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We arrived in Punta Arenas - economically robust port city of 100,000+ with one ferry leaving at 9:00am the next morning for Tierra del Fuego - well after dark, checked into a hotel, ate dinner, napped, and cleaned up… it was, after all, Saturday night, and Mark was itching to throw on the threads he'd brought along for his multi-day layover in Buenos Aires. As a general rule, nightlife in Latin America does not start until 2:00am at the earliest and Punta Arenas was no exception. Long story short, we found ourselves in a discoteche sometime well after 2:00am, Dad patiently enduring for a time before prudently returning to the hotel to sleep, while Mark and I partied on… "Punta Arenas is a fairly large port city in the south of Chile and we're impressed with its size. As Eric is calling out street names, I'm trying to navigate us to the downtown area so we can find a hotel. I've already had the thought but I knew it was going to be a crazy night when Eric verbalized it - it's Saturday night, we're staying downtown in a large city, we've been in the mountains for a while… it's time to go out and tear it up…" | |
…with the various and nefarious, until little less than an hour before the ferry reached port… "…The next thing I knew it was 7:00 AM and the place was still going. I realized that Vann must have left at some point and I had to find Eric. I made my way back to the hotel and realized we had to be at the ferry in thirty minutes. Eric called the bellboy and they started throwing our luggage out the door onto the cart. We loaded up the truck and realized that neither of us could drive. My Spanish was excellent at this point by the way…" | |
…onto which Dad somehow managed to load the Hilux and our luggage, not to mention myself and Mark. "…Luckily, Vann was smart enough to go home at a reasonable hour and get some sleep in the nicest hotel we stayed at the entire trip. I can't believe that I didn't get any sleep. Anyway, we go to the dock and are completely confused. We don't have our tickets, we don't know where to buy them, and Eric tells me to practice my Spanish and go figure it out while he continues to sleep in the front seat. Ok, so with my superb Spanish in full effect, I'm stumbling around asking everyone where we buy tickets for the ferry. We finally figure it out and in pure Latin American fashion the ticket office doesn't open until the boat is supposed to leave. I'm in the process of paying and realize I don't have enough pesos for the three of us and the truck. So I yell out the door and Vann helps me out with and few dollars. The entire process was completely comical." | |
I am told that the ferry pulled from port with us aboard…, "…We back the truck into the boat…," | |
…that I missed many unique sights along the shores of Magellan's Straight, "…Eric continues to sleep and then Vann and I go up on deck…" | |
…that we did in fact cross el Estrecho Magellanes, "…My memory starts to fade here but I know I found a chair and went to sleep. I picked my head up a few times so that I could at least say that I've seen the Straights of Magellan." | |
…and that we unloaded the Hilux…, | |
…in Porvenir, Chile…, | |
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