Category: My Last Continent

This startling subhead appeared in a recent Atlantic article about Antarctic travel, in a story that makes very good points about how and why travel to the last continent is becoming a lot less sustainable.

Earlier this year, I wrote a post asking: Have we reached the tipping point for Antarctic travel? I pointed out that when I went to Antarctica in 2004, there were about 20,000 tourists a year visiting the continent, and by the time My Last Continent was published in 2016, that number had doubled. This past season, that number reached more than 100,000.

In the eyes of many, we have indeed reached the tipping point. The Atlantic story is just one of several I’ve read lately highlighting concerns with tourism in Antarctica

I was so fortunate to have been able to see this majestic continent nearly two decades ago, and I’ve always responded to readers’ questions about Antarctic travel in a positive way, in part because it is hardly fair to discourage people to go when I myself have been there.

But I also believe that the continent has many other problems that need solving — and that travel to the continent can, in fact, inspire visitors to save what they are bound to fall in love with: the ice, the wildlife, the pristine wilderness that exists nowhere else on Earth.

While decades ago, the human impact of travelers in Antarctica was small, now the impacts are greater — not only the carbon footprint of getting to the bottom of the world, but the introduction of bacteria, invasive species, and the effects on wildlife. As this article points out, “A recent study found elevated concentrations of black carbon – soot – in the snow around popular Antarctic tourism sites, which causes snow to darken and melt more rapidly. Researchers have also identified 14 non-native species around the Antarctic Peninsula, transported on clothing and in food.”

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) does an excellent job of encouraging sustainable travel and minimizing impact (yet it does remain a voluntary membership, and not all tour operators are members — those who do travel to Antarctica should be sure their tour company abides by all sustainable travel guidelines).

Ever since My Last Continent was first published, seven years ago, I’ve been pointing out that while tourism does affect the continent, Antarctica has bigger problems: global warming, overfishing, pollution from the fishing industry (from oil spills to discarded fishing gear). My own trip to Antarctica was life-changing — and the continent offers this experience to every potential visitor. If people return from Antarctica with a passion for tackling climate change, protecting endangered species, and making the world a better place, does this not make the trip worthwhile?

It’s not likely that every single one of the 100,000-plus visitors to Antarctica this season returned home and became vegans, stopped driving, committed to a net-zero lifestyle. But if each of them devoted their lives to some form of change for good, this would have an impact. For example, if we as a human species stopped eating seafood, much of the Antarctic’s problems would resolve — the myriad threatened species in the Southern Ocean, from whales to penguins, could have access the food we humans are taking from them, giving them a better chance at survival.

Of course, not all visitors will have such reverence for the continent. The Atlantic notes that “many sightseers bring a whiff of ‘last-chance tourism’—a desire to see a place before it’s gone, even if that means helping hasten its disappearance.” And as this Guardian article points out, “in some areas tourists have traipsed over delicate mosses and plants. Some historic structures have even been scarred by graffiti.” And for many tourists, there seems to be far less interest in learning about the unique landscape, history, and wildlife in Antarctica than in doing things they can do just about anywhere else: climbing, camping, cross-country skiing, paddleboarding, snorkeling.

There is no official cap on the number of tourists who can visit Antarctica, and, as the Atlantic advocates, Antarctica “is actually most valuable to us when left wild, so that it can continue to act as a buffer against climate change, a storehouse of the world’s fresh water, and a refuge for birds, whales, seals, fish, and even the krill that the entire marine ecosystem depends on.”

As this article notes, “Antarctica doesn’t need ambassadors; it needs guardians.” While surely one of the best ways to protect Antarctica may be to leave it alone, at the same time, seeing a place firsthand may be the most powerful way to let it change your life and vow to protect what you were able to witness firsthand so that it will all be there for others to see in the future. As acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton says in this 2010 interview in The Sun magazine: “…the wildlife wouldn’t miss us if we didn’t visit. But the reality is that experiencing wilderness increases the chance that we will preserve it.”

