Puerto Natales, Chile – Day 1

Jim here. We have been having a blast but we have also been kept very busy, so we have gotten behind on the blog. Stacy is trying to edit 400-500 pictures a day and slow internet speeds are making uploads very difficult. I decided to go ahead and write some text before events get too far behind us.

Sunday – speed boat ride to Bernardo O’Higgins National Park through the Ultima Esperanza Fjords. Fabulous day. Clear weather. Enjoyed feeling the wind in my hair as we flew across a mirror-like fjord. We were told that is was almost unheard of to have such clear and calm conditions at this time of year. Although it is summer here, summer is also the time of high winds. Oddly, winter (although cold) is the time of calm winds and water. We hiked to Serrano Glacier and got a chance to see Condors soaring above us and watched as the ice blue glacier experienced a mini avalanche.

After the hike we got back on the boats and cruised around the fjord and getting a close up view of several magnificent waterfalls. On the way back to the hotel we took another nice hike up to a great viewpoint.

Our hotel, The Singular Patagonia, is truly unique. It is a re-purposed sheep processing and cold storage facility that was over 100 years old. In order to get permission to build a state-of-art luxury hotel, Singular agreed to restore much of the old sheep processing machinery and maintain it as a sort of museum. The resulting facility is really wild. When you get to the hotel it looks like you are coming to an old shed with the name of e hotel painted on the roof. What you find inside is a modern hotel with flor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the sound, a gourmet restaurant, this super cool museum and beautiful rooms.