Chile, Part II - Mar 10-28

This second time in Chile involved Torres del Paine Park, Puerto Natales, and Punta Arenas.  It was fun hitchhiking from Calafate, Argentina to Torres del Paine -- 4 different drivers/cars.  We barely sat down before someone picked us up on the first two rides.  Right out of El Calafate, our ride was from a man who was going to pick his family up from Rio Gallegos.  They were moving to Calafate.  He had gotten a job at the airport in Calafate.  He didn't talk much but played some pretty hip music.  He said he had a place for hitchhikers in his heart because he had hitchhiked when he was younger.  The second ride was the most entertaining - from Luis, the animal mover.  Neither of us had ever ridden in a semi before.  This guy was hilarious.  He had an much-larger-than-needed propane tank/burner right beside him for heating up water for tea.  The Argentinians are zealous about drinking their mate!  It was also hilarious when he heard Duane`s name.  His face went white.  Most spanish speakers have no idea how to pronounce Duane, but his facial reaction almost said something like - "I feel like I have just insulted you greatly, but I have no idea how to say your name."  He spends 6 months a year in southern Patagonia moving animals - mostly sheep - from one place to another.  He was empty when he picked us up.

In the cab of the semi - Luis with his mate in hand.

The third guy who picked us up is a high school teacher.  It was Saturday and he had gone to visit his daughter and was returning home.  He drove about 150?? miles an hour, but there wasn't traffic so it seemed pretty safe.  He dropped us off at a road that cut over to the border town that leads most directly to Torres del Paine.  Although the most direct way, this is not the way most tourists get to the park.  We waited for over an hour then decided to start walking the 6k to the border town.  About 30 minutes into that Jorge, from Spain, picked us up.  He is a serious fisherman and has traveled all over the world for good fishing.  A very entertaining day, and we actually made it all the way to the park!  The weather didn't cooperate with us that well, but once it was decent we did parts of the "W":

We ate our snack and waited patiently to get this glimpse of the granite namesakes of the park.

The geology of this place is quite fascinating.  Magma formed under the ground and over time was pushed up by movement of the earth's plates.  Along with erosion and glacial action, we humans then get some amazing landscapes and some great hiking.

Los Cuernos del Paine - somewhat hidden by the snow these have a black sedimentary rock on top of the granite.

In this last picture you can also see some of the damage of the fire started by a tourist the last December.  There is extensive damage to the park`s scenic bottom of the "W".  The mountains, however, are no less impressive.

Just a quick two nights in Puerto Natales (at a great hostel with a resident cat and two dogs that visited during the day) and we were on a bus to Punta Arenas where we landed for a while to take care of things back home.  Punta Arenas is right on the Straight of Magellan.  Several things kept us entertained:  penguins, recent flood damage, fellow tourists!, Seinfeld replays (spanish subtitles) and miscellaneous things of the largest city (~130K) we had been in in over two months.

A 3+ hour boat ride out to Isla Magdalena.  These are Magellanic Penguins. 

Lots of the penguins had already started their migration, but there were still plenty waiting around for the right moment to hit the sea.

A serious amount of mud was deposited in the streets due to the flood caused by an unusual 3 days straight of rain - about a week before we got there.  Duane, turned into a soils and river engineer, came up with the cause and solution...

Easily one of our favorite hostals so far -- Eduardo the owner is awesome, we met several interesting characters who had done the panamerican highway on motorcycles or "push" bikes, we enjoyed the larger-than-normal included b'fast and there was really good wi-fi.

It was tough deciding which way to leave Punta Arenas.  We were either going to hitch down to Ushuaia, Argentina or take the ferry to Puerto Williams, Chili.  In large part, another group who had been to Puerto Williams influenced us and we decided on staying in Chili and seeing their claim to the most southern city...