula Valdés. I had worked tirelessly to get everything prepared in order to leave Buenos Aires as soon as I could get away. I had a folder full of papers, each authenticated by a local notary public, to show that I was the legal owner of the bike, and I had another set of papers to validate the bona fides of those notaries. Interestingly, none of the papers I was required to obtain concerned the roadworthiness of the machine.
In the college workshops I had carefully crafted two pannier boxes for the motorcycle from plywood and angle aluminum, designed to carry the two spare tires I was going to take as part of the all-inclusive tool kit for nursing the 200 cc Gilera through the expedition. Through uncompromising determination I had been able to pack spare fuel and oil, a tent and sleeping bag, an alcohol stove, and minuscule rations, together with one change of clothes and a pocket-size first aid kit. I was going to rough it, live wild!
And so I had taken the motorbike by train to Ba
hía Blanca. Rail travel was marvelously cheap, just a few pesos per mile. It wasn’t quick and the distances were immense, but it meant I could cover the first five hundred miles in less than a day. I had to travel with the bike in the guard’s van along with everything I’d brought with me, for I couldn’t be sure it would be safe if I left it unattended.
—
Argentina is blessed with a long and spectacular coastline, parts of which are notable breeding grounds for maritime birds and animals. Peninsula Valdés, which lies some nine hundred miles by road from St. George’s, is one such, renowned not only for colonies of penguins but also for sea lions, elephant seals, and whales.
Situated on the northeastern corner of the southern province of Chubut, which is larger than England and Scotland combined, the peninsula is almost an island, being connected to the mainland only by the narrowest isthmus. The area of Peninsula Valdés is almost exactly the same size as that of Cornwall or Long Island and resembles, as much as it resembles anything, the shape of an embryonic penguin joined to the mainland by an umbilical cord. In consequence there are two large gulfs of very sheltered water, with a total area equal to that of the “island.” The combination of ocean currents, latitude, and topography has produced a very desirable location for pelagic birds and mammals to assemble annually. Even today, the total human population of the entire province of Chubut is no larger than that of Cornwall, half a million. Here one can find peace and solitude, another reason why its wildlife is so rich, and even before I met Juan Salvado I had wished to explore this wild and wonderful region.
I was aware that I was vulnerable to many perils, traveling alone in such an isolated place. In those days many Argentines who could afford it had bodyguards, and guns were legal, available, and inexpensive, so many travelers carried them even if they didn’t like to admit it. I had often considered buying a firearm but was uncertain if it really made for safety.
—
I had navigated south from Bahía Blanca along the coast to San Antonio and on to the peninsula. The bike performed astonishingly well and I made excellent progress. I filled my fuel cans at every opportunity and enquired about the distance to the next supply. I found my own fuel at little roadside eateries and replenished my supplies so that I always had sufficient food for a couple of days.
The geology of Valdés is stunning—low-lying and semi-desert—but this made the contrast of the rich wildlife all the more exceptional. The roads were all unpaved and clouds of dust rose behind me. From the high ground I could see long curving beaches and the ocean stretching out beyond. Areas of sparse vegetation made it easy to take the bike off-road, and I made little detours to get better views. In my ebullience, I had imagined penguins would be easy to find, if not positively flocking out to greet me in the way Juan Salvado did every morning on the terrace. Instead, on the beaches along the coast of the peninsula I saw pinnipeds—elephant seals, sea lions, and seals—gathered in great profusion for the mating season, and to have their young.
Adult male South American sea lions are magnificent animals, and well named. Having quite a short muzzle, a huge head, and shoulders with a magnificent mane of orange-brown fur, they are really quite leonine. Gathered on the beach, defending their territories and their harems, they would raise their noses as high as they could in order to dominate rivals.
The popularity of the waters around Valdés with these creatures made them rich hunting grounds for the killer whales that circled offshore, but I witnessed these remarkable sea lions leap from the water and clamber steep inclines to access the sanctuary of the many plateaus, a feature of the Valdés coastline. Somehow the adults were able to get a purchase on those craggy slopes and so snatch defenseless cubs from the water and lift them to safety by the scruffs of their necks. There were no barriers at this time separating the wildlife from tourists like me, but discretion ensured that I never approached one closer than about thirty yards. At that range they rolled their heads sideways, sucked in their cheeks, and looked at me with damp twinkling eyes. It was a gesture I decided to respect.
Sea elephant bulls are even bigger than sea lions—much, much bigger—and much uglier, having a pendulous protuberance like a large crumpled boot where they could reasonably expect to have a nose. An adult male of this leviathan species can exceed twenty feet in length and four tons in weight, more than twice the length and ten times the weight of a sea lion, and even thirty yards didn’t seem an adequate safety margin, although they are far less agile on land than sea lions and managed to make the latter seem the epitome of grace.
