Chile

Our hopes for hiking the “O” circuit in Torres del Paine were immediately dashed upon arrival at the park entrance when a park ranger informed us that the north west trail near the infamous Gordon Pass was covered in knee-deep snow and another blizzard was heading that way in just three days – exactly the time we would be reaching that part of the trail.  Reluctantly we adjusted our plans and decided to hike the “W” trail instead which was easily done in six days.  We had sufficient supplies for eight days of trekking, so we could take our time and enjoy ourselves.  In the end, we covered a little more than half the “W” in 5 days/4 nights.

Map of the trail:  Red line represents the “W”.
The circuit, also known as the “O”, includes the red and grey lines.

We arrived in the park around noon and set out shortly thereafter towards Campemento Torres which was only 1.5 hours away according to our map; this was the right arm of the “W” in the map above.  Our spirits were high in spite of our heavy packs but as the trail to Camp Torres steepened, my body resisted heartily.  My hips screamed in pain as we climbed the difficult trail.  Chris grumbled behind me – this was going to be a long eight days.  At least the weather was great – sunny with some clouds, a little bit of wind, and good hiking temperatures, around 18C.  Three hours later we arrived at the free camp, a lovely spot nestled in the trees about a 30 minute trek from the infamous “Towers”.  We quickly learned the estimated times on our map did not correspond with our hiking pace, not even close.

After setting up our little tent, and having lunch, we decided to trek up to the “Towers” while the weather was good.  The steep climb, probably the hardest on the entire trail, was a lot easier without our packs on our backs.  We were rewarded at the top with good visibility and a clear view of the “Towers”.   The wind had picked up when we were at the top and I was happy to have brought my bright yellow Quark expedition shell from our Antarctica cruise.  I nestled in amongst some boulders for protection and enjoyed the scenery for a while.

The “Towers” in Torres del Paine

That night, the wind howled through the trees above us, but we were well protected in the forest and our tent held up well.  It must have dipped to a few degrees above zero during the night, and I was cold in my sleeping bag in the early morning hours.  My parka doubled up as blanket over my lower extremities with my feet tucked into the hood, and my fleece kept my upper torso toasty.

We had a long day of trekking ahead of us on Day 2: 1.5 hrs back down the way we had come, and then 4 hrs west to the next camp, at Refugio Cuernos.  The winds were stronger as we began our trek down the mountain side, causing us to stop more than once to let the winds abate rather than risk being blown off the moutain side.

As we veered west, the terrain changed to an easier, hilly path that was quite enjoyable.  Our muscles were still resisting and our packs still felt heavy but I was comforted with the knowledge that our packs would lighten as we consumed food each day; we just had to resist the urge to hasten the process by eating more than the rations allotted for the day.

Along the trail we played “cat and mouse” with a few other younger couples who were heading in the same direction.  A camaraderie formed amongst us so that by the time we reached our first daunting river crossing, we worked together to figure out the best way to cross it. I’m not talking small streams that you cross in a couple of steps.  These were at least 20 feet across, with fast moving water rushing down with no clear way to navigate across.  For one such river, Chris and I changed into our hiking sandals, rolled our pants past our knees, and carefully walked through the frigid, ankle-deep glacier water.  We did quite well until the last river crossing.  After watching several people, Chris included, cautiously walk across large rocks, I followed suit.  At the last rock, a combination of legs that were too short and a strong, untimely gust of wind threw me off balance so that I missed the rock ahead and fell forward face first.  Luckily, I had my walking poles to brace my fall, leaning most of my weight into my left pole and angling my body so that I landed on my stomach on the large rock ahead, with both the camera bag which dangled from my hip and my back pack safely out of the water.  The only wounds incurred were my pride and my left walking pole that snapped in two under the force of the fall.  I counted myself lucky as it could have been a much worse outcome.

I was in good spirits all day, in spite of the heavy pack and the river fall.  The scenery was beautiful in every direction, the trail was manageable, and the weather was beautiful – sunny, around 18C, still windy but not like the early morning gusts on the mountain side.  But when we reached a sign that indicated we were only half way to the camp when I thought we were almost there, I hit a low, feeling like it was never going to end.  And then it got worse, much worse.

Out of nowhere, the winds picked up.  Before we knew it, we were dealing with gale force gusts of wind that literally knocked you off your feet.  And these gusts were unpredictable, coming at you suddenly, from any direction.  At this point, the trail hugged the side of a mountain, with a steep drop off  to the lake hundreds of feet below.  We started to recognize when a gust was coming – we could see the wind whipping up the waves in the lake below, next we heard the howl and then the wind would hit with a vengeance, soaking us with the mist from the lake.  We were exposed on this part of the trail and there was no where to seek shelter so we would all crouch low on the trail, sometimes on our stomachs and grab anything within our reach, tree roots or strong branches, hanging on literally for dear life so as not to be blown off the trail.  One guy ahead of us, was lifted off his feet and blown ten feet off the trail, luckily into some bushes and not down the side of a cliff.  Chris got thrown roughly against some rocks, bruising his arm, leg and a couple of ribs.  His camera got pretty banged up too.  It was frightening and slow going as we struggled against this wind for about three hours.  This was our first taste of the notorious Patagonia winds.

We arrived at Refugio Cuernos at around 4:30 pm, completely exhausted.  Luckily we found one of the last camp sites and somehow managed to set up our tent under these ferocious winds.  Tents were snapping in two, and blowing away all around us.  We weighted our tent down with six large boulders – as heavy as we could carry – inside the tent.  We piled boulders all round the tent pegs on the outside. We then huddled inside our tent wondering what the night would bring.  We were grateful for the military dinners provided to us by our B&B hosts, a  surprisingly tasty beef stew.  It was like magic watching the pouches heat up in a special plastic bag to which we had added a few tablespoons of cold water.  We would have gone hungry that night if we didn’t have these emergency provisions.  Our tent swooshed and swooned as the wind howled and swirled around us but it stayed in one piece and kept us dry even though it rained hard all night.

