Santiago, Chile...My last day in Southie

Julia, Meryl, Jose, Forrest after all you can eat meat buffett!!!

The end of highway 3, Tierra del Fuego

Cooking breakfast in Tierra del Fuego

Hostel cooking doen't have to be hotdogs and sandwiches...Linguine with calamari and clams in a whitewine, butter sauce with Zucchini and a delicious Sauvignon Blanc!

Candid Meryl

Candid Forrest "wahh! my backpack is heavy!"

Meryl and I are back in Santiago after being at the end of the Americas, Ushuaia, Argentina. We flew in last night and the airport is still in shambles. We got off the plane using an old-school metal staircase and walked through a maze of fences and tents. We never were allowed to enter the airport, apparently the ceilings have collapsed and it is a mess. We grabbed our baggage from the tarmac and caught a shuttle to our hostel. The city looks pretty normal and everybody goes about their day as if no earthquake happened. Everybody says the city was very well prepared and we only saw a small number of buildings that were cracked or damaged with rubble near them.

In Ushuaia we camped at Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego...in the rain. We barely got out of the tent due to the weather which means we ate all of our cookies in the first day and slept about 15 hours that night! In the morning i was cooking eggs, over easy, with bread and butter (aka 'capture the yolk' i call it (with the hole in the bread of course)) and i looked over my shoulder at Cordi (meryl's little red/yellow dog)...wait a minute...cordi is not in southie camping with us...where am I? Tierra del Fuego, right? Yes...I turned my head and a fox was about 5 feet away eyeing my buttery eggs and bread! He hung out for a bit and then trotted off on his merry way without looking back. He returned the next morning to inquire if i was going to be more generous with my breakfast. We got some good video, i'll try and post it.

We then took a bus to Punta Arenas, Chile. On the bus we met a cool doctor and his son from the Falkland Islands. In Punta Arenas we woke up early to go on a tour to walk with Penguins. Well, we woke up at 6:30 and remembered that it was daylight savings time, so it was really 5:30. So we slept for another hour and walked to the agency only to find out that Chile does not have a time change and it was actually 7:30, not 6:30 as we thought...so we missed the Penguin tour. (We had a hard time trying to explian "daylight savings time" in a foreign language!) So we walked around the town, were adopted by a small street puppy-dog that we named Ronald. Ronald ate granola with us and then left us on our walk back to the hostel, weaving in and out of the traffic as the street dogs do like the taxi-dodging instinct was in their blood from the start.

Anyway, On this trip Meryl and I have met so many cool people and travelers from all over the globe...

Julia and Jose: Germany and Spain

Simon and My: Scotland

Beth and Greg: New York

Chris and Kristin: Essex

Claire: Ireland

Jack: Holland (Aconcagua)

Julie: Oregon (Aconcagua)

Kevin: Illinios (Aconcagua)

Stuart: London (Aconcagua)

Jon and Denise: Colorado (Aconcagua)

Vitali: Russia (Aconcagua)

Martin & Peter: Czech Republic (Aconcagua)

Curtis & Shelly: Oregon

Amy: Missoula, Montana!!!!

Rudy: Peru/Germany

Eduardo: Brazil

Pablo: Chile

Kelie: Australia

Gretchen and Patrick: Washington State

Ben and Karryn: Tasmania/ Australia

And many more!

Thanks to my family and friends who helped me make this trip possible:

Mom and Dad

Grama 'Rene

Adrienne & Jesse

Trevor

The Haywards

The Brittons

John and Liz Storb

The Robinsons

Jen and Ted (Thanks for the PB in a time of need!)

-Sorry if i missed anybody!

F