Sights of the southern hemisphere

(Clark's comments in weird red color) In my opinion (Amy's opinion), the official Day 1 of our trip kicked off once we arrived in Punta Arenas. We spent the morning seeing the penguins and spent the afternoon exploring the city. We walked all over, visiting a random museum, the coast, the plaza, the cathedral, and more. It was windy, but there were blue, sunny skies, so we were grateful.
This was the hostel where we stayed called La Estancia (That's Spanish for "The Estancia"). It doesn't look like much, but our bed was comfy, sharing a bathroom wasn't bad and the owners were very kind and helpful.

We made friends with a couple from France during our penguin excursion earlier that morning. Ben and Anne Sophie are both great and we had a fun time with them. After the penguins we walked around the plaza together and enjoyed some tasty hot chocolate (That's English for "Chocolate Caliente). We don't speak French, but their English was pretty good, though Ben added lots of expression and animation to his in order to get across his point. (The guy was awesome.  He made Pee Wee Herman look like Lurch from The Addams Family.)  Clark and I didn't mean to both wear Duke apparel, but Anne Sophie did poke fun at us saying it was "so American" to wear clothing sporting one's university on it. Don't worry, I told her it was "so French" to wear berets and smoke long cigarettes.  I was embarrassed to find out that those are stereotypes and that most French people don't do that. I hadn't ever thought of that before, but she makes a good point.
Clark wasn't very convinced about me dragging him to explore the cemetery, but it really is pretty cool to see how they vary among cultures. Look.  If you spent one year's salary to take your spouse to the end of the world and they said, "I just really can't wait to go see the cemetery," wouldn't you feel a little apprehensive?  It would be like me taking Amy to Australia and then telling her, "I can't wait to stay in my room and watch Australian rules football."  Wait, I would totally do that.


That evening we hopped on a bus that took us 3 hours north to the town of Puerto Natales where we stayed at the hostel Las Carretas.  Las Carretas was run by two twenty-something boys.  I was a little weirded out by the fact that our night's comfort was in the hands of two guys who had probably just graduated high school.  Sure enough, the next morning we were served Frosted Flakes and burnt brownies.  Oh well.  Our room was the one on the second floor. It was a pretty decent set up though we certainly didn't spend too much time sleeping (much to Clark's dismay).  Look.  I worked a night shift the day before we left and didn't sleep.  And then I couldn't sleep on the plane and then we only slept for about 5 hours our first night in Punta Arenas.  So I think I slept like 8 total hours in about 3 and a half days.  I was tired.  And I didn't even complain about it that much.  One of the cool things about being so far south is that it doesn't get dark until 11:00 p.m. or so. And once it is dark, it doesn't stay that way very long. Each morning I woke up panicked that I had overslept when in reality the sun just rises way early, so it looks like it's late in the morning when it's only 6 a.m.!

From the comfort of our room, we did enjoy a little Spanish cable. Clark was thrilled (thrilled is a strong word.  More like pleasantly amused) to watch ESPN in Spanish and we both laughed a lot when we turned on the TV in the middle of an episode of Alf--voice-overs and all!  Alf is way funnier in Spanish.  And his voice sounded just the same.
Day 2 we jumped into a passenger van with about 13 other tourists (A driver named Gabriel that listened to Chile's version of NPR way too loud, 3 hippie guys from California, a set of Korean twins, a hispanic couple that looked like brother and sister, but were making out a lot, an Italian born Australian named Vincenzo and his Chilean girlfriend and our tour guide.  Amy kept calling Vincenzo Vincente and it made things awkward) to make the LONG drive (5 hours) into Argentina to El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier. The glacier was pretty incredible though. This is one of our first views which shows some of the expanse of the glacier.
A boat took us up close to the 200 ft tall walls of ice. Due to the way the ice reflects the light waves, on cloudy days it looks more blue and on clear days it looks white.  Now when I go to the pool or the beach, I have an excuse.  "Guys, it's clear outside.  That's why I look so white.  I'm like a glacier."

We didn't catch it on camera but we did see a few chunks of ice fall off which was pretty cool. The sound is even more impressive (sounded like a crack of lightning), in my opinion. No worries about global warming though; this glacier is self-sustaining.

After spending an hour on the boat we walked around to get some different views of the glacier. Surprise!  Even from the side it still looked like a glacier.
And yes, it was a little cold. I wore long underwear all three of our days in the southern most part of Chile.  Which was awesome for me.  Nothing sexier than long underwear.
On Day 3 we took full-day tour of the National Park Los Torres del Paine. The park has amazing mountain peaks and various different colored lakes (I'm pretty sure they were all lake-colored). I've wanted to go there almost as long as I've wanted to see the penguins! It was a relatively warm, wind-free day and each view point (there were 7 or so) was more and more beautiful.
Los Torres (the towers)
My good-looking husband and my favorite traveling companion.  Can't argue with that.  I like Amy too.  And she's good looking.



Los Cuernos (the horns). We were so fortunate to have clear skies. Cloudy days are much more common that clear ones in this part of the world, and the clouds can easily ruin any views of the mountain peaks.
Mt. Paine

A view of Mt. Paine, Los Cuernos and Lake Petrohue. There is even a hotel on the island that you can stay on in you have mucho dinero.
We enjoyed our picnic lunch of cheese, crackers, yogurt, chocolate milk and gummy bears on the shore of the lake making for a picturesque view. No one was around to take our picture, so we worked our magic with the camera timer, hanging the camera from the branch of the tree and taking a few before we got a shot that worked. The only interruption during our quiet meal was entertainment provided by a 70-year-old man who stripped down to his boxers and took a dip in this VERY cold lake. It didn't look like very much fun. Amy didn't mention that the old man had bright blue tape on his knees.
Another stop in the park was at Lake Grey, which meets up with Glacier Grey. You can't see the glacier here, but you can see the huge chunks of ice that have fall off it and are now floating in the late. We took a bite of ice from a small piece that we got out of the lake. It tasted pretty much like ice. The piece of glacier was brought to us by our extremely handsome tour guide.  Amy couldn't stop ogling him and saying things like, "I wish he were my husband."  She didn't actually say that, but I think she thought it.  Did I mention that his name was Danton?  As in the magician.
Our guide told us that it is very rare for the day and the lakes to be so calm. It was so quiet, and beautiful and invigorating.  The lake or our guide?
In order to see some of the lake and views we had to walk along trails and bridges. This particular bridge has an occupancy limit of 6 people. You can see that Clark is checking it out skeptically.  Look.  It had an occupancy of SIX PEOPLE!  What is that, 500 pounds?  It didn't help that it swayed a lot when you walked across it.  And it didn't help that I have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Our last stop was at a large cave made by a melting glacier ages ago. Supposedly it housed the long-extinct milodon. Milodons are like bears with horse faces.


That's my husband making friends with a milodon.
And this is a mediocre picture of our rather attractive tour-guide, Dantón. He was a little bit of Chilean George Clooney. Clark's words, not mine.  Amy agreed with it.  And she said, "It's true.  I'm glad you noticed it."  And George Clooney is Amy's favorite hot celebrity.  For the record, I met no Chilean women who resembled Salma Hayak.  And Amy drooled a little bit every time she looked at Danton. 

And that is how we spent the first few days of our Chilean adventure. Each day was jam packed (like our backpacks) and exhausting (like running 7 miles in four feet of snow) but full of beauty (like my wifey)  and excitement (like seeing reruns of Alf in Spanish).