How to Understand a Penguin

One of the more bizarre but most loved underdogs of the globe is the Penguin.

Not glamorous or exotic like tigers or parrots, penguins are still loved like no other creature. Films, cartoons, even chocolate bars exemplify the penguin as an international symbol of a simple and happy survivability, the underdog lacking in teeth, claws who can still waddle out a jolly existence. Their happy survival in the harshest climates of arctic regions has won the penguin endless respect. And in the modern world, full of business, competition and even aesthetics have become a cut throat industry of fashion and personal judgments, maybe we could all learn a lesson from the penguin.

But how to do this? Visit a zoo to see the some captive creatures waddle around a cage? Or lounge lazily on your sofa indulging in the soporific tones of David Attenborough?

Better than a day trip to the zoo; actually taking the time to travel to the earth's southernmost extremes can be one of the most personally enriching experiences of a lifetime. Meeting a penguin in an environment so alien to the office in which you while away the days will give a sense of perspective better than any weekend in the Cotswolds.

It might have become a cliche these days for people to go 'travelling', hipsters hitting twenty live to read Che's Motorcycle Diary and think they're going to start the next social revolution after they've gone on a drinking tour of every hostel in South America and come back wearing a poncho and a genuinely authentic beard.

Patagonia is different though, if only because of the effort it takes to get there and the lack of cheap parties, Patagonia and the Antarctica remain some of the most extreme and awe inspiring locations on the planet.

Sailing beneath the shadows of 5,400,000 square miles of solid ice, in temperatures as low as -89 degree Celsius the insane weight of nature's power compared to the size of our own little heads cannot fail to have an effect. Perhaps then we will come a little closer to understanding the worlds humblest little jolly bundle of feathers who can maybe see something the rest of us miss.