Gone fishin'

Tomorrow we leave at 6:15am for Torres del Paine, one of Chile's most beautiful national parks at the very southern end of the country.  Our roughly 4.5 hr flight lands us in Punta Arenas, approximately four hours (by car) further south than the park.  (That's the airport you fly into if you're traveling to Antarctica.... the map on the link above shows it pretty well.)

Once we get our rental car, we'll drive up to Puerto Natales and stay in a hotel for the first night.  Tuesday we have reservations for a boat ride that takes us very close to one of the famous glaciers.  The rest of the week we'll be doing a combination of 1- or 2-night backpacking treks and couple of nights of car camping with day hikes.  We've packed our bundles, because it's not going to be Santiago weather down there--upper 50s, low 60s for the highs, and low 40s and even into the 30s at night.  A lot like summer in the northern part of Norway.

Here's a detailed map of the area where we'll be:  http://www.torresdelpaine.com/img/portada/mapaPAINE.jpg

From the pictures Torres looks like one of the most spectacular places on the planet.  I may have been this excited once or twice before..... when I was maybe seven.  Absolutely CANNOT wait!!!!

Blog hiatus until March 2 or 3