What a way to start the end of our Chilean adventure – with a 4-day cruise along the Patagonia glaciers on the Stella Australis!

Our adventure began before we even landed with a spectacular aerial view of all the snow tipped volcanos and bright blue lakes of the Chilean Lake district on our way to Punta Arenas.

The highlight of our 1 night stay in Punta Arenas was the Nao Victoria Museum which Asher declared “the best museum ever” because he was able to dress up in armor and climb on replicas of the Nao Victoria, the ship that Ferdinand Magellan used to navigate around Chile, as well as Shackleton’s lifeboat, the Beagle and another ship.

After a day of learning how horrendous it was to be an ancient explorer, we set sail on a modern ship to explore the Patagonia glaciers.

Our trip on the Stella Australis included daily hikes to the glaciers, like the one on the Darwin Range at Ainsworth Bay

where we saw amazing colors of red grass, blue glaciers, and white icebergs floating on bright blue water

We also took a boat tour to see penguins and cormorants on Tuckers Islet. It was amazing to see the cormorants use  the seaweed (and steal it from other cormorants) to make their nests which they decorated with tons of white excrement.

The island was also covered in tons of Magellan penguins, which were noticeably bigger than Galapagos penguins.

Oops, not those penguins, but these kind of penguins: 

Our second day was my favorite with a zodiac trip through the icebergs

to the Pia glacier, where we climbed around to look at it from below and above.

I loved how the glacier cracked and calved: huge chunks of the glacier wall cracked and crumbled down into the water below with a roar and a ripple on the water.

When we left the Pia glacier, we saw dolphins playing outside our cabin window and whales swimming by our ship.

And spectacular views of waterfalls and glaciers.

The next day was exciting because we made it down to Cape Horn (“Cabo de Hornos”), the southernmost tip of Chile. See our blog entry, “How Low Can You Go?!” for more pix and insight into this magical place.

On our way to Cabo de Hornos, we went to Caleta Wulaia, where the Australis established a visitor information center.

There were some great vistas

and very interesting stories about the Yamana people who were naked in Patagonia, with just the fat of sea lions rubbed on their bodies to keep them warm.  They lived in canoes with fires in the middle for the children to keep warm.  Their main staple was seafood, which the mother would dive for off the back of the canoe.  I was completely freezing with about 5 layers of clothes in summer in Patagonia.  So, I can’t imagine what it must have been like for those Yamana women, naked diving off the back of the canoe in the middle of winter!

In addition to seafood, there were also these really interesting “breadfruit” that were growing everywhere.

As well as chaura (which were like very tiny crabapples).

While Aliya wrapped up for warmth with a new penguin hat/scarf she bought in the markets at Punta Arenas:

Ben used his growing beard to keep him warm:

And, we can’t forget all the fun we had on board the ship, from the endless supplies of free bebidas (soft drinks) for the kids (it was a Chilean ship after all), to the Bingo night where Asher won a Captain’s Hat, to just hanging out in our cabins,

with our amazing views.

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