Patagonia!!

Well, I'm supposed to be packing, so just a quick run-through with pictures here since I can't get them to load on Facebook and I can tell the stories... well, in person very very soon. lol

Monday was a fantastic day. We hiked to the Torres del Paine look-out. Danielle and I hiked together (there were 6 of us on the trip total) and we made it in about 3 hours, 2 of them tough and uphill. But when we got there the clouds were just clearing up, so we stayed for about an hour before hiking back down. I wish I had gotten to know Danielle better earlier in the semester, we had a lot of fun and also a lot of coversation about God, faith, Catholicism, etc. (she is also Catholic)... it was great.


The first hour out/last hour back was up along a hill overlooking this valley. Beautiful.


The 45 minutes or so just before and after we got to the Torres, we had to climb this. yikes!


The middle section of the hike was generally like this:


On Tuesday we took a bus tour of the park. This is looking towards the Torres- we got lucky, because if we had gone on Monday it would have been too cloudy to see them in the morning. In the foreground of the pic you can see a few guanacos, which I think are kind of like llamas.


The Cuernos del Paine.


Some icebergs, and in the back center you can see a glacier!!


The last stop was this enormous cave... I wasn't even halfway back when I took this one.


PENGUINS! On Wednesday afternoon we went to a penguin colony. I got within about a foot or 2 of this one. The rest of them we mostly saw from a distance.




Overlooking Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world. (and it wasn't really that warm, but we had just walked up the hill so I had my winter coat off. lol)

On Thursday we crossed the Strait of Magellan to the Tierra del Fuego, the large island that forms the tip of South America. This is the ferry docked at the island.


I took this at about 11pm... wow! Its not even completely dark yet!


Overall, very very awesome trip...



Well, I think I'm going to go computer-less tomorrow, in order to A, pack and B, enjoy the last day here. So, next time you hear from me, I'll be back in the States! Its so weird to think about! Its going to be really hard to say good-bye tomorrow, but I'm soooo excited to come home!! See you soon!

Love,
Katie