Women at the end of the world have been getting more attention lately due mostly to publicized cases of sexual harassment and assault on research bases — and here’s hoping the focus on these women in science will soon shift to the amazing work they’re doing.

As this article points out, women’s work in Antarctica is recent — the continent was first sighted in 1820, and the women who arrived in the early 1900s were accompanying their husbands (check out the book Polar Wives to learn about the wives of famous Antarctic explorers, like Kathleen Scott and Emily Shackleton). It wasn’t until the middle of the century that women traveled to Antarctica to explore and research on their own. The continent was still primarily male dominated even when an all-women team worked there in 1969.

As Chilean biologist Dr Leyla Cárdenas, who’s been traveling to Antarctica for thirteen years, says in this article, work in Antarctica has long been “defined by gender roles.”

It’s inspiring to see more women engaged in polar studies, and perhaps now that efforts are being made to address sexism and harassment, more women will work and thrive in Antarctica, as they already are.

One of my favorite Antarctic stories, though fictional, celebrates women in an extraordinary way: Ursula K. Le Guin’s short story “Sur” is about an expedition to the South Pole by a group of South American women — the first humans to reach the South Pole, and the only ones who know it.

When My Last Continent was first published (hardcover in 2016 and paperback in 2017), I found myself answering a lot of questions about Antarctic tourism. Is it ethical to visit this fragile place? What sorts of harm are travelers doing to the environment? Are visitors hurting the penguins’ chance at survival?

My answer, six and seven years ago, was that travel was the least of the penguins’ problems. These incredible birds are being profoundly affected by climate change and overfishing; the best way to help penguins, I used to say, is to stop eating seafood (especially krill) and to fight for climate protections and marine protected areas. Back then, the number of visitors to Antarctica was not enough to harm penguins directly — especially when considering the emotional impact a visit to this beautiful continent can have. I like to think that most people who see penguins in the wild will begin to devote at least part of their lives to protecting them, whether it’s making changes to prevent global warming or to eat less seafood, or none.

But things have changed quite a lot in the last few years. When I went to Antarctica in 2004, there were about 20,000 tourists a year visiting the continent. By the time My Last Continent was published, that number had doubled. Now, the 2022-23 season expects to see more than 100,000 tourists in Antarctica. That is mind-boggling — and seems to be a sign we’ve reached the tipping point at which Antarctic travel can no longer be sustainable.

There are many reasons why 100,000 waterproof boots on the continent are too many: pollution in the Southern Ocean, possible disruptions to penguins’ breeding cycles, the introduction of foreign objects and viruses — and this article highlights something many of us may not even think of — the effects of marine noise for the underwater animals in Antarctica:

Most of the thousands of scientists and support staff who sail to continental Antarctica every summer smash into the Southern Ocean on ice-cutting hulls.
Their engines boom. Their machinery rumbles. Their propellers clatter and hiss from cavitating, collapsing bubbles.

WhoWhatWhy

The results of this noise “can cause immediate injury or even mortality” to such tiny animals as krill, which penguins and whales rely on for food. But underwater noise also causes stress to whales and other marine animals. The impacts of noise include “miscarriages; injury; disease; vulnerability to predation; changes in appetite; disrupted mother-calf bonds; panic; anxiety; and confusion.”

Of course, fishing boats also cause noise — and we need to limit their presence in the Southern Ocean as well — and scientific vessels are important and often necessary. But each of us can have an impact by considering why and how we travel. Given the animal lives at stake, is it really worth it?

Antarctica is among my favorite places on the planet, and I feel fortunate to have been able to travel there. But I would not make the same decision to travel to Antarctica as I did nearly twenty years ago. I’d like to see other humans discover the magic of this amazing continent — but the trouble is, the magic will be gone if we travel in numbers too great for the animals, and the environment, to handle.

