We got a mighty early start this morning. The shuttle picked us up at the apartment at 6, and we spent the next hour or so traversing the streets of Santiago to pick up another passenger before heading to the airport.
The Santiago airport was again very impressive. Analogous to the subway system here and at home, it was much cleaner, friendlier, and more efficient. The only downfall was that we had an 'early' Sunday flight, so Dunkin Donuts wasn´t open when we first arrived (although the music and sunglasses stores were...)
On the four hour flight (including a stop-over in Puerto Montt), we were given complimentary breakfast and lunch. LANChile should operate in the US, we´d fly them everytime.
On the second half of the flight, we chatted with the man sitting next to us, who was a resident of Punta Arenas and gave us great advice on restaurants and hostels for during our stay. More importantly, he gave us his contact information and told us to call for any reason during our time here (just in case!).
We then checked our email and such in an internet cafe in Punta arenas. Within the first 10 minutes of our time in Punta arenas, we experienced extreme winds, hail, rain, and bright sunshine. They told us to expect all four seasons in one day- and boy were they right!
After checking our email we hopped on Bus Sur to head to Puerto Natales for the night. On the way we traveled along the Magellan Strait, where most of the scenery was windblown from the weather. As we got further along, however, the landscape became much more interesting, and we were fortunate enough to see baby lambs, cows and horses, nandus (which are basically ostriches), and pink flamingos (which are actually naturally found in Chile!).
When we arrived in Puerto Natales, we checked into our hostel, which was fantastic. We had a really nice room, and the owners were really sweet. After dropping off our things, we head out into town, rented a stove and gloves for the trek, ate some dinner and went back to rest up for the big adventures to come.
A little bit more about dinner... We ate at a restaurant recommended by Bill, Picador de Carlitos. Being as it is still the season for Centolla (king crab), we followed the advice of the waitress and ordered a king crab plate ´con otros mariscos´. We weren´t exactly sure what types of seafood that meant, but decided to give it a shot anyway. Since we are only very recent seafood converts, we were a little hesitant, but found the king crab to be delicious, and the mysterious `locos´ to be particularly delicious. The waitress could not translate though, and Bill only could guess at what they were. Later, seeing a sign for another restaurant that displayed both the spanish and english words for some dishes did we discover that they were (likely) abalone. Highly recommended.
A few pictures from Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas:
http://good-times.webshots.com/album/555431301goEkUb
1 comment:
:) blog hopin'.. nice blog
by the way. :)
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