el fin del mundo ...

Literally, the end of the world. Tonight is our last in Punta Arenas, at the bottom of the continent, and our stay here has been wonderful. The people at our hostel are amazing ... especially the woman who makes us breakfast every morning. :) And the internet cafe right nextdoor is great too. I have seen a lot of things, eaten in a lot of restaurants, had a lot of fantastic coffee, talked to a lot of people, and seen so many amazing things. I touched the water in el Estrecho de Magallanes (Straight of Magellan) and endured the gale force winds.

Our first service project was picking up trash in a park - and we even got on national news! It was covered by three news channels, and I got interviewed about Obama. We also did a project at a little farm that involved pulling out an entire green house full of strawberry plants. It was hard work, but very rewarding.

Today we went to the cemetery, which is very grand and well managed. The cemeteries are a bit different here - instead of little tiny graves they have very elaborate little structures, almost like houses, with shrines inside and the dead are buried there. They have anywhere from that to small drawer-like things in walls where dead are buried. I think it is their ashes that are in the drawers. I do not really know. But it was very cool. We also went to a museum that basically showed a lot about the history of this region.

All in all, Punta Arenas was great. We all had a wonderful time wandering around ... and I was quite proud of myself for being able to orient myself and know where I was in the city, and how to get back to our hostel. I was impressed. :) We were all glad to be in one place for a few days and not have to get back in the car for the entire day. All in good time though ...

Tomorrow morning we leave Punta Arenas to drive to Puerto Natales for two days. We will stay there and get ready to go to Torres del Paine. We will be camping and hiking for four days in the National Park and I expect to have some incredible pictures and to be a bit sore once it is all over with. I am sure it will be wonderful. After that we will head back north to Osorno ... all the way through Argentina. Who knows what my access to internet will be like, so I will keep this posted when I can! Until then ...

Ciao,
Adrianne