Day 2: Santiago to Punta Arenas

First order of the day — early wake up and walk across the street back to SCL. We arrived by 6:30 am and checked our bags. The airport is currently undergoing construction to improve the domestic terminal (much needed!), so we followed a long meandering path from Terminal 1 security to reach our gate in Terminal 2. Once we made it, we found our trusty Pacific Club lounge from previous visits and grabbed some espresso and breakfast before the flight.

Long walk from our hotel room window to the airport

On this flight, we did not have fancy first class seats. After the sweet taste of first class life on yesterday’s fight to Santiago, we attempted to use LATAM’s “make a bid to upgrade option” and get our fix. Alas, despite placing a bid and winning, it turns out there were actually no upgrades available. Thanks for the bidding practice, LATAM! The good news is our lowly peasant seats were exit row seats in Row 11, so we lived for the three-and-a-half-hour flight to Punta Arenas — which included a nice view of Torres del Paine along the way (we were there in 2019).

Torres del Paine “W”

Waiting for us at PUQ on arrival were our main guides for this trip – a trip leader/lead guide, and an assistant guide. They are both named Matias, the leader is Matias Alamo and the guide is called Matias Weber —- who we will refer to as Matias Guide in this blog. And Matt, well, is still Matt. Matias met us in the airport and we waited for the other couple who arrived on the same flight – Jen and Johnathon from Australia. We went to the car where Matias Guide was waiting to drive us to the hotel.

The ride was about 30 minutes to La Yegua Loca hotel. We checked in and met the fifth and final guest, Ann, who arrived the day before. We had the afternoon free and decided to first have lunch at the hotel restaurant before exploring the town. We shared salmon ceviche, traditional empanadas and a flight of pisco sours. We already knew about the deliciousness of Calafate Sours, but now have a close second with the Carmenere Sour – a wine based pisco sour.

Hello again Punta Arenas!

Why you gotta call the Lady Horse crazy???

All the sours are delicious

After lunch, we took an afternoon stroll across town and stopped at a couple shops. No dice on the perfect magnet yet, but we did get a lapis lazuli stone penguin to continue Jo’s new tradition of stone animals from travels (see malachite lion from Tanzania and amethyst parrot from Brazil). Sure, we haven’t actually seen any penguins yet, but they’re on the agenda for tomorrow.

Picking a penguin

From there, we continued to the town square and revisited our favorite Magellan statue — this time reading the plaque dedication and roman numerals like champions (thanks Rocky!).

Still Gellan! Dr. Scholl’s 4 life.

After that, we headed east toward the city cemetery per Matis Guide’s recommendation. The trees on the grounds are the main attraction (aside from the headstones), because they have been trimmed over the years to resemble very large bushes (aka. large round gumdrops). We walked around for a bit before wandering back to the hotel. We stopped in a few shops along the way back, including Patagonia Moda, a combo Target, Party City, Homegoods store.

Wild dogs of Punta Arenas

Double-take on this fence-painting guy’s water bottle

Back to La Yegua Loca on the hill

Horsing-around is tolerated here

Back at the hotel at 5:30 pm, we met with the group for our first Explora briefing. The Matias duo gave us an overview of the history of Punta Arenas/Tierra del Fuego and told us what to expect on this trip. Even though this is not an Explora lodge, there was no shortage of appetizers and Calafate Sours all around.

Cheers, team! (L to R: Matias, Matias, Jen, Jon, Ann)

The weather forecast looks great, fingers crossed

After the briefing, we moved into the dinning room for dinner all together. We ate and drank while we chatted and got to know each other. Eventually, we had eaten as much as we could and went back up to our rooms for the night. Tomorrow, we leave early to hop a ferry to the island of Tierra del Fuego.

Dinner time