South Chile - Pingüinos, lobos del mar, delfines, cóndores, guanacos and no pumas

Hallo to all of you!
It's been a while since i wrote here, so there's a lot to tell you about :)
After Ushuaia i left tierra del fuego (Feuerland) and crossed the Straight of Magellan, the famous route Fernando Magallanes took long before the Panamá connection of pacific and atlantic ocean... He got a monument for this in Punta Arenas, Chile (picture). Punta Arenas is the southernmost bigger city (more than 100'000 inhabitants) and i stayed there for some days and used it as a base for some tours.
First day there i had to do another thing from my bucket list: seeing some penguins in wild nature. So i went out on a touristical tour by boat to some small islands in the magellan straight. I saw a lots of penguins, sea lions and on our way back even some dolphins showed up and followed our boat for a while. (3 pictures) How amazing!!!
Of course i am couchsurfing here again and on of the nights there was a nice meeting/party of all couchsurfers and guests in Punta Arenas (picture). My host Alejandro (next to me, with hat) is always providing me with good information and keen to show me some chilean nightlife :)
But you can't go to the southernmost parts or the Andes without doing some hiking in the mountains. That is why Rick (my brasilian travel mate in south South America) and i wanted to go to Puerto Natales (a 250km distanced city) and from there to the 'Torres del Paine' an interesting rock formation in a national park.
So we started hitchhiking to this city with our hiking equipment and left the rest of our things in Punta Arenas. You can hear a lot of nice stories about hitchhiking, but what happened to us was the top of it all!!! We got our first ride for some 50km and then had to wait in the middle of nowhere close to a gas station. We waited about half an hour and nobody picked us up. Then Rick went to talk to some people who just went to the petrol station by car. And... HE CAME BACK DRIVING A CAR!!!
What happened there? An older couple had been buying a car for their daughter in Punta Arenas (so they had 2 cars now) but the woman didn't want to drive further. So we were kind of the solution for their problems. WE GOT THE CAR FOR 200KM AND DROVE IT OURSELFES ALL THE WAY TO PUERTO NATALES! (Picture in the car)
In Puerto Natales we stayed at a crazy couchsurfing family (always more than 5 surfers there!!!) for a night and met other travelers for doing our hiking tour together. Two americans, another german girl and the spanish guy Gonzalo. (picture)
As Rick and I had no equipment for a 4 days hiking tour we got a tent, sleeping bags and a backpack from our hosts in Punta Arenas. But nobody had some isolation mattresses for us. We improvised with chart boards from the supermarket (look at my red backpack in the picture). It was not very comfortable but good and we got a lot of attention for this from all the 'over equipped' campers :)
The next picture shows me in the bus to the national park with a bunch of nice chilean guys.
We took a boat over a big lake (picture) and at noon we put up our tents for the first night. From there we did our first 25km tour (this time without any heavy luggage) to see an amazing glacier and icebergs! I kissed my own small one... (3 pictures)
On our way back is was time for the condors to feed their offspring. We saw a lot of these huge birds looking for prey. (Picture)
The inside of our tent looked like in the following picture. Rick spent almost all time inside the sleeping bag, as a brasilian he was always cold. Luckily i was not. The first night there was so much wind our tent blew almost away with us and we didn't get much sleep. Once the tent bended over so much that it almost layed down on the ground and i saw the shape of Ricks face from outside of the tent!!! Well, we survived :)
The next day we walked with all our equipment some 7km to our next camp, build up the tents and only 3 of us (Rick, Gonzalo and I) did another 15km hike to a dirty glacier and a nice lookout. (Picture) On our way back a storm started blowing a lot of snow and it was getting difficult to find the path, but we made it. It is always saver not to be alone in the mountains... This night was not very windy but extremely cold.
Next morning we got up very early, said goodbye to the german girl (she wanted to walk slower) and started the hardest day. 25km most of the time walking steep upwards to the mountains with all our luggage...
It was a nice day with good weather. Extremely exhausted and with not much food left we reached our last camp. There are 7 picture showing the beauty of this part of our earth.
Next morning we got up early again to see the sunrise at the Torres del paine. (Picture) Simply amazing...
On our way back we started realizing how tough these days have been for our bodies and what a relief it was to get a warm shower this evening after some days. Nevertheless we enjoyed walking the last mountainous kilometers. (2 pictures).
And we managed to see some Guarnacos (picture) from really close (5m distance). Unfortunately all the time we didn't see their hunter - the cougar/puma. But I am pretty sure that we were watched by some pumas. :)
It was areally nice experience at the limit of the possible for our body strength and motivation. It was so worth it.
Other things about beeing in south Chile:
I met a lot of nice people there and from my experience it is really easy to talk to them. Especially when you look so different from them like i do with blond hair and blue eyes. Almost everybody seems friendly here and enjoys chatting with you. And the foreigners (we) got all the attention when Rick and I went out to a club with my host Alejandro :)
I never spend thousands of money so fast like here! 1000 for a drink is cheap here!!! Ok, yes. It is in chilean pesos :) And one Euro equals about 700 Pesos, so no worries - i keep spending my thousands of pesos.
Even though Rick and I became close in these days (i did my first haircut at his head) we are going to split up from here. Different directions. And it also feels right for me because like you know I love traveling alone.
Today I am enjoying my last day here in Punta Arenas and tomorrow i will fly north to Puerto Montt, Chiloe and Puerto Varas.
Always driven by my motivation and followed by good spirits and thoughts.
This is it for now. Whooooohhoooooow!

Bigs hugs from Chile :D