Santiago to Patagonia

After our stay in Santiago we were taken back to the airport to get on a flight to head south! We bought snacks at the airport (including Pringles chips, which ended up being a recurring familiar snack during the trip). The flight in was beautiful to see the mountains from the air. We landed in Punta Arenas, collected our bags and gathered for our driver.

We waited for another couple who ended up sharing the ride with us to Singular Patagonia, Elizabeth and Allen. The driver had croissant sandwiches, snack mix and water for us for the ride in. The weather was certainly different than Santiago-- it rained most of the 3 hour drive from the airport to the hotel. Elizabeth and Allen explained their travel plans, they were originally from LA and were spending a few months traveling in Chile. We would end up later running into them a few times on the Singular property at dinner, so it was nice to have some familiar faces. They shared with us some photos from their African Safari trip.

During the drive to the hotel we saw flamingos wading around in some shallow marshy water - I had hoped to see more of them up close but they were the only ones we saw the whole trip.

When we got to the hotel, there happened to be a large influx of check ins all at the same time. Instead of checking in, they recommended we instead meet with the excursion planners to book our adventures for the time we were there.

Unfortunately the weather was not going to be good and for the effort there was not a high likelihood of seeing as much of Torres del Paine as we had hoped. They talked us into a boat tour to see glaciers and a visit to an estancia for the following day. Once we set up our plans we did a brief tour of the inside of the main lodge (which used to be an old sheep slaughterhouse...bit of creepy history!) and finally got checked in and to our room. The view was amazing - overlooking the water, although very hard to see as it was dark and appeared to be the typical Oregon winter.

Our meals were included for the entire stay at the hotel so we made our way to the dinner restaurant. I of course had red wine, Trevor had lamb and I had smoked salmon, with a salad and roasted vegetable plate. The meals were very good.

After a long day we were off to bed to be ready for the boat ride in the morning.Read more