Blogs from Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 2

This and all my blogs are available on my website with more photos https://heatherjasper.com/chile/wildlife-near-punta-arenas Say Hueque organized my penguin and whale watching tours. I went with them because of their environmental mission to go beyond sustainability. They were also super easy to work with! Highly recommended! The three most popular tours from Punta Arenas are also my favorites. This isn’t always the case. I often find the most popular places have become overly commercial, overly crowded or just plain boring. These tours are worth your time. The half day tour to see Magellanic penguins on Isla Magdalena, the full day tour to Tierra del Fuego and the full day whale watching tours truly are fantastic. I also recommend independently visiting Pali Aike National Park a... read more

(Note to reader - strap in, here comes a long one) I feel a bit annoyed with myself that I haven't kept these up, and that my posts have been rarer and rarer as our trip here has gone on. Part of this was COVID, as sh*t, what do you talk about when you're locked in the house (we don't talk about COVID no no). The other part of this is that generally when I have been inspired to write has been pointing out the little humourous differences in life between here and Canada. Like the travel experiences are great, but generally it's like, we went here, and we did this. Like great, anyone can write that. The true gold is the ridiculous day to day situations that I find myself in here, based on a ... read more

We sailed though Glacier Alley in the Beagle Channel after leaving Ushuaia yesterday. The weather was misty with a freezing cold wind. Colder than anything we've had so far, although it may have been because the temperature got up to 20 in the afternoon and we all thought we didn't need antarctic clothes any more. We knew there were 5 glaciers, all named after countries so had to stay out side as we counted them off. The first four went past and we had to wait a while for the fifth which was the most spectacular - a hanging glacier with a torrent of water cascading out from under the ice splitting in two as it reached an outcrop and carried on to the sea. It's a pity it was so misty as the photos are ... read more

R: Today was a day of multiple walks. The weather was only slightly better than yesterday and was still cold and windy. We were heading to Lago Grey today, so after much the same breakfast as yesterday, we boarded the bus and were on our way. It was about 40 minutes to get to Grey ranger station where there is also a visitor centre. The group had been split today as many people who were not used to hiking had decided to go for the easy walk option around the lake. Me? Well, no. I went in the advanced party of 4 who went to tackle the Ferrier lookout. We were promised amazing views over numerous lakes, and a very steep climb! We set off from the visitors centre with our guide Mauricio, Sergio (the Swiss ... read more

The next morning we were up early and out. It was raining quite a bit now so heading into the national park seemed a bit flat. But people were still enthusiastic so that was good. We travelled on a bright yellow, private overland vehicle. My sub-section of the group ended up at the "party" end of the bus which had train style tables and access to the music and USB ports. The bus came equipped with UNO and various other card games so we whiled away a few hours playing games, and getting to know each other. The bus was really comfy for long journeys however it did have little in the way of heating so the windows misted up with the rain beating against them so it was hard to see out. We stopped at ... read more