Torres Del Paine

Sunday Chase and I woke up early and headed to breakfast, which of coarse consisted of bread, cheese, ham and some fruit. I can not figure out how Chileans do not get tired of eating the same thing every morning! Sunday also happened to be to the day for the run off vote between Pinera, a Chilean Billionaire and Frie an extreme socialist who had already been President once before.

Chileans have a very interesting system, anyone can vote but once you have registered to vote you must vote every election or you will face a penalty fine. Another interesting fact is that the President must win by 50% or there is automatically a run off which happened in this case. What we gathered from different people is that if Frei were to win Chile could possible not progress at all over the next four years and even more likely regress back to the financial situations of many of the other South American countries. Pinera on the other hand is a very business savy leader who has grown some of the largest companies in Chile and would most definitely help in improving the Chilean economy. Luckily Pinera won and I think it will be very interesting to see what happens in Chile over the next couple of years.

After breakfast a bus came to pick us up from the hotel for our tour of Torres Del Paine. We did not actually know what we had signed up for because we booked the tour through the hotel. We had tried to find out as much as possible from the concierge but for some reason she did not seem to be able to tell us exactly what we would do. So you can imagine our surprise when our guide informed us we would be visiting a cave where they found a pre-historic creature called the Miladone and that it would cost us an extra 6,000 pesos ($12 dollars) per person. Chase and I both looked at each other and decided that we could pass on the cave. Instead we walked down the rode a little ways and could see the cave from a distance.

On the bus

There were the most beautiful rainbows while we were in Patagonia, hopefully you can see this one in the background.

While we were visiting the cave I realized that I was freezing luckily Chase brought a pair of long underwear so I went to the back of the bus to slip them on.

Chase in front of the cave, that we did not pay to go into!

Merrill in front of the Miladone.

First look out point on the way to Torres Del Paine, it was a little overcast so we could not see the Torres. (Towers).

Merrill in front of all the Alpacas.

Chase loves to take pictures of akward tourist, look at the zoom lens to see the Alpacas that were 15 feet away!

We got to see a little fox along the way

Welcome sign to Torres Del Paine

In front of the Torres Mountains

The water was the most beautiful crystal blue I have ever seen

After driving around seeing the different sights around Torres Del Paine we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in the park. By then I was so glad to get off the bus because the road was a little windy and very bumpy. I was pretty nautious and ready for an hour off the bus!

Chase on the porch of the restaurant

After a decent lunch of Chicken and a few sides we got back on the bus and headed to Glacier Grey. Glacier Grey is the largest glacier in Torres Del Paine and very spectacular. The walk to the glacier however was interesting because we had to walk across a man made sand/rock sandbar with howling winds it was truly a work out to take each step.

I found the trees to the glacier beautiful and so unique

Walking across the dam

Some glacier ice

ice cold water!

Our last view from the look out point

To get to the glaciers we had to cross over the suspension bridge. Before we crossed our guide gave us instructions about crossing and informed us that only 6 people could cross at a time . Like any good American Chase and I counted and waited for 6 people to cross until we could go. The Chileans behind us however had no regard for how many people were on the bridge. So as we were walking across I turned around and realized that the Chileans were just pouring across. So we picked up our pace and tried to get across before too many Chilean were on the bridge.

There was even a sign that demanded 6 people on the bridge at a time

Chase on the bridge

View from the bridge

Once we got into Puerto Natales we had the bus drop us off in the center of town. Since it was Sunday and election day many of the restaurants were closed but we finally found a local steak place, Don Jorges.

Enjoying our steaks!

Puntas Arenas and our first day in Puerto Natales

January 15th Chase and I headed to the Santiago Airport again! This time we were flying to the South of Chile to Patagonia. We booked this trip last minute because we decided we could not leave Chile without seeing the south. The plane was full of back packers headed to Torres Del Paine to go camping.

Everyone on the plane jumped out of their seats and ran to the left side of the plane when we flew over Torres del Paine it really was a beautiful site.

We arrived in Punta Arenas a little after 9:00 it is about a four hour flight from Santiago. There was supposed to be a hotel car waiting for us but there was not. So we found a shuttle and headed to the hotel on our own. Chase found this great little hotel on trip advisor and besides the fact that they forgot to pick us up they could not have been nicer or more helpful. The hotel was called Ilia. Upon arriving and after being shown to our room they suggested that we have tea on their third floor.

our hotel

our cute little room.

The third floor of the hotel

The third floor had a great view of the city and and of the ocean it was the perfect place to relax before walking to dinner. While we were sitting up there a cute couple from Utah actually came and joined us. They had just finished camping in Torres Del Paine so they had some great stories and advice on places to eat and things to do. We really enjoyed getting to talk to some other Americans and hear about everything going on back in the States. It actually made us really excited to come home. We ended up talking with them for much longer than we anticipated and before we knew it was 11:00 and most of the restaurants had closed. We did happen to find one little smokey bar to grab a bite to eat.

The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at the hotel. These two women cooked home made wheat tortillas which they served with fresh avocados and mozzarella cheese. There was also some fresh yogurt and granola. It was really one of the best breakfasts we have had since being in South America.

After breakfast we had to pack up and head to the bus station to catch the 3 hour bus to Puerto Natales.

Some really funny looking trees we saw on the way to the bus station.

The Bus ride was a beautiful ride through the Patagonia country side. We finally arrived in Puerto Natales around 1:30. At first we decided that we would walk around and find a place to eat but that idea did not last long as we tried to lug around our suitcases. So we hoped into a cab and went to check into the hotel and have lunch at the hotel.

Hotel Atiplanico

view from our window

a different view from our window, nice satellite dish. We did not have Tv in our room, which was actually really nice!

Our plan for eating lunch at the hotel fell through because they do not serve lunch so we had the hotel call us a taxi and we rode back into town. Our hotel is located about a 5 minute drive from the town center which ended being about a 40 minute walk. The woman at the hotel told us about a great pizza place so we headed there for lunch.

lunch at Mesita Grande

While eating here we actually ran into the boy that sat next to us on the plane down to Punta Arenas. He was with huge group of 15 people that were going to go camping in Torres Del Paine. One nice thing about Chileans is that if they see you they will always come up to and say hello.

We enjoyed lunch and then decided to walk around the town and try to find some things to buy to take home. I am so crazy because I wanted to look in all the shops before deciding on something to buy. So we actually did not end up buying anything but headed back to the hotel to relax.

Chase in Puerto Natales

After getting back to the hotel we talked with the concierge about booking tours and did some research on the computers. We decided on two different tours one to Torres Del Paine and the other a boat tour of some glaciers.

Later that night we had dinner at the hotel and went to bed early!