ready for chapter 5?

back at one of the best internet cafes of the trip, here in punta arenas. we left our little home-away-from-home, erratic rock II hostel in puerto natales, at 7 a.m. (after enjoying our last bowls of frosted flakes there) and bussed back to punta arenas, the town perched at the straights of magellan.

kayaking amongst the glaciers was good fun, though sincerely over-priced for what we got. very expensive, not so much kayak time and of course, i had idealized visions of me paddling in a maze of icebergs, which was not to be. but it was cool...paddling next to a glacier in patagonia could never be less that pretty awesome.

now, i´m soaking in my last hours of patagonian wind-powered, rain-saturated fresh air. in the afternoon, we will go partake of the penguin colony nearby. very exciting. i´ve already been tickled by all of the birds i´ve spotted, including the black-necked swans, chilean flamingoes and andean condors, now i get to enjoy the little flightless bundles of joy.

i´ve got the most recent pics posted and hope to get los penguinos up before departing at the early hour of 5 tomorrow morning and making my long, long way up to ecuador...and thus, beginning chapter 5 of my south american adventure. so happy that my visit to the galapagos is next, because i can´t imagine very many destinations that could follow patagonia.

i have no idea what the internet world will be like up there, but when surrounded by the land of darwin´s creatures, who wants to be on one of those blasted computer machines??? i will update when i can though, and try to share the racy photos of me and the giant tortoises. i think the footage of me and the iguanas will be a little too graphic for this crowd, but if the people demand it, i can deliver.

let´s all raise a glass to the end of the world and, heck, let´s raise one more for evolution!!!