National Geographic Time

Greetings from the end of the world.....literally, look up Punta Arenas, Chile on Google Maps. So, Conor gave you an overview of chile thus far...don't let his funny jokes fool you, it's still been pretty cool. Valpariso had all these interesting sinuous streets, lots of great character and good food. Our sun was short lived becuase then we took off for Punta Arenas yesterday. What we thought was a direct flight was actually direct "with two quick stops"...i.e. we landed in puerto montt, took off, landed in balcameda, took off, and then finally landed in punta arenas, not without some of the worst turbulence....everrrrrrrrrrrrr. You can imagine the cuts i left in conor's arms....my death grip even extended to the poor chilean man sitting next to me, with my bleak smiles throughout.

So we arrive at Punta Arenas...its pretty drab since it's the dead of winter here, well no, actually just starting their spring, and we immedialty hop on a bus to take us north 3 hours to Puerto Natales. This is a funky town and mainly a jumping off point for the National Park, Torres del Paine. This is really the place to see Patagonia on the Chillean border. It's pretty amazing. we got picked up from our hotel this morning, and trekked along to the park (another hour or two) making some great stops along the way at huge glacier made caves and awesome viewpoints. Picture turqoise-green lakes, snow capped mountains, and...BLUE GLACIERS. It immediately brings me back to my BC Webmail debut with Millmie! So once we reached the park and our hotel, which is SO REMOTE by the way...and alas here i am on a computer typing away on the internet, got to love globalization, we did some hiking out on the lake to see some of the glaciers. We also saw some HUGE condors, and the chillean eqivilent of llamas. Tomorrow we're going to do a longer hike to get some better views, and will possibly do some kayaking or horseback riding as well. It's just really nice to chill out a bit, even if it is freezing...plus, we're staying in an actual HOTEL!! yay! We have to go all the way to antartica to stay in a hotel...pretty sweet. (there's only 4 other people staying at this resort in the middle of the park) Well, I'm sure we'll write again soon since there's not much going on here! Feel free to post, or email....I'm dying to talk politics....now back to my free pisco sour and puma documentry.

reporting from the end of the earth,

lindsay and conor