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Terrorism was rife; murder and kidnappings were everyday events.
In short, everybody said, in an avuncular sort of way, that going to Argentina was an absurd notion and, under such circumstances, quite out of the question. Nobody in their right mind would dream of going.
That Fortune would assign me a penguin as a friend and fellow traveller, who would one day provide a wealth of bedtime stories for generations then unborn, was a singular twist of fate that still lay far over the western horizon.
Juan Salvador
was a penguin who charmed and delighted everyone who knew him in those dark and dangerous days – days that saw the collapse of the Perónist government in terrorist outrages and violent revolution as Argentina teetered on the verge of anarchy.
However, a young traveller like me and the inimitable, indomitable penguin, Juan Salvador, could – it turned out – be the happiest of companions after I rescued him in dramatic circumstances from deadly seas off the coast of Uruguay.
1960s and 1970s Punta del Este was, for the denizens of those two great metropolises, their Nice, Cannes or St Tropez; the place where the smart set went for summer holidays to escape the city heat, to stay and be seen in luxurious penthouses and apartment blocks facing the sea, and, for all I know, they do so still.
After several weeks of exertions and excitements I was content to spend a few days relaxing in quiet, out-of-season Punta del Este. I
After discharging cargo at their destinations, oil tankers would put to sea again and wash out their tanks while in transit to collect a new consignment.
When the instinctive, annual compulsion of seabirds to migrate met a vast, floating oil slick dumped at sea through human thoughtlessness and greed, there was only one possible outcome: the utter and complete annihilation of those penguins. This would have been indescribably ghastly had it been the result of an accident.
One valiant bird was alive; a single surviving soul struggling amid all that death. It was extraordinary! How could one solitary bird still be living when the oil and tar had so comprehensively overwhelmed the rest?
all thoughts of such violence vanished from my mind. Flapping sticky wings at me and with a darting raptor beak, it stood its ground ready to fight for its life once more. It was almost knee high!
Amid all this obscenity there was just this single penguin with an open, red-tongued beak and clear eyes, jet black and sparking with anger. I suddenly felt a surge of hope kindling for this exception. Could it survive if cleaned? I had to give it a chance, surely?
lifted the furious creature, twisting and turning in its efforts to escape, clear of the beach and away from my body and discovered for the first time how heavy penguins could be.
Magellan Penguins
However, despite these threats to their very existence, Magellan penguins, Spheniscus magellanicus, can be found all around the southern coasts of South America.
They have black backs and faces and white fronts. Just inside the edge of their white fronts there is a decorative black inverted ‘U’.
have long bodies and short legs.
Their shoulders, or scapulas, are set low on their bodies and the bones of their wings are astonishingly flat and thin, giving them the profile of a boomerang. A penguin’s natural stance is with bent knees and an ‘S’-shaped n...
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the water, penguins are transformed. When swimming on the surface a penguin resembles a rather deflated duck, with only head and tail above water, but below the waves they are simply sublime. No cheetah, stallion, albatross or condor is more elegant or graceful. Nothing is more masterful in the water.
