Monday - Checked out of our surprisingly nice hostel in Puerto Natales, getting gas on the way out of town. Then started our nearly eternal drive from  Puerto Natales to the national park of Torres del Paine.

Now, this drive in theory should only take about 2.5 hours. However, we managed to stretch it to about 7 hours. The roads in the park roughly form a giant circle. You enter via the southeast part of the circle, and our destination is at the western edge of the circle. Naturally, we drove the southern route. About 20km from our destination, the road closed. Crap. We'd already gone about 70km. A guy posted at the road closure looked at us with pity as he confirmed we needed to backtrack 70km, and then drive about 150km around the top of the circle nearly back to where we were. All while watching the gas needle drop.

As we backtracked, we figured we'd make a little 10km detour to get gas in Cerro Castillo. But no - they had no gas until morning. Turns out gasoline is very hard to come by here. We headed into the park, and the silver lining was that this is just about the most beautiful place to drive, with stunning views of the mountains, as well as wildlife (Condors, Eagles, Lesser Rheas, and Guanacos).

We arrived at our hotel at dinnertime, very glad to have arrived with just under 3/4 tank. Thankfully our trusty Optra XL sips gas.

Tuesday - Our plan for this day was to go on a short hike that is reported to have some of the most stunning views in the world. We drive there (using precious gasoline!), only to have two locals beg us to turn around. The winds here were topping 100mph, and they both said it would be absolutely treacherous for children. One said they'd seen a kid literally picked off his feet by the wind. So much for our hike. We ended up doing a less windy boardwalk hike near the Explora hotel and a small waterfall. Turns out Tuesday was exceptionally windy, even by the standards of this extremely windy place.

Wednesday - I have not ridden a horse for 22 years. Against my better judgement, I signed us all up for a horseback riding excursion. We each got our own horse, even the kids, but theirs were led by the guides - a "gaucho" named Miguel, and an english speaking Chilean guide named Jorge.

I swear that horse could sense my hatred of the beasts. It did not like me, it kept trying to nip at my ankles. I wanted it to walk like the rest of the horses, but it did not want to. We eventually reached an uneasy truce, however, as I let it trot and gallop a little bit, hanging on for dear life. Stacy's horse wasn't much better, as it tried to decapitate her on every low-hanging branch it could find. The trip was gorgeous though, and Ella had a complete blast.

Thursday - Today we signed up for a full day excursion to navigate the Rio Serrano river by Zodiak. We got bundled up in some super heavy duty antarctic suits to protect us from the wind and weather. Turns out today's weather was actually great, with very little wind, and we were a bit hot in all our layers. We got to two different glaciers, took a little hike, and ended the trip with some great bbq lamb. Happy Thanksgiving!