As the characters and circumstances highlight in My Last Continent, tourism in Antarctica is a tricky thing. On one hand, the Antarctic peninsula — where most travelers visit — is a fragile place, and the fewer humans who set foot on this region, the better. On the other hand, for many who visit Antarctica, it’s a life-changing experience that causes them to rethink everything, especially their commitment to the planet — this was its effect on me — I came home, wrote a story and eventually a novel, and have committed to major life changes in order to do my own part in protecting the planet and its animals.

For the narrator of My Last Continent, Deb Gardner, doing her research means supporting an industry that causes her great worry; she needs the tourist expedition boats to ferry her to the islands where she studies penguins. She encounters travelers who learn to appreciate the continent and who want to help protect it; she also encounters those who care little for its landscape or creatures and who simply want to check it off their bucket lists before it disappears.

A recent study from North Carolina State University (“Tourists’ motivations, learning and trip satisfaction facilitate pro-environmental outcomes of the Antarctic tourist experience,” published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism) reveals that, in fact, a significant reason that many people travel to Antarctica is to socialize or celebrate with an exotic backdrop — not due to an interest in the landscape or its wildlife. Many were there for the same reason people visit the Arctic or the Great Barrier Reef — a chance to see one of the world’s wonders before it disappears.

This is discouraging, to say the least. If travelers don’t care about the wildlife, how can we inspire them to protect the penguins, the whales, the seals? If they only want to see it before it melts rather than keep it from melting, how can they be convinced that exactly this type of climate change will soon be in their own backyards?

And yet there is some hope: Researchers in this study looked at tourist groups (divided by motivation, i.e., whether they traveled to Antarctica for education, social bonding, adventure, or “to take a trip of a lifetime”), and what they learned, as well as what they felt they learned. Travelers in the education and “trip of a lifetime” group had a high perception of learning, which bodes well for teaching future visitors about conservation and the environment.

The study’s lead author, Daniela Cajiao, said, “If you feel you got something from the learning experience, then it will more likely change you and what you do after the trip. That has important implications for educators, communicators and tour operators.”

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO)’s most recent visitor figures are for the 2019-2020 season (the same season researched in the study mentioned above); IAATO reports that 74,401 visitors traveled to Antarctica between October 2019 and April 2020 — this is double the number of five years earlier, and nearly four times the number of visitors who went to Antarctica back when I did, in 2004. Post-pandemic, the numbers are likely to climb again. And while in the 2019-2020 season, 18,506 travelers did not set foot on the continent, an increasing number of visitors are going deep into the continent, as air travel becomes increasingly available and as tour companies offer such opportunities as overnighting on the ice. All of this has a serious impact on the continent, its resources, and its wildlife.

Meanwhile, the ice continues to melt at an alarming rate, the ice shelves continue to collapse, and the temperatures continue to soar — this past winter, temperatures reached levels 104 degrees higher than normal. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that melting ice sheets from Antarctica — as well as other places — will force millions from their homes as global sea level rises.

With all this in mind, it’s important to consider why we travel, especially in this era of massive climate chaos. It’s not enough to visit a place before it disappears; we need to consider how we can help conserve these precious landscapes. Those visiting Antarctica need to realize it’s not a theme park but a wild, incredibly dynamic place that needs our protection if we want to continue to share our planet with endangered creatures like penguins and whales. We should absolutely travel to be with friends and family, to celebrate milestones — but we should also travel to educate ourselves, and to return home inspired to do a bit better for our planet.

I absolutely loved talking with Brighde Reed of World Vegan Travel about a few of my favorite things: writing, penguins, creativity, travel, and food. Check out her wonderful podcast here, where you’ll meet travelers, chefs, and many more fascinating and compassionate people.

Click here to listen to our chat, and if you’re ready to travel the world again (it’s been way too long!), don’t miss the upcoming trips with World Vegan Travel … from Japan to Thailand to South Africa to France to Italy, these trips look amazing!

Those who read My Last Continent usually have a strong reaction to the idea of traveling to Antarctica — they either can’t wait to go, or they decide they will never visit, in order to protect the continent.

