After a day and a half back in Buenos Aires to pick up my bag and get more empandas, I took a ferry over to Colonia and spent the night.  I'm at a café now and have a 5:30pm ferry back to Buenos Aires, and then a 5:30 am flight to Lima, Peru tomorrow morning.

​Colonia is a nice town and depending on how many museums you want to visit (zero for me this time....) you only need a day or so here.  The ferry only takes about an hour so you could reasonably take an early ferry over and a late one back and not spend the night.  My hotel was really nice though and was at the edge of the historical area.

My friend Megan and I had a fantastic lunch with friends of her friend, Cristian and Natalia, who work with Estampa Winery in the Colchagua Valley. They are both well traveled and had great tips for my upcoming Colombia trip, and their wines are very good (especially the Carmenere).  They were so friendly and welcoming and we spent three hours with them.
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​I had palometa fish for the first time, which is similar in taste to tuna.

​Tonight will be tapas at a rooftop restaurant and then off to the airport tomorrow morning.

I met a friend on the cruise who was also flying back through Santiago, so we have been meeting up the past few days. 

She has some friends here and we had dinner two nights ago with a nice guy and his business partner.  Today, we're meeting a friend of a friend for lunch.
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​Yesterday we went to a well-known winery, Santa Rita, which is only about an hour south of Santiago.

​Tomorrow, I fly back to Buenos Aires and am staying at the hotel that (hopefully) has my other backpack.

Our trip included one night at the Dreams Hotel and Casino in Punta Arenas.  There isn't a whole lot going on in Punta Arenas, and the casino seems to be where the whole town goes on the weekend.  It's also the only high-rise building in the city.

​I changed my flight because I was originally scheduled to leave on January 23rd at 3:30am, so I ended up staying three days and hung out with friends that I met on the cruise.  They turned on the Steelers game in the casino Sunday night...that was disappointing.

​Yesterday, I took a flight to Santiago and am just trying to catch up on my posts and shake the cold that I've had since day two or three of the cruise.  I need to call Luftansa and change my Buenos Aires flight also.  I may come back to the US later than Feb 13th now, but I'll see how much time I need in Peru first.

We left the ship around 10am and went to King George Island, which has a Chilean Military Base (and also Russian, I think) and has a gravel airstrip where we picked up our flight.

​They brought two planes down to drop off another set of passengers that did fly-south, cruise north, the reverse of what we did.

​I was later told that the planes almost didn't land due to the fog.  But we only ended up waiting about 40 minutes and were cleared to take off.  The flight was really smooth and was about 2 hours to Punta Arenas, Chile.

I was very fortunate to grab a kayaking spot on this trip because we got different views than being on land.  I should get some photos from my kayaking partner once he's back in the US and the Cruise is going to post a website link to view photos in a couple of weeks.

Our meeting point each day before paddling was in the library.  We met one last time to turn in our gear in the afternoon and had a champagne toast to celebrate.

​Our two kayak expedition leaders were Michelle and Alex, below.

Our last full day in Antarctica had more typical weather.  The expedition leader, who's Canadian, called it 'sporty' weather, which meant that I got drenched riding in the Zodiac and the water was too rough for kayaking.

​First, we had a landing on Elephant Island, where there were hundreds of elephant seals.  On one stretch of beach, I stopped counting at 100 seals and there were probably another 50 further down.

​We also saw southern Petrels and were warned to stay clear of them since they projectile-vomit on you if you agitate them.

​After lunch, we just stayed on the boat and cruised along to see some whales.  There was a humpback that was feeding right beside the ship.   I managed to snap a photo though it's not very good.

Our Expedition Leader said that only about 20% of the days are sunny with little wind, and we got three of them in a row.  A few of us took lunch and carried it up to the deck to enjoy the view.

​After lunch, the entire ship went to Jougla Point, where whalers used to bring their kills.  We spent an hour there and then spent an hour at Port Lockroy, which has a post office, museum and gift shop.  It is run by four British ladies who live there for five months of the year.

The next morning everyone got up early to take photos when we went through the Lemaire Channel.  The Expedition Leader said that it was only the second time in the last seven trips that the ship was able to make it through the channel du to icebergs.

​We had our last kayaking trip in the morning around Petermen Island and saw Adele penguins, and some crab-eater seals swam pretty close to our kayaks.

After kayaking in the morning we made a quick stop on land where the other passengers had spent a few hours.