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Our Dollar rental car guy met us promptly at 6am at the departure terminal, to pick up the car, a nice bonus of the door to door rental car service. We spent a little time in the VIP lounge and made use of the internet to do a little more last minute research - then got on our 4 1/2 hour flight to Punta Arenas.
After wandering around for a little bit, we finally found one travel agent who was open, but couldn't book anything for us - she referred us to the one next door that was closed! She did point us in the direction of the one restaurant that we found to be open so we could grab a bite to eat. Meat seems to be extremely popular on the menu, so I had a little trouble, but finally found the grilled cheese and tomato soup :) Mario had a hamburger that he would rather not remember...it didn't really resemble a patty and we think it might have been "mystery" meat. Hopefully we'll find somewhere else for dinner :)
We signed up for the 7am bus to Puerto Natales, a 3 hour journey to that brings us nearer to the Torres del Paine park. From there, we're going to try to find a travel agent who can book us into either a hotel or campsite, or we may just head on up to the park (another ~2 hours from there) and hope there are spaces - we heard that this being the high season, it can be very difficult to find a spot. We may be back to tenting it. Day 33 - Vina Del Mar < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 35 - Torres del Paine © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
We had to get up and leave our hotel in Vina del Mar at 4:30am this morning, and we couldn't believe the number of people that were still out and about from the night before! This confirms the fact that everyone's time schedule seems to be shifted later by about 2 or 3 hours - eating dinner at 10 or 11 means going to the bars until 4am? Either way, its too late for us :)
Once in Punta Arenas, the first thing we noticed was a drastic change in temperature - about 50 degrees high today, but luckily the low doesn't get down to freezing, maybe in the 40's... Second, while flying in, we noticed the scenery has changed and you really do begin to feel that you're at the end of the earth. The landscape is very flat and barren, with the land breaking up into the sea on all sides! We stopped and got some information and a few maps from the tourist information booth at the airport and then got on the bus shuttle to the town (we had to wait a little longer than expected while the bus driver waited for the next plane to unload and choose whether or not to get on the bus, but I guess that's what you get for $3 service). 
We got off the bus near the town center and right away felt like we were the only ones in the whole town. Since it's Sunday, they take the non-working thing VERY seriously, and we were hard up to find any businesses that were open at all. As we were walking down the street, looking for a hotel, a guy in a van pulled up and showed us a flyer for his hotel, Blue House #2. We'd actually seen the flyer in the airport and thought it looked ok, so we got in the van and went with him. It's a nice little place with our own room, but a shared bathroom right outside our door. It shouldn't be a problem though, because so far we only think one other person is staying here tonight! Kinda weird how we just get used to random people on the street offering us hotels, and we actually take them up on it! The guy said his brother runs a trip to see the Otway Sound Penguin Colony, and he could pick us up at the hotel at 5pm. The price sounded right, so we signed up to go and headed back out on the town.
There was a little time left before we had to be back at the hotel, so we decided to check out the town cemetery, that was supposed to be really nice. It was definitely really impressive with dozens of large, manicured trees lining each row of the cemetery. Many of the tombs were huge and are from the many founding families of the area. We didn't stay too long, because we wanted to stop in at the super market (or "hiper-market", as it was called here!) to pick up a few supplies for our time in the Torres del Paine National Park. We heard that most people bring their own food in because meals are hard to come by in the park and otherwise are super expensive, for plain meat and potatoes food. So instead, we will be having bread, peanut butter (doesn't look like normal peanut butter, so we will see how that goes), jelly, chocolate, juice, water and crackers - should be interesting! :) We rushed back to our hotel just in time to drop off our stuff and get picked up in the van for the trip to see the penguins.
The ride to the colony was about an hour each way, but well worth it. Every year these Magellan Penguins come back to the same place they were born at to mate and raise their offspring. They arrive back from the Southern coast of Brazil and the Falkland Islands in mid September of each year. Sometime around the beginning of December, the eggs hatch and the baby penguins grow up serveral months in the Otway Sound until the family leaves in March/April. While the little ones are getting stronger, the parents take turns going out to sea to fish. They swim for food roughly every 8 hours, and then come back with their bellies full to feed the rest of the family. The reason we leave at 5pm is to get there right when the shifts are changing. We walked out to the point and could see hundreds of Magellan penguins coming in from their turn at fishing. The penguins coming in all line up and follow along many paths to where they can find their family waiting near the nest - little holes and caverns built into the dirt and grass. The parent that is waiting will make a loud trumpeting sound to call to the other and when all 2 or 3 of the family reunite, they will stand and trumpet together for a minute to show how happy they are to be together again and have food :) We got to see so many of them up close and even saw a parent feeding its young by regurgitating the food and feeding it out of his/her mouth. We got to spend about an hour and a half there and then it was back into the van for the hour back to town. We were planning on going to the other penguin colony when we get back next weekend, but now we are not sure, as this one was better than we expected...