Chile Cheese

Feb 17

Punta Arenas, Chile

So today, the 18^th, we are cruising through the Chilean fjords, which are incredible, but too bad it is really rainy and cold. It has its own mysterious beauty. The sky is dark, the mountains are dark and the only light you can see is the crisp white water flowing off of the mountain in a waterfall. Gorgeous. The next port, I have signed up to go white water rafting J oh I can’t wait…..it takes me back to family vacations for sure!

So, back tracking to yesterday. Eli and I got up bright and early to see the town of Punta Arenas before we went on the crew tour to see penguins. Even though we had our show, Avalon, the night before, we decided we had to see everything!   (The show went incredibly well by the way. Passengers loved it! I am so happy about that!) The ship was there from 8 am to 8 pm so we had to take advantage of the time there J So, we took the free shuttle into town and came across some an adorable flea market where everyone was selling hand knit scarves and hats and gloves and really random things that you didn’t think could be knit. There are a lot of sheep in this town, so people clearly knew what would sell to tourists. The town was clean, quaint, and the people were just adorable! But Eli and I could only spend a few hours exploring since we needed to get back to go on the penguin tour.

We got back just in time to get on the next bus to go see some penguins with the crew. The bus ride was about an hour away from the boat, and it was incredibly scenic. I would say the ride over was worth the money for the whole tour. On the way we saw open fields full of wild flowers, sheep and cows everywhere, and condors eating a dying sheep. Ok, the last one was gross but kinda fascinating haha. The tour guide was telling us how lamb is amazing in Punta Arenas, and all I could think was yummm. Haha I am far from being a vegetarian these days! So we get to the actual place where the penguins are and we walk about a mile to see a grand total of (drum roll please) 20 penguins! Hahaha Not very many! Apparently noon is not the right time to see them chillin. They are pretty busy hunting at that time! But anywho, it was just gorgeous and I really did some thinking while looking at the scenery. It was so serene and it made me really think about how truly blessed I am to be alive and seeing this beautiful world all over.

After the crew tour, a bunch of us wanted to go get food in town. So we took the free shuttle back into town to search for the best restaurant. Every local we saw told us about this really tiny restaurant on the corner. We were skeptical about it since it looked like a regular old town café (a little dirty and gross)….but sometimes those are the best! We just smiled and said we may be regretting this is two hours, but let’s do this. The food was great and so was the company! We then went right back to the boat so we wouldn’t miss it J Twas a wonderful day in Punta Arenas Chile J