After too much time spent on airplanes, we’re finally trading in the weatherproof jackets for flip-flops. It’s a balmy 82 degrees as we set foot on Easter Island and we couldn’t be happier. We don’t know anybody who has traveled here before, so going in, I don’t think we really knew what to expect. But landscape is fairly lush, palm trees are swaying in the breeze, and as we walk out of the airport, leis are quickly draped around our necks by our driver. It’s like traveling in time to what Hawaii must have been like 60 years ago, when tourists there were still measured in the tens of thousands and not the millions.

We take a quick tour of the town (what there is of it), before stopping off at a common tourist photo spot. We’re over the moon excited to see the Moai statues in the background, oblivious to how much our lives will revolve around them for the next 5 days.

Like the rest of Chile (even more so), there are no hotels of substance here, leaving the vast majority of accommodation to consist of small, family run operations with a handful of rooms each. Our place is no different, and we’re pleased to find we have the three unit building to ourselves, at least for the next few days. Apparently, November is high season on Easter Island, so things are expected to fill up quickly.

At this point, Easter Island is shaping up to be awesome. Internet on Easter Island, however, is not. Wi-Fi is a requirement for us when it comes to picking a place to stay, and, as advertised, I’m able to connect without fail. What I can’t actually do however is transfer any data. I guess I’m old enough to remember when 128kbps (the service available on the island) was the gold standard in download speeds, but these days it feels like the Dark Ages. Pages take minutes each to load, and simply trying to pull up our tour confirmations in email is an exercise in futility. My trusty travel companion tells me this is a good thing, as I won’t be able to do any work. It’s a nice story, but I’m not really buying it.

With nothing else clamoring for our attention, we are free to walk into town and do a bit of exploring. We quickly get familiar with where all of the important stores are while sampling a few restaurants along the way. The empanadas here are as good as any we have had in Chile, while the self-proclaimed “best sandwich on the island” is good, but sadly, no lomito. We also comes across some sort of rugby tournament being played at the only good sports field in town, with vendors grilling up meat skewers over old oil drums cut in half. That’s just not something we can pass up, a decision we revel in as we try to figure out the rules of a game we clearly don’t understand.

On the way back to the hotel, we wander back by the statues we saw earlier in the day, passing this poor fellow along the way.

It still feels a little surreal being here, having the opportunity to just sit on the grass and stare up at these Moai, wondering how they got here and what they mean. We’re soon joined by a couple of friendly locals, who are definitely spending time with us for the quality of the company and not the food that seems to keep slipping out of my fellow traveler’s hand. Where’s Sam when I need him?

It’s been a long day and then some, considering we left Punta Arenas almost 20 hours ago, and with no Internet, sleep comes pretty darn easy.

We’ve pretty much checked all the boxes Punta Arenas has to offer, so our flight to Easter Island has come at just the right time (figuratively anyway, as the 1:30am departure time isn’t exactly a sweet spot). With the afternoon to kill, we wander back through town, stopping at all the “handmade” craft stalls, snacking on some empanadas, and watching street performers in the park. The unequivocal highlight however is our lunch stop.

While Chile lacks the infamous Lomo Completo, they do have a signature sandwich called the Lomito. It’s pork rather than beef, so seems a little less exciting, but is something we have been keeping an eye out for. And what better place to give it a try than this one:

We get two seats at the counter where we can watch the chefs work their magic. They’ve got the process down to an art, and in just a few minutes, we’re staring down this tasty looking creation:

It’s a pile of grilled pork, lettuce, tomato, mild sauerkraut, and the obligatory heavy dose of mayo (which comes in bags here so that you can just cut off the corner and squeeze it on everything). Fortunately, I’m splitting one with my trusty travel companion, as it’s far more than a meal, but so delicious that you would just keep eating until it was gone.

We’re more than stuffed as we head back to the apartment to collect our bags. Given our well-planned red-eye to Santiago, followed by a five hour flight to Easter Island, we figure we may as well set up camp in the airport lounge and work through some emails.

