When we returned to El Calafate, we asked the receptionist at the campground to tell us where to get the best empanada in town. When we found the place, we knew it would be good because there were four people in a tiny open kitchen all busy making empanadas by hand. We got 7 empanadas to share and ended up leaving after getting a total of 12. Yes, they were that good! Actually, they were the best we had in Argentina. Next, we walked to a nature reserve in town where flamingos can sometimes be spotted. When we got there, all of the flamingoes were too far away to see, so we headed back into town to get a cup of traditional mate at a cool coffee/bar we saw. The waitress was really nice and helped us by arranging the mate in the cup for us and adding a bunch of sugar since the leaves or whatever it is made up of is really strong. She even brought us a cupcake! By the way, we heard that people in Argentina drink a lot of mate tea, but we had no idea that just about every person drinks mate all day, every day. So, I guess I was expecting it would be easier to drink since everyone is drinking it all the time, but no! It was so bitter that we probably added about 1 cup of sugar into the little cup just to drink it! The metal straw thing is also pretty weird, but JJ said he could get used to it. Later in the afternoon, we walked back over to the estuary area and found a whole bunch of flamingoes with our binoculars, but they were so far away, you could hardly make them out. We watched the clouds and sky change colors while we polished off a bottle of wine.
The next day, we took the early bus back to Punta Arenas, Chile, where met lots of interesting travelers camping there. Actually, about half of them had biked to Punta Arenas from other parts of Chile, South America, Central America, and Canada! We met a young guy from Colorado who was biking north from Punta Arenas along the West Coast of Chile. He found a riding partner and bought a tandem bike from people who had just biked down with their 10 year old daughter from Alaska over the past 18 months. To be very clear, he found the guy to ride with him, bought the bike, and made this decision all in one day! We spent the rest of the day walking around Punta Arenas and took a really nice walk along an ocean pathway that wraps along the coast. We took a detour to check out the municipal cemetery before we went wine shopping at the biggest grocery store.
The next morning, we took a bumpy 45 minute boat ride to La Isla de Penguinos Magellicos (Magenellic Penguins). We got to spend an entire hour walking around the colony that hosts 150,000 penguins! The penguins were awesome and we had a great time watching them sit on their eggs, swim in the ocean, or waddle around. We saw a sea lion pop its head out a few times pretty close to shore, but we couldn’t tell if it got a meal or not. After making our way back to the mainland, we had our last seafood dinner where I sampled the local king crab and JJ had Chilean sea bass. Then, we packed up the tent and made our way to the airport for a flight at midnight.
With our low fare tickets, we had to take a lot of connecting flights on the way home to Los Angeles. The plan was Punta Arenas, Chile to Santiago, Chile, to Lima, Peru to Panama City, Panama to Los Angeles in about 24 hours! Well, our first flight was cancelled and when we finally made it to Santiago, our next flight was delayed 5 hours. We missed our connection to Panama City. When we got to Lima, the whole scene was chaos, but finally JJ got the airline put us into a hotel and got us booked on the first flight out in the morning. I was nervous about the hotel situation because we had to be back at the airport in 9 hours and it was 30 minutes from the airport. But, when the taxi pulled up at a 5 star resort, I was sure that someone screwed up and we hit the jackpot! Delphines Hotel and Casino in the Miraflores area of Lima was the nicest hotel JJ and I have ever stayed at. We walked in wearing our hiking boots and total camper outfits, which seemed appropriate since we spent every night the last 3 weeks before that sleeping in our tent. After checking in, we were whisked away to the gourmet buffet. We were at the hotel on live dancing night and were seated on the stage with several couples of traditional Peruvian Dancers dancing right in front of us while we had some of the best food all trip. There was everything you could think of, including full ceviche bar! After stuffing ourselves, dancing on the stage with the dancers, and laughing hysterically (due to being overtired and the entire ridiculous situation) we made our way to our fancy room! They even had bathrobes!!! We only got about 5 hours of sleep, but the entire lay over experience was crazy! When we finally made it back to LA, 44 hours after leaving Punta Arenas, we were relieved and exhausted. It was amazing to see JJ’s Dad waiting for us in the airport and he whisked us away to our favorite sushi restaurant, Hide, to welcome us back.
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