Back in Touch 2 November 2015

Dear family and friends,
We are back in the modern world at least for a bit after being out of touch while on our adventure to Tierra del Fuego and now in Patagonia’s Tierra del Fuego National Park in Southern Chile. If you don’t see photos in this blog you will shortly being receiving them separately.

In any case we were on the ship Stella Australis from Ushuaia and successfully landed on Cape Horn which was a major objective! We had 80 kph winds, snow, rain, and ice, climbed the several hundred meters from the sea to the Cape Horn Monument and explored the island of theCape for about an hour before the weather drove us back to the ship. We then went to Wahliaia Bay, a major nature preserve and former indigenous Indian Colony (Yaghans). We were not able to stop off at Aguila Glacier because of severe weather but the Captain pushed a bit to get us to Magellan Island to observe the Magellan Penguin population.

We disemabarked our ship at Puntas Arenas and drove 6 hours to Torres Del Paine National Park. We have taken three hikes, the two yesterday were a bit more tough for yours truly but we saw magnificent views and wildlife – large numbers of condors, guanaco (llama relative), rhea (ostrich relative), fox, many beautiful birds, etc., etc.

This afternoon and tomorrow we do another hike and then are going to do a glacier via boat on the largest Patagonian lake. Weather largely determines our activity. In general we have sun, 40’s F, but HUGE amounts of wind which typically blows between 60 – 80 kph. This morning’s hike activity was cancelled while we were on our way because of high winds – don’t know exactly but were told up to 130 kph. Needless to say we could lose Marie-Jo in a wind like that! We try again this afternoon. Will try to catch up again if we find internet access. Next stops are Lima, followed by Sacred Valley, Machu Pichu, Cusco, Quito, and the Galapagos.

We hope you are all well and much love to you all,
Grandpa and Grandmere