Everywhere I looked I was transfixed by duels of shocking violence as the great bulls of each species fought for local dominance. One grim battle ended with the loser being hurled down a precipice. Combatants reared up and fell like trees onto their adversaries, slashing, biting, and ripping flesh in the process, oblivious to the cows and calves around. The air echoed with these encounters and the very beach seemed to shake. The wounds of both victor and vanquished were terrible to see. I wasn’t surprised that I didn’t see any penguins near these territories.
Further from the coast, grasslands and scrubby flora were home to ñandú or rhea, an ostrich-like flightless bird standing some four and a half feet high, and guanaco, a deer-like relative of the camel. Being considerably taller than the vegetation, both were very conspicuous and were wary of me if I approached them too closely, but would regard me with only passing interest as I rode past on the dirt tracks.
—
On my first visit to Valdés, I didn’t see another human being for the whole time I was there. Neither did I see a penguin, despite searching for nearly two whole days. I put the latter issue down to lack of local knowledge and a coastline of several hundred miles, so with intelligence of the existence of other colonies further south, I decided to cut my losses. The following day I made my way to Punta Tombo, where, I had been told, I would be certain to find penguins in what was apparently a favorite breeding ground.
At some point during the ride to Punta Tombo I knew for certain that a storm was brewing. The temperature had dropped, the sky had darkened, the wind had changed direction, and its strength had increased considerably. Riding a motorbike in very heavy rain on dirt roads is impossible, but being caught out in a hailstorm on the pampas can be dangerous, even fatal, because the hailstones can grow extremely large. Immediately I looked for a stand of trees that would afford protection from the rain I expected at any minute. At the next track, I turned off the road and took shelter under the largest of six or so eucalyptus trees in a spinney. The noise as the storm started was quite unexpected. Initially the hailstones were small, no bigger than raisins, and rattled through the trees, but with the storm’s growing intensity came an increase in their size. By the time it reached its zenith they were as big as golf balls or chicken eggs, crashing through the trees, ripping off leaves and twigs, and bouncing and clattering all around with a deafening noise. In free fall, hailstones like these can do real damage to glass, cars, livestock, and people; I had been told that hailstones had been known to reach the size of croquet balls and could kill cattle. I kept my motorcycle helmet on and sheltered as best I could in the lee of a tree, avoiding almost all of them. Eventually the storm subsided, but it was still impossible to continue because the road remained covered with ice. There was nothing to be done but wait until it melted. I thought about Juan Salvado taking cover beneath his table on the terrace and assumed the penguins here would seek sanctuary in the water when they found themselves assailed by cannonballs of ice.
The minor road that led to Punta Tombo was a simple potholed dirt track, so the hundred or so miles from the Valdés Peninsula to the point took a full day, but when I eventually arrived, the sight was so breathtaking, so spectacular, so abounding with Magellan penguins that I knew it would have been worth it even if I’d had to push the bike the entire way.
All around and along the coast to the north were penguins in uncountable numbers. Whereas Valdés would take months
to explore thoroughly, Punta Tombo is a peninsula only two miles long. What made this little location so much more desirable to penguins was unclear to me—perhaps it really was the absence of pinnipeds—but I had to believe that a million penguins couldn’t be wrong about their choice. As I watched, every single bird was doing something that I had learned was characteristic behavior of penguins. There were penguins standing with their wings out like scarecrows and watching the other birds, heads constantly moving; there were penguins walking slowly; penguins running; penguins rushing into the water, swimming or climbing back out of the sea and calling to their mates; there were penguins marching determinedly up the beach to feed hungry chicks, penguins scratching their heads with their feet or rubbing their heads and necks against their chests and sides, penguins shaking their bottoms, and penguins preening.
It would be wrong to dismiss preening too quickly, because penguins spend so much time on this single activity. Using their beaks, penguins were preening their chests, their backs, and their fronts; they were preening in front of their wings and behind their wings, under their wings and on top of their wings and along their wings, over their shoulders, round their necks, round their legs, between their legs, under their bellies, round their tails—indeed, every part of them that was accessible to their agile beaks. And for those feathers that weren’t within reach of their beaks, they used their toes.
Thanks to Juan Salvado, I’d had the opportunity to study penguin feathers, to see they grow not at random points but in rows and columns that together form a pattern around their bodies. I watched as, with faultless attention, each bird worked through every feather according to some formula of its own, just as Juan Salvado did every day, making sure that each one was in perfect condition: waterproof, supple, and sliding without a snag as it moved. Just as feathers have given birds mastery of the air, so have they allowed birds to colonize the earth’s waters as well. Seeing this process close up made me understand just how remarkable a feat of evolutionary engineering feathers are, both feathers in general and penguin feathers in particular. I couldn’t help but wonder at them. If penguins continue to evolve for another million years, is any further development possible? I couldn’t see any possibility of improvement in performance.