Antarctica: Punta Arenas

Okay, so I am a slacker... Mike pointed out that we have been home for a month now and that I still haven't finished all of my posts for our Antarctica trip. He even offered to take over the Santiago post... We'll see. I have just not wanted to do this post. Maybe it's because we didn't take many pictures. We hardly have any with people in them. It helps to tell the story when people are in the illustrations. Sometimes I need to remind Mike to not just take pictures of buildings. He just loves buildings. And buildings and buildings. Oh, and more buildings. And sometimes mountains and animals and scenery and things like statues. And more buildings. So here, I think, is going to be the MOST EXCITING post you will ever read!

We got off the cruise ship in Punta Arenas, which, if you don't know already, is in the Patagonia region of Chile. Oh, you knew that? Well then, at least I know now too! The five of us, along with my mom and the Rollins clan, got in a van for a tour of the city and then out to another penguin colony.
Here are some things we saw on the way:

We liked this sign. You cannot (or at least I cannot) read it well in the picture, but the sign directs you to many big cities of the world.

Here is a statue. The driver of the van offered to stop and let the kids sit on the horses for a picture. It was sooooo nice that I didn't feel like a party pooper or like a lazy mama for not doing this. Zachariah and Fiona didn't want to stop either. It was just going to be a lot of work getting the kids out of the van and then convincing them that they would have to get back in for another hour or so.The last hour or so of the drive was on a VERY bumpy dirt/rock road. That was fun. But we got to see animals, like emu and cows.
Here are some cattle and do you see those white dots in the water? Those are actually pink flamingos. Who knew? I thought flamingos only lived in hot climates. It was sunny here, but definitely cool and very windy near the ocean.
So, this is what it looked like when we were arriving the Magellanic penguin colony here.

Here is a penguin looking out of it's burrow.
Hola penguino! Oh, a side note, Jack now calls penguins "nonos." That's how you say "penguino" in toddler. Yep, he is bilingual. Sort of.

More penguins...

And a caterpillar! Whoo-hoo! We kept finding dead caterpillars on this boardwalk, probably because people kept stepping on them. Bubba thought they were all dead, but we proved her wrong when this one wiggled!

And BUILDINGS!

Notice all of the wires! Yikes!




And statues!
And here are Mike and Paige- with a statue of course. They were rubbing the shoe of the statue man. I can't remember his name! I could look this up, but remember. I am a slacker. At least today. It is believed that if you rub the shoe, you will come back to South America again someday. Hmmm....What if we didn't?

We all came back to the ship to have lunch after visiting the penguin colony. It was definitely time for Jacks nap... And the Rollins clan was just not feeling spunky. Neither was I. Many of us were fighting off a cold that had spread on the ship.

But Mike, Bubba and Paigey walked off the ship again after lunch and went geocaching. Mike had been itching to go for a while. It was Bubba's first geocache experience and she found the geocache! Yay! I still am a little ticked at Mike for not getting a picture of it! I mean, it was her first time. Come on! They had a nice time geocaching and walking around downtown. They even had ice cream. They were out a LOT longer than I though they would be though and I was getting worried that they wouldn't get back on the ship before it left the port. But around 7pm, they came walking into the dining room like they weren't in trouble or anything...