I’m moving around like the Tin Man this morning, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why. The great news, is that I get to fold my stiff joints into a bus seat for the three hour journey back to Punta Arenas. So after a quick breakfast, we pack up our things, say goodbye to Puerto Natales, and head off to the bus station.

Punta Arenas is the economic hub of the region, having benefitted significantly from oil and gas exploration. There are more people, more cars, and a faster pace to life that we’ll need to adjust to over the next few days.

Priority number one is securing a tour to Isla Magdalena, an island in the middle of the Straits of Magellan that is home to some 60,000 pairs of penguins. My trusty traveling companion morphs into a giddy, 5-year old girl around penguins, so this is a bucket list item for her. The next available slot is 2 days away so, with nothing else on the agenda, we stake out a spot at the pier, hoping to snap up any free seats from no shows. It’s not meant to be however, and after watching the boat pull away with a full load, we decide to lay low for the rest of the day.

5:30am comes pretty early no matter what part of the world you are in, but there aren’t many where it means you’ve only missed the sunrise by an hour. After talking tough all yesterday afternoon, my hiking partner has decided to sit this one out to try and shake off a cold, and from the comfort of her bed, wishes me luck before rolling back over and going to sleep.

The goal today is pretty simple – after a 2 hour drive to the trail head, cover 9.8km and 880 vertical meters to the base of Torres del Paine, before turning around and doing the whole thing in reverse. There are only 5 of us plus a guide and, not having done a lot of hikes like this, I quickly check the rest of the group to see who might keep me company at the back of the line. My leading candidate is the girl from Mexico with the new pink sneakers and stylie leather backpack.

The drive covers much of the same ground as yesterday, so I don’t figure I am missing much by grabbing a nap. It makes the time pass quicker, and soon we are pulling into the parking lot of the [Hotel Torres] where the fun is set to begin. In addition to the hotel, there are a ton of tents set up just off the road, with groups of people already geared up and headed up the mountain. Where the casual tourists (like me) have made this a “spur of the moment” activity, the vast majority of people here have clearly planned for it, making reservations and bringing all of the proper gear. Not exactly a confidence booster.

The unfortunate news, at least compared to yesterday, is that the clouds have moved back in. It’s not raining (thankfully), and our guide figures that things will clear up in the 3 hours or so that it will take us to get where we are going. As you can just barely make out part of the towers from where we’re standing, I sure hope he knows what he’s talking about.

When my traveling companion signed on for this yesterday, it was largely because our guide let her know the first 90 minutes was fairly gentle, with only a bit of climbing before dropping down to a small camp along a river. Here, if she wasn’t feeling up to tackling the harder part, it was a very nice place to relax and read a book before rejoining the group on the way back down.

As the first leg up is kicking my ass, I start to wonder just what I have gotten myself into.

I also thank the hiking gods that I ended up going solo. There would be one very unhappy camper right about now. Very few people see this face and live to tell about it, and I’m not ready to tempt fate again.

Being curled up in a warm bed does mean missing out on some amazing views however, as the rest camp soon comes into sight.

Near the river there is signpost with a basic outline of how today’s hike breaks down, and I’m not sure whether to fell heartened by the fact that I’m over a third of the way up, or terrified that I have two-thirds left to go.

While pondering that question, the Canadian part of my brain decides to show up and remind me that I know metric. In the tour office, 886 meters doesn’t really sound that ominous, but it works out to 2,907, roughly the height of Snoqualmie Pass. Holy s**t! I paid $50 to walk up to Snoqualmie Pass? I’m a 46 year old man who sits behind a desk all day – what was I thinking?

Fortunately, before that has time to sink in, the guide has us back on our way. The good news is that, despite my early trepidation, pink sneakers and I are actually leading the charge, and have several opportunities along the way to capture some photos while waiting for the rest of the group to catch up.

Two and half hours in, we come to the last, and most difficult part of the journey. The final 1,000 feet are steep moraine, beyond which we can see our destination, unfortunately still shrouded in cloud cover.

It’s tiring work, the scenery is dull, and on more than one occasion I ask myself what the heck I’m doing up here. Then, just as my legs feel like they are about to give out, I come over the final group of boulders and instantly forget every painful step that brought me here. It’s beyond words how spectacular it is – something I try to capture with pictures even knowing each time the shutter clicks that I can’t.

Given the effort required to get to this point, the crowd definitely skews younger and to the more athletic side. I’m not too old to appreciate the foxes wandering around, even though they rarely stay still long enough to photograph.

