Feliz Navidad

Another Christmas day has come and gone. This one has been quite a bit different than the ones I am used to back home in good old RC. On Christmas Eve, I went about work as usual until four or so when we opened presents from our secret friend. I got a zippo lighter from my secret friend although the identity of the person was not revealed. At 8:00 I went to a church service at the Catholic Church. It was all in Spanish, so I didn’t understand much. There was some sort of play or something put on by the kids. We sang a few songs a few of which I recognized. I sang some versus in English and others in Spanish for good measure.

After church I came back to Lakutaia and ate Christmas Eve supper with Tommy, Angela, Gabriel, and Randy. Although we didn’t have lutefisk, we did have another food from the sea… here was the menu (pretty nice meal actually)

Starters: pisco sour (the unofficial drink of Chile I think)

Cheese and meat empanadas

First course: King Crab

Main course: spinach stuffed lamb, some sort of fried potato balls, and veggies

Dessert: chocolate mouse

*I had to take the traditional picture next to the Christmas tree. There are no coniferous trees on the island, so Randy´s parents sent clippings from trees on their property in Punta Arenas. We tied them togethe to make some sort of hanging tree...I like it.

*Christmas sunset from the Lodge.

Today, Christmas day, I rolled out of my sleeping bag and opened my present from Grandma O (thanks grandma!!). It was nice to have one present to open although I forgot to leave a stocking by the fireplace. We had passengers arriving today, so we went to the airport and picked them up. The passengers bought “the program” from us which includes 4 days of excursions (hiking, horseback riding, sailing, and an over-flight of Cape Horn). We went on the over-flight today, flying in the 15-seater Twin

Otter airplane for an hour and a half ride over Cape Horn. It was pretty sweet. It is always windy at the Horn and the pilots did some exciting maneuvers. We basically flew around the Horn (the southern most sizable island) 4 or 5 times. It was really windy and the plane was bouncing and going all over the place. We were really low too, about 500 feet off the ocean I think. It was really cool and pretty exciting. After the flight, we came back to Lakutaia and went on a 4 hour hike.

*The Horn!

That was my Christmas. Not exactly a typical one for me, but fun none the less.