This is a frequent question I receive at readings and events. My answer, so far, to the question of whether we should travel to Antarctica has been to point out that the animals, especially the penguins, currently face far bigger problems than tourists: climate change is disrupting their food supply and ability to breed, and the fishing industry is decimating the krill and other fishes that Antarctic creatures rely on. I tell people that not eating seafood and helping work toward climate action may be even better for Antarctica than forgoing a visit, especially if you travel there, return, and become an ambassador for the continent. The more people learn about the perils facing Antarctica and the potential losses we could witness there — from melting ice to endangered penguins, and far beyond — the more we can do here up north to help save it.

But this article should make us all reconsider traveling to the last continent. The article notes that in 2014, routine biosecurity surveillance detected non-native invertebrates at an Australian Antarctic station. These creatures have been eradicated, but it highlights the vulnerability of the continent to invasive species. This isn’t a one-time occurrence.

And climate change in Antarctica, as all over the world, is exacerbating all of the issues facing the continent:

As this article points out, we’ve been lucky so far — before the pandemic, the continent was seeing around 40,000 tourists a year, which is double the number back in the early 2000s. While this is a very high number, and I hope it doesn’t continue to grow, I also hear from a lot of people who say they want to “see the penguins before they disappear.” And this is a very sad reason to travel, especially if the very act of doing so hastens the demise of the species we’re traveling to see.

Scientists will have to deal with the possibility of non-native species in Antarctica no matter how many visitors the continent sees. But all of us who’d love to visit Antarctica should consider staying home for the sake of keeping it safe … or, if we do visit, we should make it a mission to return home to educate and inspire others with all of its beauty, so we can continue to learn how to preserve this beautiful, icy continent and its amazing animals.

For most of 2020, I was hopeful that COVID-19 wouldn’t reach Antarctica. But in December, it became the last continent to report an outbreak, at a Chilean research base.

There are few better places to contain an outbreak than Antarctica (though the isolation means it’s not a place where anyone wants to be sick). Still, the greater worry about the coronavirus and Antarctica is its wildlife. As this article notes, “while there is currently less risk for humans in Antarctica, the potential for the Covid-19 virus to jump to Antarctica’s unique and already vulnerable wildlife has scientists extremely concerned.” Click here to read on.

With travel to Antarctica still uncertain for 2021 (last year, visitors could see the continent via a 12-hour flyby on Qantas), this will help keep the virus at bay there. But research, of course will go on — and this is quite fortunate in that this continent needs protecting now more than ever. Among the many creatures that need monitoring and protecting are krill, the food of whales, penguins, and so many more. Yet overfishing has been threatening their existence, which in turns threatens that of the Antarctic animals who are more familiar. Click here for a wonderful interactive article about krill.

Though Antarctica may have been less affected by the pandemic than any other continent on the planet, it is being affected by climate change more than any other. So even when we’re allowed to travel again, we have to consider what it means to go to the world’s more vulnerable places.

Check out this piece posted on the Climate Fiction Writers League, a wonderful resource for all who are interested in climate change. What I love about fiction is how much you can learn about a place or a species by reading a good story, whether a YA novel or a thriller. You can subscribe to the blog here, and get updates on new books and the science and passion behind them.

I loved researching penguins for My Last Continent, but World Penguin Day is as special to me as it is bittersweet because every year, the world is a little harsher for penguins: fishing, climate change, and warming oceans are endangering a great many species.

There are many ways we can learn more about penguins and how to protect them, and many ways to help them directly, even if we’re (very) far from where they live.

For example, since most of us are currently staying home during the pandemic, one great way to help scientists (and to glimpse these amazing creatures in their natural habitat) is to join this citizen science project, Penguin Watch, which allows you to count penguins from your computer screen.

