Blogs from Magallanes, Chile, South America - page 88

After a one night stop-over in Rio Gallegos way down on the Atlantic side of southern Patagonia, we caught the bus over the border to Chile (best bus ride yet with the energetic, helpful bus assistant who made me turn over my salami though at the border crossing- boo hoo), passing through lovely Punta Arenas (the outskirts of town reminded us of Mendocino in CA) and on to Puerto Natales- the jumping off point for our fabulous no-guide 3 day tour/trek through Parc Nacional Torres Del Paine. The torres are towers, and we are talking Lord of the Rings, Mordor-type towers! These craggy mountain towers are surrounded by glacier lakes of colors you never see- milky grey and aquamarine/turquoise. Somehow we booked a trek-tour through an agency and we never spoke to our agent or met ... read more

Instituto de Serabales “So we´ll meet at 9 outside the school …” said Juan, little did we know that by 10am we would be on our feet in front of our first class. That was it, no teaching expertise, no lesson plans, no teaching guides and no teachers to shadow. Just the merry band of TAPA volunteers and an expectant bunch of Punta Arenan students. And so began my month as an English teacher in Punta Arenas, good job I’d done it before in Bolivia. A quick trip to the shop at lunchtime with my teaching partner Michael (the man with the stupid hat) and we were in possession of a set of pens, flashcards and a natty mini rugby ball in the colours of the Union Jack - a quick lob of which is just ... read more

Punta Arenas is the southernmost city on the South American continent. When comparing the latitude of 53 degrees south it's only as far from the equator as for example Hamburg or Manchester but because of the cold ocean currents coming from the Antarctis it is quite a cool and windy place. Even in the summer time the temperature rarely gets above 20 degrees. When flying from Santiago to Punta Arenas you really get an idea of the dimensions of the country. From the plane you can see the whole width of Chile with the Pacific Ocean on the other side and the Andes on the other side. And it's like that all the way, over 2000 kilometers south from Santiago, flying for three hours before you reach Punta Arenas. And that's just the bottom half of ... read more

NAVIMAG: (noun). 1. Ferry that transports passengers on a three day tour of the Patagonian Channels from Puerto Montt to Puerta Natales or vice versa. 2. Chilean torture technique (rumoured to have been developed by Pinochet) to drive people crazy by subjecting them to extreme periods of boredom, cow dung and cramped conditions. It is rumoured that it began running as a tourist venture several years ago after a bet between two naval officers one of whom quipped "I bet if we painted this thing red, charged a lot of money for it and told everyone it was great fun, tourists would flock to use it". The other officer, who couldn't believe people would be so stupid, took up the bet and the rest is history. It should be noted that the same officer sold his ... read more

From Santiago we flew to Punta Arenas, took a bus to Puerto Natales and from there to the national park of Torres del Paine. Packed with food for a week and all our hiking gear we set off for the W-trail in the park. The name "W" comes from the shape of the trail with three separate branches. The trail took us to see the 2km high granite towers of Paine, rugged snowcapped mountains, beautiful turqoise lakes and the huge Glacier Grey. Of course we were not the only ones to enjoy this all. The peak season had just started and there are almost 100000 visitors to the park yearly, most of whom come during January and February. So there was a couple of buses full of trekkers going to the park at the same time ... read more