Travel Day/ Shipwreck of Lord Lonsdale- History

We started off our day with a good breakfast from Restaurant Viva La Vida. Breakfast was simple, but it was decent. We ate what we would consider “normal” breakfasts- eggs, juice, and other foods you could find in America. Once we had finished our breakfast we returned to our hotel to watch Chilean television. After about an hour of brushing up on our Spanish we went to the road to hail a taxi. We were going to the airport today, this is because we had decided we wanted to see all of Chile, not only Santiago. We were in total agreeance when we decided that we would all definitely come back here in the future. The ride to the airport wasn’t very long in the taxis. Once we arrived at the airport, we did what we were used to, dropping off our bags at the arrival point while taking our carry ons with us. The only problem was that when we went through security, Russell caused the security machine to go off, which was a little frightening.  Russell was pulled aside, and the security went through his bag, and after digging through clothes and other travel necessities, couldn’t find anything, they made Russell empty their pockets. It turned out that the thing that set off the machine was simply a key for our hotel room, which we forgot to give back to the front desk. The officers let us pass, and walked to our flight.

After seeing the city, we were hungry to tour the other parts of the country. Our plan was to travel south in order to see some of the other famous things in Chile. After about fifteen minutes, our flight started to board. We then spent about twenty minutes on the runway, and after that, we were off. The plane was pretty full. I mean, not too many people, but full compared to our plane ride to Santiago. It was hard to gauge when we were arriving, due to the fact that the pilot was speaking Spanish. We gazed over the country as it became colder outside and ice was building up. But once we started our descent from the clouds, we knew this was much different from the city. The sky was clean and bright. The weather was very beautiful. With only a couple of clouds in the sky, we couldn’t wait to exit the plane and start the second part of our trip. We landed at Presidente Carlos Ibáñez del Campo International Airport. It wasn’t hard to exit and find a taxi, before we knew it, we were out, driving in the taxi to our next destination.

We rode for a while, it was kind of boring, considering we all were sharing one phone charger, and all our phones were going to die soon, because that is the only thing that entertained us throughout the flight. Once we arrived at our hotel, Hotel Finis Terrae, we had to decide what we wanted to do for the day, this is because our flight was kind of early, so we had a little time to spare. We wanted to go see the Shipwreck of Lord Lonsdale, because Joey grabbed a pamphlet from the lobby about it. We hailed down a cab again, paid our 20 dollar fair per taxi, and started off to the wreck. The drive took about thirty minutes. We entertained ourselves by going from games on our phones. Once we arrived, the we didn’t see the ship at first. Once we went closer to the shore, it was very distinct. We learned that the ship was not originally at Punta Arenas, it was moved by a company that intended to use the hull, which was still floating even though the rest of the ship sunk. The company gave up though, ditching the ship’s hull at Punta Arenas. Through our helpful friend Google we also learned that the ship wasn’t sunk in an accident. It was sunk in 1909, when it first caught fire, and the crew decided that the best solution was to sink the ship. The ship's appearance wasn’t too exciting. It was a rusted steel hull with a little bit of wood where the rest of the ship was. The ship did make for good pictures though, as the sun was setting against the ocean.

It was cool to see the old ship’s hull, to think about how there were people where this ship was the last thing they ever saw. You could imagine how scary it would have been to have to sink your own ship in order to not burn to death. That seems like having to pick between the lesser of two different evils. It was a fun spot to be at, but we became board after a while. We called the taxi that drove us to the shipwreck in the earlier, because we had his number, and as we waiting we took in the scene of the old ship, protruding on the pink and blue horizon that seemed to never end.

Once the taxi arrived, we decided that we were all ready to head back to the hotel. Upon our arrival, we experienced a change of energy. We didn’t want to go to sleep yet, even though we have been through a long day. In the hotel room there wasn’t much to do, so we opted to walk to a small store across the street of our hotel. In the store, we didn’t find much, and just as we were about to leave, Russell spotted the game UNO for sale. We bought it because it would keep us entertained for a little bit back at the hotel. In the lobby’s sitting room, we played UNO, while drinking soda from the small bar in the lobby. We were having a great time arguing over moves and threatening each other with our cards. Not realizing how much time we had let pass, the first time we checked the clock, it read almost one in the morning. We didn’t care and continued to play. But at around two-thirty in the morning, the dude behind the bar at the lobby was done with us. He asked us to go to our rooms or not have any drinks. This kind of dampered the mood, so we decided to hit the sack. This was probably a good idea too, considering we were going to need at least a little energy for the penguin-filled day ahead.