"It's Better Than Porno!"

Day 12, Wednesday, January 1, 1997

I got up around noon. We set out to see Ushuaia. We walked along the waterfront and saw some seagulls. There were very few people around. All the shops and restaurants were closed. The town looked deserted. It was overcast when we left the hotel. By the time we got to the pier it started to pour. We booked for a boat tour to see the sea lion colonies, and ran across the street to Hotel Albotros to have lunch. The hotel restaurant was expensive, and the service spotty because there were so few waiters. Our food was excellent in presentation, though. Ed's fish was covered in a soufflé made in the shape of a fish with all the details for scales and all. It looked so good I took a picture of it. My dish on the other hand was too salty. By the time we finished lunch, the sun had come out.

We boarded our Rumbo Sur catamaran to visit the sea lion colonies at Isla de Los Lobos. There seemed to be a large contingent of Italian tourists on board. The guides alternately spoke Spanish, English, and Italian. There wasn't much to do on the way to the islands. I couldn't but notice how weather beaten Ed looked now. He hadn't been as careful about putting on sunscreen as I had. After the tropical sun at Iguazú and the ozone unfiltered sun at Puerto Natales and the unceasing westerly wind, he looked much darker now. The skin on this nose was cracking and peeling.

"You know, your nose looks like an old scab," I said. "Like an old scab on an elbow or on a knee cap. It has lots of cracks, and pieces of the old scab are falling down."

"Mmm."

"You know, your nose looks like a riverbed after a long long drought. The mud has all dried up, cracked apart, and baked through and through under the sun. You step on it, and it breaks into dust."

"Mmm."

"You know, your nose looks like the cheap paint on a wooden garage door that hasn't seen a fresh coat in ten years. Handfuls of small chips drop at the slightest touch."

"Mmm."

"You know, your nose looks like a Medieval fresco. It looks okay from a distance. Get a little closer, and you see all the cracks that make it look like mosaic."

"Mmm."

"You know, your nose looks like a wedding cake without the wedding. The icing on the cake has all fossilized and cracked."

"Mmm."

"You know, your nose looks like a soufflé that's been stabbed by a fork. All those tiny thin piece spread all over on your plate, on the table, on your napkin, on your clothes, ..."

"All right! All right!" Ed finally protested.

The lower deck was heated. With the sun beating down through the glass enclosure, it was actually too hot to stay in. I went out and climbed up the stairs to the upper deck. I found the corner of the stairs near the upper deck to be a very nice spot. People could pass behind me, and no one was in front of me to obstruct my view. There wasn't too much wind and the ride was very smooth. By the time we got to the first island colony, the upper deck was more crowed. The wind picked up considerably, and the boat was bobbing up and down. I had to pull out the hood on my parka and put on gloves. The captain slowed down the boat and nudged the boat close to the tiny rocky island. It just so happened that the left side of boat, where I was on, was the side facing the island. People crowded behind me to get a better spot.

The island is rather small. Half of it was occupied by the sea lions, which weren't doing anything but lying there in the sun. The other half of the island belongs to a great number of birds, which at first looked almost like penguins because of their black and white coat and rather upright posture. We also could see thick seaweeds in the water near the island. The boat floated slowly with the current from one end of the island to the other end. The captain would bring power on to move back and let the boat drift again. We did that a couple of times, and then moved on. I came down to the lower deck to warm up. Ed asked me, "Did you see that?"

"See what?"

"The mating."

"Really?" Now I vaguely remembered hearing some snorting and the tour guides making a brief comment about the mating season or the like.

Ed's face lit up, "It was so graphical! It's better than porno!"

"Doh!" like Simpson would say. (No, not O.J., Homer.) I wanted to kick myself. I was too busy defending my position on the upper deck and too busy composing pictures. I couldn't believe that I had completely missed the events unfolding right in front of my eyes!

Since I took quite a number of shots of the sea lion colony, after I got the pictures back, I carefully examined each frame. They all looked PG except one that's marginally R. Not exactly something that would make Larry Flynt (as in The People vs. Larry Flynt) proud.

It was more of the same at the second island colony, minus the mating part. When the boat was downwind from the sea lions, the stinking smell wasn't very pleasant. Then again, I have lived in dorms with suite-mates smelling worse.

We saw a variety of birds. I have lived all my life in big cities and know very little about animals and plants, so I couldn't identify any of them. I was looking for albatrosses which supposedly live in these parts and have huge wingspans. I didn't see any that fit the description. We observed some migrating birds nesting on the rocks.

The return trip was rough. By now I had realized why it was actually calmer and smoother on the way to the islands than at the islands. The wind didn't actually pick up when we stopped. We were going with the wind on the way there. When the boat was moving, the relative wind was much less. On the way back to Ushuaia, the boat was going against the wind, so the ride was far rougher. I had Dramamine before the trip and took a nap on the way back, so the net effect on me wasn't too bad. Ed was completed unaffected by motion sickness. I envy that.

Back in town, the place still looked pretty much deserted. The pub next to Hotel César was open. I had some toast sandwiches with ham and cheese for dinner. Ed had a sore throat and had trouble swallowing. He had very little to eat.