Who saw the glacier fall? who who who who?

Woke up at 6am and got picked up at 7am from Puerto Natales to our next destination, Perito Moreno and El Calafate. The ride is long and quite boring. I fell asleep a lot despite the beautiful but unchanging landscape. Paige and I bumped into Andrew at the Chile/Argentina border crossing and found out that he is also going to Perito Moreno/El Calafate! What a great surprise!! :)

After about 5 hrs we finally arrive at the glacier park. As we drove in toward the glacier, one is simply amazed at how expansive and beautiful it is. First up is the boat ride up close and personal to the glacier Perito Moreno. It is even bigger than I imagined up close. The color of the ice is so blue and the result is turqoise lake water. Saw some minor ice chunks fall off the glacier but nothing major. After one hour on the boat, we got back on the van to go to the walkway where you can walk to see a different side of the glacier.

As Paige and I stood at the walkway looking in amazement at the expansive ice (secretly hoping for some ice falling action), our prayer was answered. A HUGE HUGE HUGE chunk of glacial ice fell off and we were able to capture it in sequential shots. It was amazing!! and VERY LOUD!

Who saw the glacier fall? I did! I did!

I want to put a penguin in my pocket

Today is the day we saw penguins. Hundreds of thousands of Magellanic Penguins in Magdalena Island (just waiting for me to take one home...ha!). We took the boat to the island, about 2 hrs. Relatively calm on the way out, saw some penguins swimming in the ocean which I first mistaken it for seals...then I saw their beaks so I thought they must be those sea diving ducks. NOT so smart here but I digress...

When we arrived at the island, I could not believe my eyes!!! The guide books aren't lying when they say the whole island is covered with penguins. IT IS AMAZING!!!! They are so adorable and not really afraid of people. Groups of them would walk across the pathway in their cute wobbly movement. I tried to touch one...and it tried to attack my friend Megan (definitely not afriad of people). Sorry Megan! I got to see baby ones, old ones, middle aged ones, and ones that are obviously way too fat for their own good. It is really neat to see them in their habitat, chilling in their holes that they dug up and generally ignoring people. I even saw some couple penguins snuggling together and cleaning each other, SO CUTE! There was also a lot of seagulls there too, I was afriad I'd get shat on. Luckily, I made it out clean.

It was one of the best days of my life. Penguins...I want to put you in my pocket.

90km plus wind and one sun

Waking up to rain on the day we begin our trek through Torres Del Paine is never a good thing. And the bus showing up 10 min early (really? 10 min early? are we not in south america?!?) didnt help as we scrambled to stuff our face with our breakfast and check out. The bus ride to the national park was uneventful if not a little too bumpy. After 3 plus hour bus ride, we arrive at the ferry place to catch a boat that takes us across lago pehoe to lodge paine grande where we would begin our hike toward glacier grey. After a quick lunch (5min), we take off in the rain toward glacier grey and refugio grey, where we would be staying for the night.

As we hiked through the rain, the wind picked up. At some point, it was DEFINITELY greater than 90km. It made the rain felt like hail, ice against my face...pelting me, punishing me as I struggled to go forward. Not to mention sudden gusts of wind threatening to push you down...down the side of the mountain. Awesome. After 5 hours trekking through rain, mud, rock, and WIND, we made it to refugio grey. In comparison to people who are camping, it is heaven and we'll just leave it at that.

The next morning, we woke up to super cloudy sky but no sign of rain (yay!). Before we hiked back to Lodge Paine Grande where we would be staying our second night, we went to the lookout point for Glacier Grey. Super windy but nice view of the glacier. It is HUGE! Took us about 4 hours to hike back to Lodge Paine Grande but we made it. Started to rain about 1hr before we got back to the lodge, fun. The lodge is REALLY NICE and it even has internet, hello connection to the outside world! After assessing our situation for the next couple of days (ie trekking in more rain, Megan is getting sick, and Paige's back is not cooperating...), we decide to get off the trail the next day. Funny that I was the only one wanting to continue on...yes, prissy little Rita. HA!

HOLY MOUNTAINS is what we woke up to on our third day in the park. It was sunshine with hardly any clouds in the sky. GORGEOUS! We hiked toward Valle de France from the lodge. AMAZING view!! Totally recommend going from the west to east on the W just for this view. I know everyone goes to Torres Del Paine to see Las Torres (the towers) but man, Cerro Cuernos, in my personal opinion, is better! With the different layers of rock, it is just really interesting to see how nature formed these mountains. After crossing a scary draw bridge, Paige and I stopped a little ways into Valle de France. Found a comfy rock and just sat there in awe of the amazing views. Saw some glacier ice/snow fall off (kind of like an avalanche).

Though we got off the trail early and didnt get to hike up to see Las Torres (only saw them from the back side via Valle de France) and we didnt get refund back on the next 2 nights food/lodging, this third day made everything worth it.

I can't wait to come back to Torres Del Paine. Who would have thought? Me? Nature? Hiking? ;) Patagonia changed everything.

Ferry to the South

After a nice trip to Chiloe and Puerto Varas, we boarded our ferry, Evangelista, for our travel southward toward Puerto Natales. (man they sure like to have lots of puertos in the city names). Our cabin was tiny...when I first saw it with our luggages in it, I didn't think we'd be able to fit in there at the same time. Once we put the luggages away in the nice little cubbies, we got room to groove. kind of. The bunk beds are nice, though you really got to watch your head. I hit the back of my head pretty hard getting back to bed one night. The sound of head connecting with wood was so loud that I woke my friends up. If I seem dumber in the rest of my blogs, thats the reason why.

The food on board was surprisingly decent and so was the bathroom facilities. The showering was interesting. There was this knob thing that you had to keep pushing in order to keep the water running. Part of the water conservation effort I think. Definitely makes showering an arm work out and an entertainment.

We pretty much lazed about the days playing cards with each other. Picked up a cute British boy traveling by himself who taught us the game, shithead. Pretty fun. Megan also taught me how to play spite and malice. We were also alerted to go on to the front of the boat deck occasionally to see the boat 'manuver' through a narrow channel. Usually pretty boring and cold. Though we did see some sea lions swimming around, clouds, mountains, and a ship that got stuck on a rock years ago. We stopped and got off the boat in Puerto Eden. Not much to see but good to stretch our legs. We also got to see Glacier Pio XI. It was HUGE!! and I was freezing. The weather had turned bad so the pictures didn't turn out well but you can still see the blue in the glacier. So amazing.

After the disasterous bingo night they hosted for us. Disasterous because I DID NOT win and I had to go dance in front of everyone with Paige and Megan (who had won). We arrived in Puerto Natales to a clear, beautiful day. Thanks to my motion sickness patch, I remained sea sick free! Can't say the same about half the boat though. HA!

Next up...Torres Del Paine.