And here are a few ways to help penguins every day, all year:

• Re-think your consumption of seafood. Overfishing is one of the biggest causes of penguin death, whether it’s because humans are eating their food (such as krill) or because they get killed by fishing nets and longlines. Even “sustainable” seafood has an impact on the oceans and wildlife.
• Be a thoughtful traveler and a respectful birdwatcher. If you must travel to see penguins (and it’s pretty irresistible), choose places that can handle your human footprints — and always go with eco-friendly tour companies. Once there, always pay close attention to guides and naturalists who know how to keep a safe distance. If you’re traveling without a group or guide, be sure to study up; learn about the birds’ habitat so you can be sure to stay out of their way.
• Do all that you can to combat climate change (see the Climate Reality Project and Cowspiracy for some good tips).
• Support such conservation efforts as the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, which monitors penguins and works on the ground to ensure protections for them.

One of the reasons it took me a decade to write My Last Continent is that at the center of a story is a massive shipwreck; since they are very uncommon I wasn’t sure how credible my narrative would be — in fact, cruise ships are actually very safe (a study by G.P. Wild referenced in this article noted that while cruise-ship capacity increased 55 percent over the last decade, the number of “operational incidents” declined 37 percent, and man-overboard incidents dropped 35 percent).

Still, as I learned during my research, anything can go wrong on a cruise ship — and often does. It was when the Costa Concordia sank in 2012 that I finally realized my fictional Antarctic shipwreck was not only plausible but all too possible. And so I (finally) finished the novel.

As this article reminded me, while cruises are generally safe, it’s wise to take precautions and to consider such things as not only where your muster station is but how to find your kids, your partner; what to do if you can’t get there. It’s nothing anyone wants to think about when starting a vacation — but it could make all the difference.

When I was in Antarctica on a small ship many years ago, I was struck by the onboard naturalists’ worry about the much larger cruise ships making the journey. These massive ships were far too large for search-and-rescue operations, should anything go wrong — after all, at the bottom of the earth, how can several thousand people be rescued when there aren’t enough humans (or boats) for miles? when you are separated from civilization by the wildest seas on earth?

This is great material for fiction, of course, but it’s also a reality that everyone traveling to Antarctica should consider. In 2007, a tourist expedition ship, the MV Explorer, did sink in Antarctica — but thanks to having only about a hundred passengers, as well as having another ship nearby to take them on, all were safe. But if the weather conditions had not been favorable, if the Norwegian ship had not been nearby to take on the stranded passengers — or if the ship carried thousands of passengers, as the fictional Australis does in My Last Continent, this incident could’ve looked a lot more like the disaster in the novel.

This is not to say no one should visit Antarctica; the dangers are real, but this is part of what makes the journey a life-changing trip. Most important, I think, is to travel in the most eco-friendly way possible, especially when it comes to fragile places. Visit IAATO (International Association for Antarctic Tour Operators) for more on Antarctic tourism and for how to be an educated, environmentally conscious traveler.

Happy World Penguin Day — not that I ever need a reason to celebrate these amazing little creatures, but it’s great to have a designated day on which everyone thinks about these birds and how they’re faring in such a rapidly changing world.

Tawaki, or Fiordland-crested penguins, photographed in New Zealand by John Yunker.

So, how exactly are the penguins doing? According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, of the eighteen species of penguins listed, four are stable (the Royal, Snare, Gentoo, and Little penguins), two are increasing in numbers (the Adélies and the Kings), and the status of the Emperors is classified as unknown. This means that, when it comes to the rest of the penguins of the world, their numbers are decreasing — and in some cases, they are decreasingly alarmingly fast.

King penguins on South Georgia Island.

The penguins in the most danger of becoming extinct are three species I’ve been very fortunate to meet: the Galápagos penguin (with an estimated 1,200 individuals left), the Yellow-eyed penguin (with fewer than 3,500 left), and New Zealand’s Fiordland-crested penguin, also known by its Māori name, Tawaki, meaning crested, which the IUCN lists at between 2,500 and 9,999 individuals (yet when I visited in 2017, local researchers’ estimates were only 3,000 individuals).

These are pretty scary numbers — and the fact is, the lives of each of these species make them very hard to accurately count, which means that while there could be more than we think, it’s likely that there could be far fewer than we realize.