There’s not much more to the place than a couple of small areas connected by a shared bathroom, and a counter with a few bowls of banana chips and dried fruit. The hand dryer is very loud, and every few minutes dutifully announces that someone has completed their business. The puzzle I can’t solve is how the guy I watch walk out and then dig his hand into the banana chips, muffled the sound of dryer so much that I couldn’t hear it at all.

On an unrelated note, I have a bag of banana chips from the Punta Arenas airport if anyone wants to try them.

It’s circus day and my 5-year old couldn’t be more excited. The boat doesn’t leave for Isla Magdalena until 4pm, so she’s been dancing around all morning like she has to pee while we take advantage of some down time to catch up on things back home. The sky isn’t quite as clear as it has been the past few days and we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain, but to be on the safe side we bust out the neon jackets one more time.

The boat ride is about 90 minutes each way, and every so often, the passengers all storm one side or the other to see whales or dolphins off in the distance. At certain times of the year, this area is supposedly one of the best places for whale watching, but in November they are pretty few and far between.

Isla Magdalena has no permanent residents other than the birds, so the only people on it are the tour groups that come each day, make a quick lap around the island, and then return to Punta Arenas. As the ramp on our boat hits land, another 300 member blob of humanity spills out, selfie sticks swinging around like lightsabers as people jockey for position. With only 60,000 pairs of penguins to go around, there seems to be some real concern there might not be plenty of opportunities for pictures.

For better or worse, the penguins are clearly used to people being in their space, and while they stay away from the path as the horde moves through, once the last of the intruders has passed, they head on down the trail to resume their business.

Along the way, we see this group of three waddling by. You can probably guess who they remind us of.

To try and get some better pictures, I try moving all the way to the front of crowd, and then all the way to the back, but no matter where I am, I can’t seem to shake this strange person in a pink plastic coat, who is constantly giggling and making “do-do, do-do” sounds every time a penguin walks by.

Back on the boat, I get a “best day ever” rating from my traveling companion, so I guess the wait was worth it.

Compared to Puerto Natales, there is distinct shortage of must dos here in Punta Arenas. When the number one rated activity on TripAdvisor is a visit to the cemetery, you know you’re in trouble. We are locked in for penguins tomorrow, and all the other days tours would just take us back to Torres del Paine, so that just leaves whatever sights we can find in and around the city. The people that own the apartment where we are staying have arranged a car and driver for the day. The driver speaks no English, and we speak very little Spanish, so it should be an adventure.

Our first destination is El Fuerte Bulnes, about a 40 minute drive south of town. This is the area where the Chileans built the first fort following their claim over the region in the mid 1800s. It is a desolate place with particularly nasty weather (when the trees around you are all growing sideways, you’ve picked a bad spot), and eventually the fort was abandoned and the settlement (which eventually became Punta Arenas) moved to a more desirable location.

This area also marks the spot that Chile claims as the mid-point of the country. We’re a long way south so I’m a bit surprised, but it seems that Chile claims territory all the way to the South Pole, so I guess if you start there and go all the way up to the border with Peru, this monument makes sense.

From here, we’re off to grab a nice lunch at a restaurant our driver recommends.

Fueled up once again, we head to our next stop, the Nao Victoria Museo. Here there are full-size replicas of the Nao Victoria (the ship Magellan sailed on when he passed through these straits on his trip around the globe), the HMS Beagle (made famous by Charles Darwin), the Ancud (the ship sent by the Chilean government to claim the region), and the James Caird (the lifeboat used by Ernest Shackleton to save the crew of the Endurance following his failed attempt to cross Antartica on foot). It is in an industrial area near the port, so an odd location for a museum, but interesting nevertheless. It’s the kind of place we know our boys would love, spending hours crawling through the different decks trying to figure out how all the rigging worked.

Finally, because it is the number one thing to do, we visit the cemetery. I have to admit, for a relatively small town (about 100,000 people now), it is quite impressive, reminding us both of the much better known Recoleta in Buenos Aires.

Here we part ways with our driver, as it is just a short walk back to our apartment where we kick off our shoes and call it a day.

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.