We recuperate for about an hour with lunch and, as our guide assures us the water is safe, I fill my empty bottle from the lake so that I have a piece of this place to share once I get back to the hotel.

The hike back is uneventful. To my surprise, I’m the only one keeping pace with the guide and, rather than wait all the time for the stragglers, he sends me on ahead at my own pace. It makes for a very peaceful return trip, with the opportunity to just sit and enjoy places like this on my schedule.

I’m beat by the time I hit the bottom and there’s no question I’ve pushed my poor body harder today than I have in a very long time. Funny thing is, if you asked me to go again tomorrow, I’d sign up in a heartbeat.

It is a wonderful, sunny day here in Patagonia – perfect timing for our tour of the national park. Torres del Paine is often listed as one of the most beautiful places on earth, so expectations are high. We are booked with a guide that came highly recommended by the travelers we met from New Zealand, and the fact we will be spending the day in a 9 passenger van instead of an 80 passenger bus bodes well. For me, few things ruin seeing the sights more than a tour bus pulling up and barfing out a huge mass of sheeple.

Spoiler alert – this place is absolutely spectacular. The pictures don’t do it justice at all, and I’m struggling mightily to decide which ones to include here. There are so many that give just a glimpse of the scenery here, so prepare for a whole lot of scrolling…

The park is about 90 minutes from Puerto Natales, and our first stop is a viewpoint overlooking Lago Sarmiento. It is also our first glimpse of the namesake towers – two of them at least.

On our way to the next stop, we get some great opportunities to see the local wildlife. The rhea (similar to an ostrich) is the largest bird in South America, and much to my bus buddy’s delight, it’s the the of year when the eggs are hatching. Years ago, this was a tasty treat on many dinner tables, but everything is protected nowadays and this family doesn’t seem that nervous having us around.

Another culinary staple of the original inhabitants here is the guanaco. It is part of the same family as llamas, vicunas and camels, but the only one to have never been domesticated. It did make a great source of food and clothing however, with a taste, according to our guide, similar to young horse. Yum.

Since they are off limits now to people, their main predator is the puma. So while the rest of the group grazes lazily on grass and leaves, one guanaco heads up to the top of the nearest hill to serve as a lookout. In the event he spots anything shady, he bellows out an alarm. Pumas, it seems, haven’t quite figured out the best strategy is to take out the spotter first.

Back on the road, we pull over for a few quick photos at Laguna Amara. There is, uncharacteristically for Patagonia, almost no wind today, and the mountains reflecting off of the water makes for a great view.

From there it is on to a set of small waterfalls. Almost all of the lakes and rivers here are connected and our guide points our the route from the ice fields high in the mountains all the way to the ocean. Apparently, there is usually a lot more water this time of year but, like many places, not as much snow is falling in the winter. I’m still impressed though, and I say that being a bit of a waterfall aficionado.

Now one of the great things about a small tour with a local guide, is that they know the spots the bigger tours don’t bother with. Out of nowhere, we pull over to the side of the road, and after following her up a hill with no discernible trail, we cross over the ridge of a huge valley, with not a soul in sight. I won’t even try to describe how stunning it is because my words simply can’t do it justice. If we just sat here on the rocks the rest of the day and stared out over the landscape, it would still be our best day ever.

Still more to see however, so back in the van to our final stop before lunch, a 30 minute hike to the Salto Grande Rio Paine. This is a regular stop on the tour bus circuit, but steeple generally stick to the easiest paths and we are able to miss most of them by taking the road less travelled (hmmm, there’s probably a lesson in that – someone should write a poem about it).

You have to bear with me, as even with all we have seen, it is still only lunch time. Stretch your legs. Take a bathroom break. I’ll wait.

As food is not included on the tour, we’ve brought our own to enjoy on the shore of a quiet, mountain lake. If there is a more spectacular spot for a picnic, I have yet to see it.

This friendly fellow seems pretty fond of it as well, particularly the scraps left behind by careless tourists.

Refueled, we head off to our next hike, a 45 minute walk to a viewpoint overlooking Glaciar Gray. In the busy season, you can take kayaks up to the foot of the glacier, but this time of year, the overlook is as close as you can get (on a tour at least). With the blue sky it is a much different (not better, just different) experience than the glaciers on our boat tour.

The lake is littered with ice bergs that have broken off and drifted towards the lookout. They don’t look like much here, but are at least 3 or 4 times the size of our house.

Before we leave the park, there is one final viewpoint that pulls together a little bit of everything we’ve experienced today.