So what can we do on World Penguin Day to help make the world a better place for them? Here are a few ideas to start.

• Re-think your consumption of seafood. Overfishing is one of the biggest causes of penguin death, whether it’s because humans are eating their food (such as krill) or because they get killed by fishing nets and longlines. Even “sustainable” seafood has an impact on the oceans and wildlife.
• Be a thoughtful traveler and a respectful birdwatcher. If you must travel to see penguins (and it’s pretty irresistible), choose places that can handle your human footprints — and always go with eco-friendly tour companies. Once there, always pay close attention to guides and naturalists who know how to keep a safe distance. If you’re traveling without a group or guide, be sure to study up; learn about the birds’ habitat so you can be sure to stay out of their way.
• Do all that you can to combat climate change (see the Climate Reality Project and Cowspiracy for some good tips).
• Support such conservation efforts as the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels, which monitors penguins and works on the ground to ensure protections for them.

Yellow-eyed (Tawaki) penguin, photographed in New Zealand by John Yunker.

I am not a scientist, but I play one on the page. Because my own background is so very not scientific, I needed a lot of research and experiences in order to write (authentically) the character of Deb Gardner in My Last Continent, including traveling to Antarctica and witnessing the continent through the eyes of the many naturalists on our expedition, and also spending time volunteering with penguin researchers at the Punta Tombo colony in Argentina. One of the first — and most interesting, important, and devastating — things I learned is that we humans do not intervene when we see wildlife in trouble. It is, after all, the wild.

This is true whether you’re a filmmaker, a naturalist guide, or a researcher: Whatever you observe, you have to simply observe, no matter how heartbreaking it is. But sometimes people find it impossible not to intervene, like these BBC documentary filmmakers who decided to help save emperor penguin chicks as several penguin parents and their chicks became separated when the chicks couldn’t follow them up a steep slope. The crew “‘opted to intervene passively,’ said the show’s director, Will Lawson.” They created a ramp in the ice that the chicks ended up using to climb up to safety.

Was it appropriate or ethical — or both, or neither? As for myself, I don’t think I could stand to watch baby penguin chicks die if I had a chance to save them … which is one of many reasons I’m not a scientist or a documentary filmmaker — because that is precisely what they are supposed to do. To do otherwise is dangerous to both the humans as well as to the animals, often in ways that may not be immediately evident. While in this particular case, penguins’ lives were saved with no apparent harm, the public opinion is divided on whether taking action was appropriate: This article highlights the positive reaction to the film crew’s rescue efforts, while this headline reads, “Filmmakers Criticised For Intervening with Trapped Penguins in Antarctica.”

As a traveler, I’ve seen things in nature that aren’t fun to watch but that are, in fact, natural (one animal devouring another, for example); certainly it’s unethical to get in the way of someone’s meal, no matter how brutal it is to witness. Likewise, scientists and naturalists have to witness such incidents, and many others, without interfering. It is a hard concept to get around, even in fiction. In a chapter of My Last Continent, the character Keller describes having to witness a terrible scene involving an animal in Antarctica. He tells Deb, when he recounts the episode, “I’m still getting used to not intervening.” Her reply: “I’m not sure that feeling ever leaves you.”

As for the BBC film crew, I can’t fault them one bit for saving these penguins (in fact, this video is wonderful to see). However, the fact that they did sets a precedent that could be very dangerous if others decide that intervening is okay, especially if it’s in different, more direct ways. The wild is wild for a reason, and there is still so much we don’t understand. We’ve already interfered with so much in nature, creating so much imbalance, that having this last respect for wildlife, as hard as it is, needs to remain in place.

The stories of the twentieth-century explorers of Antarctica are harrowing — Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance being eaten by the ice-choked Weddell Sea; Robert Falcon Scott reaching the South Pole after Norwegian Roald Amundsen and then losing his life and his entire party to the elements upon their return.

