Journey to the End of the Earth

This week I went with the AU group to two national parks in Patagonia. For those of you who forgot their geography, this is the southernmost area of the South American continent. I have provided a map for your benefit. It was definitely cold, but it wasn't unbearable. We thought it might rain but it never did.

Note the distance to Antarctica

Our flight left Santiago at 2:10 am. The passengers consisted almost entirely of our group and a bunch of 17-year-old Chilean boys going to boot camp for the first time. Imagine, if you will, a giant line of young men with a pocket of gringas in the middle. We got a lot of stares.

We flew into Punta Arenas, the southernmost city of its size in the world. The airport only had two gates (but also two baggage claims for some reason). An unconscious bus ride later we pulled into Puerto Natales, a tiny town close to the parks. We kept seeing this figure of a badger-sloth-bear thing everywhere--on street signs, in gift shops, on posters, etc. It turns out they found the skeleton of a Milodon, a prehistoric sloth, close to the town and it is apparently the biggest thing that has ever happened there.

Run away!

Our first day there was a free day but since we'd only had like 5 hours of sleep we mostly just wandered the town and then napped. The next day (tues) was the start of the adventures. We first went to the Cave of the Milodon, where they found it. The whole thing had been excavated already, though, so there wasn't much to see.

We then drove over to Parque Nacional Torres del Paine. The tour was a little disappointing in that they just drove us in a bus to different scenic locations where we'd get out and take pictures. They told us to bring trekking gear, but of the two "hikes" we did, one was a dirt road and the other was handicap accessible. We did get to see more of the park that way, and I understand that it's hard to take such a large group hiking, but we got really tired of sitting on the bus.

The scenery, however, was incredible. It was a cloudy day so you couldn't see the peaks, but I thought that gave it a nice creepy feel. I don't even know how to describe what I saw. The pictures are good, but they don't really capture it. The whole place seems so rugged and wild. Few people live there so there is plenty of undisturbed wilderness, it was really cool.

The second day we took a boat ride to Parque Nacional Bernardo O'Higgins. It was a lot of fun to be on a boat, but again, we mostly sat around the whole time. The highlights of the ride were the sea lion pups (!) and two glaciers.

20 years ago this glacier was at sea level

We were promised pisco sours with ice from the glaciar on the way back, but a) the ice looked normal and b) they just gave us straight-up pisco, which was gross. For lunch (6 hours after we left-uggh) we stopped at an estancia (ranch) and were served a heaping pile of lamb.

Bonier than expected

Thursday was another long travel day, and I finally got home at 12:45 to find that my host family had gone to their beach house for the long weekend. Jenelle and Amanda visited this week but I will have to save that for another post.

Link to photo album:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2146267&id=7411879&l=485a78c799