>>Ever been to El Cafate? Would love to visit there. So close to the penguins. :-)
>I used to live in Rio Gallegos, a city "close" to El Calafate when I was a kid
>(I lived in Patagonia until I was 17, in all Atlantic provincial capitals, Rio
>Gallegos, Rawson (Trelew) and Viedma, so we went to Calafate frequently,
>and the Patagonian Andes are not unlike BC, but not penguins near Calafate thou :)

Well, much closer than here anyway. :-)

>When living in Rio Gallegos we would often make a 150 km to Cabo Virgenes,
>the southern most tip of continental Argentina to drink some "mate" on Sundays,

I've heard of mate. A friend of mine, also from Argentina, IM'd me about it one time. Interesting.

>and there we were able to walk among Penguins (I think you cannot do that
>any longer)

I've heard they've found fossil evidence of Emperor penguins being over 8 feet tall!

>Some 1000 km north of there, and some 100 south of Trelew, another place we
>used to visit in my childhood, you can find the largest colony of Magellanic
>Penguins in South America, a place called
>Punta Tombo
so you need to add that place to your bucket list :)

Definitely. Would so love to visit southern South America. Probably just about my favorite trip imaginable actually.

Thank you for stirring up my memory pot. :-)