We awoke to clear skies and a crisp wind. Carlo and his bus arrived at 8:00 as we finished breakfast. We broke camp quickly and all piled into the bus, letting Angel and Raul bring the luggage in the Green Machine. We stopped for a quick hike el Salto Grande, the large waterfall on the river that connects Lago Nordenskjöld to Lago Pehoe. We assumed that Angel had passed us during our walk but we should have passed him well before reaching Puerto Natales. We stopped at the Hotel Glaciares to wait and I let the students go into town; I followed and found an internet café. By the time I returned to the bus, Angel was there. The battery was not charged when he tried to start it at the campsite so he had to get someone to help him kick-start the truck. He figured the battery was now charged.

We ate lunch in a nearby restaurant; I had salmon. Some people were pretty aggravated with the way things were going. Afterward we headed south on the long drive to Punta Arenas . I really love this part of Chile with its broad plains and distant mountains.

As we neared Puna Arenas, we took the road over to Seno Otway to visit the pinguinera. Once reaching the Seno, the road parallels the shore. After making a long detour around a large coal mine, we reached the penguin rookery. In a census taken in 2002, there were only about 11,000 birds there; making it the smallest one I have visited. The birds nested in the in the long grass and were unconcerned with our presence. It started raining hard so we got back to the bus. Angel was there but his battery had not charged so we pulled him with the bus until it started.

We soon arrived in Punta Arenas ready for the next fiasco. In Puerto Natales, Angel told me that our hotel would not honor our reservation when he called to confirm. They put us in two small cheap, but clean, hotels: The Monterey and the Montserrat . I was in the Monterey .

After settling in we walked over to the Montserrat . The owner told us that Sotito's had gone way downhill. She recommended an asado place so we went there and had a large filling meal. I suspect that some relative owned it but it was a good meal, although not like the Sotito's of yesteryear.

We returned to the hotels well after midnight and retired.