On the way back to Puerto Natales, there is one last stop at a cave where they found the remains of an ancient sloth called a mylodon. On any other day it might be noteworthy, but compared to the park it is mostly an afterthought. If your curious, pretty much picture Sid from Ice Age, but 10 feet tall. As always, Google has more about them than you ever cared to know.

Tomorrow we’ve signed up to head back into the park for the 11.2 mile hike to the base of the towers. Once the rush from our tour today wears off, that may seem far less appealing, but they wisely took our money now, so its game on.

The pace of the last few days has finally caught up to us, and with nothing formal booked, we spend most of the morning relaxing in the room catching up on things and planning what to do next. We figure we can wander around town and do a little shopping, including a visit to the grocery store as our new place comes complete with a kitchen – a huge benefit as we are growing very tired of restaurant food.

Aside from the boat tour, the two big options remaining are a full day road trip to about a half dozen spots in the national park, and an 18km hike to the base of Torres del Paine. The hilly, 5km to Muelle de Las Almas has left my fellow adventurer in some pain, so shooting for something 4 times that long seems aggressive, but the write ups we find on the Internet rave about it. For the moment, we go the safe route and arrange the road trip for tomorrow, but I have a feeling the debate isn’t over.

That out of the way, we wind our way through the quite streets of town, finally stopping in a casual fast food place for some lunch. Those who follow our travels know of the legendary Lomo Completo sandwich we discovered in Argentina, and our distinct hope in traveling back to South America is that we would find in Chile as well. Sadly, it is nowhere to be found here, even though they commonly eat something also called a Completo.

It couldn’t be more different, as they cover a cheap hot dog with about an inch of diced tomatoes, avocado paste, and mayonnaise, all in a bun about twice as think as a hot dog back home. Based on the name alone though we have to try it, and the look on Angela’s face as she takes a bite is priceless. You’d think she bit into a mouse. ¡Dios mío! Where is a camera when you need one?

That’s not even the pinnacle of our culinary adventure, as for dinner we head back to a barbecue place we found during our walk. It has much more of a local vibe to it than the one in front of our hotel, and the speciality is the parrillada, a grilled up pile of lamb, chicken, potatoes and chorizo similar to what we had on our boat tour. It looks awesome.

Powering through the stack, we soon realize the tour version has been polished up a little for tourist consumption, as for the locals, there are a few extra treasures including some blood sausage, a neatly woven chunk of intestine, and something we believe to be heart.

Now we’ve watched the Travel Channel where people eat these bits and say how good they taste, so we put on our big boy pants and give them a try. Those people are as full of crap as the rubbery mess on the plate in front of me. There is nothing pleasant about the experience whatsoever. The taste is bad. The texture is bad. It’s all just bad. Thankfully, I still have a few pieces of regular meat left to mask the taste of partially digested grass and congealed blood.

It’s a relatively easy start for us this morning, with the tour company picking us up at 8:00am and slowly (my least favorite part of tours is, hands down, the milk run to every hotel, picking up and dropping off passengers) moving us towards the port. The weather is not particularly encouraging, but we know that you have to take what you get here, and we’re optimistic things will clear up during the day.

Things start to look up a bit as we get underway. The winds are quite strong, but patches of blue start to show through the clouds and show off some of the dramatic landscapes around us.

Unfortunately, the further we get into our journey the worse things seem to get, and before long, we’re dealing with this:

Every so often, we manage to find pockets that are protected from the weather and everyone on board rushes outside to take pictures. The scenery is raw and rugged, with mountains shooting straight up on both sides of the channel. It feels a lot like Stewart, B.C, bringing back fond memories of time spent on the Prime Time.

Around midday, we dock for a short hike to the base of the Serrano Glacier. The face is about 30 meters high at the waterline, and every so often you can hear pieces of it break away and fall into the lake below. Even more impressive though is that, if I understand our guide correctly, it is another 150 meters thick below the surface.

The crew hauls a piece back on board to serves up shots of whiskey with ice millions of years old.

It only seems fitting to dedicate one to the captain of the Tawny Port.

Our final stop is an estancia for a tasty lunch of barbecued lamb, chorizo and potatoes. We meet some fellow travelers, including a group of teenagers from New Zealand that are living in Santiago, studying abroad for 12th grade. We’ve talked about our boys studying abroad doing college, but high school seems so much younger and I don’t think we’re ready to let them go that soon.

The rest of the journey back is uneventful and the gets progressively better the closer we get to town. By the time we arrive, it is quite pleasant out, making the process of changing hotels that much less painful. It turns out the owner of the restaurant we ate at yesterday has been building some apartments directly behind it, so that’s where we’ll be for the next three nights. There is literally a smoker shack right outside our front door – what could be better than that?

