Monday, April 7, 2008

It was still pouring when we woke up this morning. The two of us, plus 8 other people, ate breakfast at 4:30 before getting on 2 vans down to Punta Arenas. We tried our best to sleep on the van, but it was difficult since the ride was so bumpy and because the driver had the heat turned up to about 85 degrees. We stopped at one point because it was snowing so hard, the drivers got out and discussed with one another what to do. We continued driving, and fortunately it cleared up within 5 minutes.

The weather in Punta Arenas was all over the map. When we got out of the van at the airport, it was clear and cold. From the inside, waiting for checkin, we saw hail, snow, rain, sunshine, all together or within minutes of one another. The flight to Santiago was fine, but again there was little to look at because of all the clouds. In Santiago we ate a late lunch and started thumbing through all of the things we had tabbed in our Buenos Aires books. The flight was shorter than we thought, because we jumped another time zone. When we landed, it was around 7:30 and it was dark.

We picked up our bags without incident, and were greeted by our guide, Marcelo. He took us to our hotel in Palermo, the BoBo. We stayed in the "Pop" room. After getting situated, we went looking for a restaurant called La Cupertina, in the hopes of getting some empanadas. At first we couldn't find it, so we put our name in at La Cabrera, which was where La Cupertina was supposed to be. The wait was 45 minutes, so we went looking for La Cupertina again, this time finding it, but finding it closed. We continued to wander around, eventually finding a restaurant called Janio. The food was good, especially the papas fritas, and the water was named Villavicencio. We were very tired when we got back - 1am, and crashed.