Misadventures in South America

Let's take a trip in our time machine all the way back to Christmas break. After our amazing trip to Peru and our successfully dealing with issues like altitude sickness and us venturing on longer hikes we thought we were ready for another great big adventure. Patagonia! 

And while it was still a pretty good trip it was peppered with issues even before we got on the plane. 

So please.. join me on this eventful journey in South America. 

We started our journey by flying into Santiago, Chile. We had an overnight flight with a layover in Miami. After spending a night in Santiago we were supposed to fly to Punta Arenas, considered one of the southernmost cities of the world only 870 miles away from Antarctica. Why were we flying to Punta Arenas? We had one and only one reason for going there.. to visit Isla Magdalena, a small island, home to over 120,000 Magellanic penguins. You get to walk among them. This one of of the highlights of our trip.. the kids had been taking about it for months. 

And I am standing in JFK when I get the message that our trip has been cancelled.. a trip we are not scheduled to take for another two days.. the voyage has been cancelled due to mechanical issues. They are sailing a day before and a day after but not on Christmas Day.. the day I had booked the trip because things are usually closed on Christmas Day and a pre booked excursion is always a safe bet. 

So now my only thought is to book with someone else.. I Google a lot.. send out many text and emails and then get on the plane waiting anxiously to land in Miami so I can find out if I was lucky or not.

I was not. 

So we landed in Santiago the next morning our moods already dampened.  And no offense to Santiago but it didn't have the charm to get us out of our funk. It was hot and dusty, everything looked gray. 

We visited San Cristóbal Hill. The cable car was closed so we took the funicular to the top.

At the top is the statue of the Immaculate Conception. In the pedestal there is a small chapel in which John Paul II prayed and blessed the city of Santiago on April 1, 1987. The statue is 46 feet tall including the pedestal chapel. It was very hot. We grabbed some popsicles and made our way back down.

The one bright spot of our so far lackluster day was the yummy burgers we had at Holy Moly. We ended up taking a break at the hotel for a bit and ventured out again later in the evening.. hoping to find a more lively neighborhood. 

And we did. Barrio Italia. Just a few blocks away from our hotel. It had many many cute shops and markets. We finally settled down for dinner and it was another winner. 

We ate at Siria. Good food makes such a difference on your mood. 

and afterwards we got ice cream at Montana Gelato.

The next morning we took a very early morning flight to Punta Arenas to do nothing!

Punta Arenas sits on the Strait of Magellan. It was started as a penal colony. It became a major, prosperous port for 19th-century maritime trade, immigration, and sheep farming before declining after the 1914 Panama Canal opening. Today, it is a key Patagonian hub for Antarctic, oil, and tourist activity. 

Punta Arenas is known to be windy as is most of Patagonia.. and boy was that not an exaggeration. I mean.. if this was summer I don't even want to know what winter feels like.

We landed there midday Christmas eve. Our Airbnb was really nice. We settled in then left in search for lunch. We ate some nice sandwiches and then wandered around for a bit.

 

In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan's expedition was the first European group to navigate the natural passage (now the Strait of Magellan) linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, proving the world could be circumnavigated by sea. Spoiler alert, the earth is round.

Today, Punta Arenas continues to be a major logistic and research base, with the Chilean Antarctic Institute headquartered there. Scientists from around the world use the city as a gateway for ongoing research into climate change and marine biology.

Now our major problem was not just what to do but where to eat. It being Christmas Eve and this being a small city everything was closed or fully booked. But thank God for Chinese people because they never close. We had a nice Chinese dinner and then headed back to the Airbnb. 

The next morning, Christmas Day, poised a similar problem. Where to eat? We had no supplies except for some snacks. Not even grocery stores were open. So we Googled and called and I mean how did we function before the internet? We found a casino hotel that was open to breakfast for non guests..  

We were originally supposed to pick up our rental car from the airport in the afternoon.. but as we were not going on a penguin tour and had nothing to do we convinced the car rental company to give us the car earlier. A huge shout out to them.. because not only did they make the car available earlier but they also delivered it to our door. 

Can we hope that things were finally looking up? 

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