One of the more curious choices my travel planner made for this trip was spending the better part of a week at the far southern tip of Chile. The weather isn’t particularly warm this time of year, there is a giant hole on the ozone layer directly overhead, and from what I read, it can get so windy in the main town of Punta Arenas that they string a rope between lampposts for people to hang on to. I figure getting that close to Antarctica is good enough reason to go, but two days, three tops, feels like plenty. Nevertheless, I’m assured there is plenty for us to see, and with the flights already booked, it’s too late to change our minds now.

The flight is fairly short, but our final destination today is Puerto Natales, another three hours away by bus. Where Punta Arenas is the economic center of this region, Puerto Natales is without a doubt the tourism hub. It is the gateway to the Torres del Paine National Park, which draws hikers from all over the world. With a bit of time to kill, I am able to read up on the area and get a sense for what attracted my snoring seat-mate’s attention in the first place.

As we have come to expect, there are no real hotels here, but we’ve managed to find a comfortable place for the night (we have a different booking starting tomorrow) just a few blocks from the main square. After traveling most of the day we don’t have a whole lot of time left, but we make the most of it, locking in a boat trip to through the fjords for the morning, and sitting down for a nice meal of, what else, meat. This is lamb country, and while I choose a steak, my dinner companion wisely sticks with the house special. Delicious.

I’m not sure where we first read about it as it doesn’t seem to be in either of our guidebooks, but there is crooked bridge kind of thing called Muelle de Las Almas that we want to try and see today. As we understand the story, the original inhabitants of the islands, the Mapuches, believed that when they died, their souls travelled to the Punta Pirulil where a ferryman would transport them to their eternal resting place. However, souls that could not pay the toll were left to wander the shores of Punta Pirulil, where you can hear their some say you can hear their anguished cries in the sound of the crashing waves ocean waves. Some years ago, an artist built the Muella de Las Almas (the Dock of Souls) to pay homage to this legend, with the bridge marking the journey of souls from this world to the next.

From Castro, we head about 45 minutes to the western shore, and then south down a goat path that no self-respecting goat would use. We hear a lot of awful sounds coming from beneath our feet as our tiny rental car bottoms out repeatedly, but checking the rear view mirror, no pieces are falling off and we press on. When we can finally go no further, we lock the doors and head off on foot, for what ends up being a 2.5km hike through some spectacular scenery…

past some of the local residents…

and finally to this…

Of course, I need to climb the hill off to the right (after all, it has a trail on it), but find no other takers in my group. If you look very closely in this picture, you can see my fellow traveler sprawled out beneath the bridge soaking in the energy of the place.

After a bit of zen time, we head back to the car and start off towards Castro. Not far down the trail, we pick up out first two hitchhikers ever – a German and a Hungarian, both in their 20s who are at least an hour’s walk from any sort of bus service. This good karma comes in handy, as no more than a half mile further down the road, the tiny wheels of our car sink deep into the loose sand and we come to a stop. Fortunately, with a little digging, the pushing power of our extra passengers, and a hand from a few more trekkers walking by, we get back on our way.

Tonight we’re staying back in Puerto Montt, to be close to the airport for our flight in the morning. It’s a shame to be leaving Chiloé so soon as we really did love it here. Still plenty to see, but so far the highlight of our trip.

Not so long ago, as we travelled the world, I consistently had a good two hour block in the morning to catch up things (like this journal) while the other half of Team Roberts peacefully studied the insides of her eyelids. I can’t explain it, but over the past few trips, that time has almost vanished. I don’t think I’m getting up any later, which can only mean one thing. Amazing, but true.

On the positive side, that means on days like today we are out the door and beginning our long drive to Chiloé by 8:00am. But on the negative side, this story gets written in fits and starts, sometimes relying on my aging memory to fill in the gaps. A fair trade off I suppose, as the extra time allows us to cram more things into each day, meaning even if I start forgetting some, no one will be able to tell.

Chiloé is a large island a few miles off the coast that we finally reach by ferry, four hours or so after leaving Valdivia. According to our guide books, being disconnected from the mainland has allowed a distinct culture to develop here, and we definitely can sense a change of atmosphere as we pull into Ancud, one of the larger towns at the northern tip. Perhaps it is because the sun is shining once again, but things just feel lighter and a little less urgent.

