Patagonia Sur

Friday - Checked out of our amazing apartment in Lastarria this morning. Stored our luggage in their office and wandered around for a bit, trying to figure out what we're going to do with our last week in Chile. The original plan was to come back to Santiago, but now we're thinking that we should check out northern Chile instead - quite a few travelers we've talked to have raved about it. Being absolutely sick and tired of cobbling together logistics constantly, we opted to book the week at an all-inclusive place in San Pedro de Atacama. In the afternoon we took a taxi to the airport to spend the night at the Holiday Inn which is steps away from the airport. The kids liked it - it had a nice indoor pool which we spend the late afternoon swimming in.

Saturday - Woke up early in the Holiday Inn by the airport, but still managed to get to the airport with not much time to spare. Lucky for us, an agent took pity on us and got us checked in and our bags checked quickly. The 4 hour flight to Punta Arenas was uneventful. Stepping out of the airport we were greeted with a blast of cold - WOW the weather is different down here! Brr, glad we brought all that winter gear. That's not all though - Punta Arenas seems a world away from Santiago. Everything here seems so much easier and less stressful. Renting a car went well, it's nice have wheels and not have to deal with taxis and buses and the metro for a while. Our hotel room is in an old building with two tiny beds - Ryan ended up sleeping on the floor. We ate at a small restaurant that had some of the best food yet - chicken soup, salmon, and a waitress who adored the kids.

At 4:30 we went on an amazing excursion - a two hour ferry ride to Isla Magdalena, where there are tens of thousands of Magellanic penguins. It was really incredible - we had to stay on a path but the penguins didn't really care about the path - many of them were busy gathering seaweed for their nests and had to cross the path in order to do so. For me it was really a "bucket list" type of moment, and was made even better by the kids adoring it as well. Took about 200 pictures, including of penguin chicks that had just hatched.

Sunday - Woke up in Punta Arenas. Because it was Sunday, nothing was open for breakfast. We drove around looking, and luckily saw a supermarket open. Peanutbutter and Nutella sandwiches for breakfast it is! Just in time too, Ryan was in desperate need of a crankenstein antidote. We ate breakfast in the central square of Punta Arenas. As we were about to leave, we heard what sounded like a marching band coming into the square. Turns out it was some sort of military procession. There was a regiment of riflemen behind the band, and then they met up with some higher-up looking folks in what looked like soviet trenchcoats. It was interesting for a while until they all went silent and stared at each other for a while. We got bored and left at that point.

On our way out of town we stopped at a big wooden ship we'd seen coming in. Turns out it was a replica of the Victoria - one of Magellan's armada. It was really interesting because it was full size and you could explore the whole thing. I can't even imagine sailing a ship like that on the open ocean. There was also some replica armor and weapons that the kids had fun putting on. Have I mentioned yet that it is really cold down here? We didn't linger too long at the ship because of the biting wind.

After that we took the only road out of town ("La Ruta Fin del Mundo") to Puerto Natales, stopping on the way for a smoked salmon sandwich.
Unfortunately the streets of Puerto Natales are not on Google Maps, so it took a while of driving around to find our Hostel. After checking in we wandered around town for a bit, finding a really nice dog which followed us for quite a while and had a blast playing with the kids.