And yet, despite history’s harsh lessons — the most recent being the fate of Henry Worsley, who died in 2016 during his attempt to complete the first solo, unassisted crossing of Antarctica — twenty-first century explorers continue to set out on their own expeditions.

Yet the new explorers do have one advantage: modern science. And this article in Outside magazine is fascinating for its look at the energy needed to navigate the vast frozen continent (thanks so much to Susie Dana Stangland for sending this to me!). As the article notes — and as anyone who’s spent time in Antarctica knows well — it’s not just the cold but also the wind, the altitude, and the extreme dryness (Antarctica is the biggest desert in the world) that contributes to energy consumption when trekking across the ice.

Robert Scott, for example, brought along rations that added up to between 4,200 and 4,600 calories per day. However, the Outside article notes:

No one really knew how many calories a polar expedition like this burns until Mike Stroud and Ranulph Fiennes made a two-person unsupported 1,600-mile crossing of Antarctica in 1992 and 1993. Careful measurements of energy consumption using isotope-labeled water showed that they were burning an astounding 7,000 calories a day for 96 days. During one ten-day period while they ascended the plateau, they averaged 11,000 calories a day.

Given that the average person is advised to eat about 2,000 calories a day, this number is staggering. The question then becomes: How do you get enough calories to make an expedition while not weighing yourself down with the vast amount of food you’ll need to stay alive?

Colin O’Brady, one of two men currently attempting solo crossings of Antarctica, will be taking along specially created energy bars to give him the 8,000 calories per day he’ll need to make his solo journey across the continent. Click here to read more about the science behind the fuel for this trip.

The day after our rainy arrival on Península Valdés, the skies still held remnants of the rain of the day before, which only made the views more spectacular as we explored the 16 kilometers of coastline at Rincón Chico.

Estancia Rincón Chico is a privately owned parcel of about 100 square kilometers (a UNESCO World Heritage Site, all of Península Valdés is privately owned), but unlike the majority of landowners here, Rincón Chico owners Agustín and María have devoted their property entirely to the wildlife. Formerly a sheep ranch, the sheep are now gone (except for a few who remain on the estancia as pets), and the land is beginning to return to its natural state, with the grasses growing taller and the wildlife returning. Rincón Chico is managed through the foundation Conservación Península Valdés (CPV), created to protect this beautiful, wild place.

The Land Rover in the photo below, with the casco and lodge in the far background, offers an idea of how vast and majestic this property is. Agustín estimated it would take the better part of a day to drive all the way around the entire property.

If you visit Rincón Chico, you’ll have the opportunity to see right whales, elephant seals, sea lions, orcas, penguins, and numerous species of birds and fish. Agustín and María have cameras set up at watering holes throughout the property to study and track what animals live and roam there. Some of the footage we saw included guanacos, armadillos, wild cats, and myriad birds.

We didn’t have to go far to see rheas, like this one who liked to hang around at the lodge eating the flowers.

More elusive were the Patagonian maras, very large rodents with cute donkey-like faces who run like jackrabbits. They were quite shy, but I did manage to get a quick photo.

I confess this place is so magical I even found the tarantulas adorable.

One of the highlights of our three days at Rincón Chico was spending an entire morning sitting among the elephant seals on one of the beaches. The seals’ lives are full of drama, and to sit in silence and witness their lives for several uninterrupted hours was amazing.

And, the great thing about having some rainy and windy weather is that the clouds make spectacular sunsets.

At night, Rincón Chico goes completely dark (the generator shuts off at midnight, though there are a few solar-powered lights in the lodge). The silence is complete and almost unreal. It’s incredibly peaceful.

I love this photo of John and me with our incredible hosts, Agustín and María. If you ever want to experience Rincón Chico and Península Valdés, remember that visits to the estancia support the work of Agustín and María to continue the conservation of the property, the science of learning about its creatures, and rewilding former sheep pastures. I certainly hope we’re able to return again very soon!

On the afternoon we arrived at the gorgeous Estancia Rincón Chico on Península Valdés, it was pouring rain, windy, and cold.