One of the main reasons travelers come to the island is the network of churches constructed here by the Jesuits starting in the 1700s. As shipbuilding skills were plentiful at the time (and presumably masonry less so), they were built entirely out of wood. Our first stop in Ancud is one that has been restored and converted into a museum. There aren’t a whole lot of displays written in English, but with all of the exposed beams, we get a sense for how these impressive buildings were put together. They are on the list of World Heritage Sites, and if you’re interested, there is plenty written about them on the Internet at sites like this one.

While in Ancud, finding a place that serves Curanto is also a must. This is a traditional dish of seafood (mostly shellfish) and potatoes cooked by placing the food and hot stones in a pit, then covering the whole thing with wet leaves, grass and dirt. The finished product is piled high and served up with a bowl of soup for dipping. If I don’t weigh 500 pounds when I get off the plane in Seattle it will be miracle.

From Ancud, we head 20 minutes or so further west to a pinguineria. It’s clearly still low season here, as we are able to secure ourselves 2 seats on an otherwise empty boat to the islands where they nest. The wind is blowing and the water is pretty rough, but seeing penguins is on my trusty traveling companion’s bucket list, so a few waves aren’t going to stop her.

There are both Humboldt and Magellanic penguins here, waddling down the hills from their nests to fish, and then back up again with food for their young. Once the nesting season is over, they leave these islands and won’t set foot on dry ground again until they return the following year. We have a LOT of penguin pictures, so if you are looking for any particular pose, I probably have it.

For accommodation, we’ve arranged for a cabin near the water in the town of Castro. It takes a bit of extra effort for Google Maps to get us there, but once we arrive it is extremely peaceful. At least until the Chilean soccer team starts playing. the neighbors are fans, and while we’re thrilled they are excited to see their team win a big game, we still manage to move a few doors further down. With a few logs in the wood stove, we’re good for the night.

I don’t have a good picture of the outside of this place, but there is something similar across the bay. If we had a little more time, I definitely could see myself just relaxing here with a few books, watching the time come in and out. Should you ever find yourself in Chiloé, I can highly recommend it.

It’s another wet, gray day outside and there is some temptation (a lot really) to stay inside and catch up on so many things that we have fallen behind on. We’ve been gone a week now and are running perilously low on clean clothes, so at a minimum that needs to get taken care of. And since we’ll be out of the room anyway, may as well make a day of it and catch some sights.

After dropping off a few bags of manky laundry at the front desk, we head off to the riverfront, where the tour boats depart for a ride to the Spanish forts some 5km away. These people are nowhere near as dumb as we are however, and with the weather as bad as it is, everything is cancelled until tomorrow. That sounds like a challenge, and after asking around, we learn that it is possible to drive about 20km out of town and then catch a local ferry to see the forts.

It’s a slow drive on a narrow road, more often than not stuck behind a heavily loaded truck of one kind or another, but we manage to find the port and are first in line. Just one problem. There are two forts nearby, and we’ve been told the best one is on a small island in the middle of the river. Unfortunately, the water is so rough by this point that the ferry can’t dock there. That means option one is off the table. Option two is across the river and that ferry is apparently still going, but after waiting in line for half an hour and seeing no movement (and visibility so poor we probably couldn’t see the fort if we were standing right next to), it’s time to concede defeat and head back to town.

We make it back in time for a late lunch back at the market and quick trip to the grocery store to stock up for our drive tomorrow. Angela is so excited to come across this little treasure and can’t wait to tell Sam that it is safe to travel to Chile because they have Heinz ketchup.

According to the forecast, the weather starts to clear up tomorrow, so we’re planning on moving south to Chiloé for our last few days in this part of the country.

The hours of driving each day has started to take its toll, and while there are some places further north we talked about going to early on, we’re going to head for the coast instead and see if we can find some sights closer together. Not far away (relatively speaking) is the town of Valdivia and, according to our books, there are some old Spanish forts, river tours, and a vibrant fish market to see. The list seems long enough to keep us entertained for a couple of days, so off we go.

By the time we arrive three hours later, the rain is just rolling in to meet us. A few small museums provides a bit of a respite while we wait to see if the worst will pass, but things only gets worse. With the wind, water is coming in sideways and regular people seem to have all hunkered down indoors. That’s just not how I roll though, so out come the waterproof, windproof jackets we brought for our time in Patagonia, and we head down to the fish market.

It’s pretty small compared to other places we have been, but still fun to look at everything there is for sale and to watch the sea lions fight over the scraps.

We finish the day at a craft market overlooking the river where restaurants full of locals line the top floor. There are a few new things on the menu to try, but as we watch the food go by, it’s obvious that the fish and chips are the specialty (across the street from the stands selling fresh fish – go figure). Mental note for tomorrow.