For those who care, it's so windy because Patagonia sticks so much farther south than other land masses (with the exception of Antarctica). As the belt of winds swirls around the earth there, there's nothing to obstruct the wind except the mountains of Patagonia. It hits the mountains there after building up a good head of steam with nothing to slow it down since its previous circuit past here, so things get turbulently windy. There were some times we were out hiking when the gusts were too strong to stand up in, much less walk in a straight line. I'm not kidding. The only other place we've been that was anything like that was Iceland (also infamous for its wind).