So, we decided to have our author talks and book signing that afternoon, with the timing just perfect for cocktail hour.

It was beyond wonderful to talk about My Last Continent with readers who were seeing firsthand parts of what inspired the novel: volunteering at Punta Tombo, learning so much from experienced penguin researchers, being out in the middle of nowhere with no human sounds other than the wind and the braying of the penguins. I read a few excerpts from the book — one scene set in Punta Tombo, which we’d visited the day before, and one scene set in Antarctica, where half of our group would be headed in a few more days.

And John‘s novel The Tourist Trail was even more fun to talk about, as it’s just been released in a new edition, with the sequel on its way into the world in February of 2019. Also, in The Tourist Trail, Punta Tombo features even more prominently than in My Last Continent, so readers got an even better idea of the colony from reading his novel. John read an excerpt from the book that actually retraced our own steps from the day before.

We enjoyed a fantastic Argentine Malbec as we chatted about the novels and signed books…

…and we had so much fun we forgot all about the wind and rain.

To see more of Susan’s terrific photos, visit the Facebook page of Adventures by the Book!

John and I volunteered at Punta Tombo with the University of Washington’s Penguin Project (now the Center for Ecosystem Sentinels) back in 2006. We’d always dreamed of returning to the colony, though we were also a little worried about what we might find. We know that the penguin population is down by 45 percent at Punta Tombo (sadly, it is no longer the largest Magellanic colony in the world), and that tourism is increasing (to 100,000 visitors a year).

Despite our concerns, our visit was encouraging on so many levels. First, we encountered a brand-new visitor’s center with a gift shop, cafe, and a little museum highlighting the wildlife of the region. While this may not sound like a good thing, it is: Unlike the last time we were here, all the cars and buses now park well outside of the colony, which means no more incidents of penguins being hit by cars, or being unable to return to their nests.

As we walked toward the colony, the first familiar sight was in fact not penguins but guanacos on the hillside. These beautiful llama-like animals live among the penguins and miraculously never seem to crush the penguins’ burrows despite how often they walk right past or over them.

We continued on, past the public restrooms, the older gift shop and cafe, the guardafauna station, and the cueva next to which the trailer we’d slept in used to be parked (the trailer is no longer there). And soon we could see that the tourist trail has been much improved, with new walkways and viewing areas, and it wasn’t packed with visitors as we’d anticipated. We arrived as the penguins were carefully incubating their eggs (the chicks are already starting to hatch, as I write this a week later), and as you can see in this photo, the birds are guarding the eggs carefully.

We got the chance to meet with Ginger Rebstock, one of the longtime researchers at the colony, who caught us up on all the news. Among the news we were most eager to hear: Turbo the penguin returned safely to the colony this season, though he was out at sea the day we were there. We were sorry to have missed seeing him, but are so glad to know he is safe and still returning home, though he does remain a bachelor. Ginger doesn’t believe his chances of finding a mate are good; there are far more females than males at Tombo, which means that a lot of the males will remain bachelors.

Thanks to John Yunker for this photo, below, of a penguin rearranging her nest. As you’ll see, the skin around her eyes is quite pink; this is because it was a warm day, and she’s releasing some body heat through these small, featherless patches of skin around her eyes.

Below is a photo of a little bay where we glimpsed Chubut steamer ducks, endemic to Argentina, sharing this little beach with a raft of penguins. It was a glorious clear, sunny day, ideal for penguin viewing.

And I absolutely love this photo that Susan took of this beautiful penguin with My Last Continent. (One thing to note about the tourist trail at the colony is that the penguins are used to humans and they will walk right up to you and will pass within inches of you if you’re standing nearby. The penguins who nest near the tourist trail are used to people; further out in the colony, they are far more skittish around humans since they don’t encounter them as often.)

We didn’t get a photo of The Tourist Trail (named after this very setting), but for a fictional read about this amazing colony, check it out here.

As ever, for more great photos of the tour, visit the Adventures by the Book Facebook page.