Friday - Checked out of Rio Serrano very early this morning to get to the Lago Grey glacier trip. The hotel packed an early breakfast for us which was a joke - bread so stale you needed to soak it in your mouth before it would soften up enough to swallow.

Lago Grey glacier was amazing. I was thinking maybe we would skip it because we'd seen glaciers on the rio serrano river navigation trip, but I'm glad we didn't. This glacier is truly stunning - Stacy will post some pictures of it soon. The boat could use a bit of an engine upgrade, the 3 hour trip should probably have only been 1.5 hours. Ryan got pretty tired of the boat ride, but it was definitely worth doing.

On our way out of the park, we stopped to do the short walk to Salto Grande, the waterfall walk that was too windy when we'd attempted it on Tuesday. It was pleasant, very short. There was a small cafeteria near the trailhead, where we paid $60 for very pathetic sandwiches.

We got back to Puerto Natales with a full quarter tank of gas remaining, where we re-fueled. Gas here costs about 820 pesos/liter, which is about $5.10/gal. Interestingly, the grades are 93/95/97 octane.

The drive back to Punta Arenas is long, but was made shorter by quiet kids and Stacy reading aloud. We got back into town around 7:00pm, where we looked for accommodations. We ended up in a hostel near downtown. We were up in the very top of an old building - not a single surface was level or plumb. Since we had to wake up so early the next morning for our flight, our total time in this hostel was about 7 hours - for a cool $130.

Saturday - Woke up super early to get to the airport. Dropping of the rental car was simply a matter of parking it at the airport and dropping the keys through a hole in a desk inside. We were dismayed to see a much longer check in line than we would have liked, but ended up making the flight about 10minutes before they opened the doors for boarding. Ryan did a lot of homework on the flight, Ella slept on my lap the whole time.

We had a 4-hour layover in Santiago where we ate more crappy sandwiches, but had good wifi.

The 2-hour flight from Santiago north to Calama was uneventful, but very turbulent. I think it was the most turbulent flight I've ever been on, with lots of stomach churning drops and weaves. The kids did fine, but I was pretty green by the time we got off. I couldn't get off that plane fast enough.

In Calama, a guy from our hotel (Tierra Atacama) was there to greet us with a sign! That was a first for me. He drove us to the hotel (another hour-twenty). This hotel is really, really nice. We're in a 3-bedroom suite with a patio and view of the nearby volcano. It's really stunning. The service and food here are the best we've had in Chile.

I really feel like this trip will feel like 3 very separate experiences:
Santiago: Stressful and hectic city
Torres del Paine: Gorgeous vistas and glaciers, very remote.
Atacama: Luxurious and relaxing restort in the middle of gigantic, stark desert.