Let me tell you a bit about our epic January excursion! We traveled the entire month of January and went just about everywhere in the three furthest south regions of Chile (Patagonia, Los Lagos, Los Rios).
Part 1: Pata-Stinkin-Gonia!!!
Patagonia is legend in Chile. And in Boulder. And pretty much everywhere. Its as far south as you can get on this continent before reaching Antartica. Most of the year its unbelievably cold except for January and February which are tourist season and less cold- somewhere around 50 or 60 degrees during the day. The weather changes rapidly and without warning. It rains and there is strong wind. Its crazy. And incredible.
We left the house at 4am for our 6am flight to Punta Arenas (so early). We got settled into our hostel and then proceeded to go to Isla Magdalena, a 2 hour boat ride from Punta Arenas and home to 160,000 penguins!!! I love penguins, they´re my favorite animal, so this was pretty much one of the best things that I have ever seen. I could have touched one or taken one home because that´s how close we were but for some reason that is frowned upon so I refrained. Without further ado, pictures of penguins!!
Look at the babies!!!
Penguins in love:
He thinks he can fly, how adorable:
After we saw the penguins, we headed to Puerto Natales which is the starting base for Torres del Paine National Park. Usually when you see pictures of Patagonia, you are seeing Torres del Paine. We went and started on the Glacier Gray side, did the W and ended on the Torres side. It took us about 5 days 4 nights to complete the circuit.
The glacier was Ryan´s favorite part. It was something that neither of us had ever seen before and if you're quiet enough you can actually hear the ice moving. Pretty awesome.
On our second night we had an incident. The incident involved super high powered winds and our tent breaking. It stunk. Big time. Especially after hiking all day with packs that were too heavy (we didn´t anticipate the amount of infrastructure available and therefore overpacked). There was a meltdown and a long discussion about whether we should just forget it and go back to Puerto Natales. We rented a tent for the night and decided to press on in the morning. The good part about this was that Torres del Paine has an obscene amount of infrastructure. Like you could sleep in a bed every night if you wanted to (and happen to be willing to pay 50 bucks to sleep in a bunk bed with a bunch of other people). This sucks because it makes the park really easily accessible and therefore really crowded. But its also pretty awesome because people who normally couldn´t go because they are unable to camp for whatever reason can now access the park. And its awesome because they rent tents so we weren't forced to go home the second night. And I will admit that it's pretty awesome to have someone setting up your tent in the rain while you wait inside and have a pisco sour. On the other hand, you have to cook your food in a small space with a ton of people and wait an hour to use the bathroom, and sleep within like 5 feet of probably 100 other hikers. And you pay really high fees just to camp (like 12 bucks a night each). Honestly I´m glad we did it because its a bucket listy kind of thing but I wouldn't repeat the experience.
A few photos:
Near the Cuernos, one of the more beautiful parts of the park
Getting water from the stream, you can drink it straight out of the river and its deliciously clean
This part made us homesick because it looks like Colorado
Ryan at the Torres
Part 2: On the Boat
After Torres del Paine we rested a couple of days in Puerto Natales and made friends and crepes with a group of French tourists at our hostel. Yum! Then we boarded the Navimag, a ferry that takes cargo and people from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt. The trip was 4 nights and we really enjoyed the beautiful scenery, talking to other travelers, and relaxing for a few days. The boat goes through the channels and fjords of Patagonia and spends about 12 hours in the open sea. I did not enjoy the open sea and got really seasick but the rest of it was great.
A few photos:
Ryan enjoying the nice weather and the view:
Sunrise on the water:
Part 3: Chiloe
So. Pretty much every guidebook ever describes Chiloe as a misty, verdant, mystical island with a lot of rain and cold all year round. This was not our experience. When we arrived it was somewhere in the 90 degree range and a bunch of Tabanos (giant evil horseflies) had just hatched. You couldn't walk outside without immediately being attacked by at least 10 of them. We went to a place called Chepu and stayed in an awesome hotel called Chepu Adventures. Their specialty is kayaking on the river at dawn. It was awesome! We also went on an adventure with some other Americans we met to find curanto a Chilote specialty consisting of Mussels, Oysters, Chicken and Pork cooked inside a pit in the ground for many hours. The rest of the time we read and swam in the river to escape the heat and the horseflies.
A few photos:
We asked for directions to the place with curanto from some guys in a passing truck and they offered to take us part of the way. In Chepu there is only 1 bus that comes 2 times per week and there are only dirt roads.
Eating curanto. Ryan finished his, I only managed about half of mine
Kayaking at dawn
Part 4: Los Lagos and Los Rios
After cutting our time in Chile short due to heat and horseflies, we headed up to the Los Lagos Region. Here we visited the towns of Puerto Varas, Frutillar, Valdivia and Coñaripe. Puerto Varas and Frutillar were great and we finally found some good coffee!!!! YAY!!! We saw the volcano Osorno, the Saltos de Petrohue and swam in the lakes (cold!!). Valdivia was our favorite and we paid many visits to the colony of sealions living next to the fish market. Coñaripe was a small town but it is close to the Termas Geometricas which is a natural hot springs owned by an architect and a landscaper. It is amazing with 17 slate pools going up a canyon alongside a river and changing huts and pathways done in the Japanese style.
And again, some photos:
Swimming in the lake next to the volcano. It was super cold so I didn´t want to put my head in:
Lago Todos los Santos:
Saltos de Petrohue:
Sea lions in Valdivia
Ryan made a friend. We really want a dog when we come back to the states.
Termas Geometricas
And the lake in Coñaripe
And we´re home again
We´ve been back in Santiago now for a month. When we got back we moved out of the house we were living in with the Chilean family and into our friend's apartment. Its been an awesome month living with them, they bless the socks off of us. We´ve had classes sporadically and just finished teaching a 2 week immersion program to 2 students from Colombia. They were great students and we´re sad to see them go. We´ve been given some really awesome opportunities at work this month. On March 9th we are being sent up to Copiapo in the north of Chile for a 3 month assignment to teach courses with a mining company. This is a great opportunity for us in a lot of ways, one of which being that our living expenses are going to be covered by the company. We´ve also been given another new opportunity which will be administering and creating coursework for an online program our company runs for a University here in Chile. So, lots of new things and lots of changes but they're good ones. We´re looking forward right now to the upcoming time change which will put us back to only 2 hours ahead of you making Skype dates a whole lot easier :)