Others were not so lucky.  At around midnight, as we made our way to the bathroom, we were shocked to find about 30 people huddled next to the Refugio exposed to the elements; either their tents had collapsed, blown away, or there were simply no more sites available upon which to pitch a tent.  We were angered that the Refugio refused to allow this overflow into the building – there was plenty of space to make temporary beds on the dining room floor yet these unfortunate souls were locked out and had no option but to endure the night outdoors.

Since the next open camp site was more than 8 hours away, we decided to stay at Refugio Cuernos for two nights so that we could spend a day hiking into the French Valley (the middle arm of the “W”), reputed to be one of the prettiest spots in the park.  Amazingly, Day 3 was completely still, the lake as flat as a pancake, not even a ripple on the lake that had deluged us just the day before.  And it was stinking hot and humid. What crazy Patagonian weather. It took us over 2 hours to get to the French Valley even without our packs, and then we headed up the valley, but we didn’t get too far; I think we were still quite fatigued from the previous day.  During this hike, we learned that Campemento Italiano, at the base of the French Valley, was now open so that would be our destination on Day 4 – an easy 2 hour hike retracing our steps back to the French Valley.

Heading into the French Valley.  The glacier behind us
was continuously calving, causing thunderous roars and sending
avalanches of snow down the mountain side.  

Refreshing, icy cold water was readily available from the mountain streams.
The water was crystal clear, no need to treat or filter. 

That water was cold!

Preparing a pasta dinner at Refugio Cuernos on Day 3.
We splurged for a bottle of wine that night too! 

Day 4 was another beautiful day, a little cooler, but still clear and sunny and a mild breeze, just enough to cool us off.  I was feeling great physically, my body was no longer resisting the trek, and I was feeling very energetic and strong.  My pack was much more manageable too, probably five pounds lighter by now. We made great time to Campemento Italiano (less than two hours) where we left our stuff (we weren’t allowed to set up until after 5:00 pm) and headed back up the French Valley, this time reaching the look out which offered gorgeous views.  The weather was once again changing and we could see rain clouds rolling in so we decided to make our way back to camp to set up before the rain hit. This was my favourite camp ground, nestled in the trees, alongside a raging river.

At the lookout in the French Valley.

Steep trail heading up the French Valley.

Campemento Italiano: My favourite campsite
(ours is the blue tent to the left).

It got really cold that night, probably close to zero.  We wore all our clothes including hat and mitts to keep ourselves warm.  It rained that night, but again our tent kept us dry.  Chris had a rough night, finding it difficult to breathe deeply with his bruised rib. 

There was a chill in the air the next day, our fifth day on the trail.  The plan was to trek 6 hours to Refugio Gray, or the camp ground 1 hour beyond if we had the energy.

Refugio Pehoe in the distance surrounded by a charred landscape.

First we would pass Refugio Pehoe which was also the location to catch the catamaran out of the park. There was no camping allowed here as this area was completely destroyed from the recent fires. The fire came within a meter of the Refugio but the main building was miraculously spared.

It was surprising to see pockets of green vegetation
that had somehow been spared the ravages of the fire.

A distinct line where the fire stopped.

It was sobering as we entered the scorched forest, eerily still, nothing but charred skeletons of trees remaining.  The smell of burnt wood permeated the air.  It was really sad to see the devastation caused by careless human actions.

This was supposed to be an easy hike to Refugio Pehoe, but the wind was picking up again and it was biting cold.  As we reached the Refugio, walking into steady 50 km winds that were pelting us with dirt and charred debris, we saw the 12:30 catamaran heading into shore.

The thought of hiking 4-5 more hours into this biting wind through a scorched forest suddenly lost its appeal to both of us.  When I suggested perhaps we should call it a day and catch the catamaran, Chris agreed wholeheartedly, and I think he was secretly relieved that I didn’t want to push on.  And so concluded our 5 day, 4 night trek through Torres del Paine.

Although we didn’t stay in the park as long as we intended, I was proud of what we accomplished especially considering this was our first trekking experience.  We learned a lot for next time – the importance of keeping our packs as light as possible (forget the binoculars and the video camera), what food works best (we loved the cured salami that we snacked on for the first 2 days),  and generally what we’re capable of (we are old and we are slow).   This park lived up to its reputation for gorgeous scenery, but I was a little put off by how busy the trail was and how congested the camp grounds were at night.  There seemed to be a lot of confusion and mis-information within the park as to what was open, etc. but that may have been a by-product of the forest fires and not truly reflective of how the park is normally run.  I think we’re spoiled in Canada with all the wide open spaces we can enjoy and the beautiful, well run national and provincial parks at our disposal.

We’ve been back in our cozy B&B for a few days, resting up, having our laundry done and getting ourselves organized for our next trekking adventure to Fitz Roy Mountain (Cerro Fitz Roy), located in Parque National Los Glaciares (on the Argentine side of Patagonia). We’re travelling back to El Calafate today where we’ll spend the night and then head out to El Chalten tomorrow where we will begin our next trek. So we’ll be offline again for about a week.  Next stop is Buenos Aires where we will stay in an apartment for two weeks. We’re looking forward to returning to the warmth and sunshine (it was 25C in BA today).

Video:  Newbies Trekking in Torres del Paine
 

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I wanted to be wowed, and Isla Magdalena delivered with its breeding colony of more than 120,000 Magellanic penguins.  This small, uninhabited island lies inside the infamous and important Magellan Strait at the southern end of South America, at the tail end of Patagonia and just north of Antarctica. Not only was I impressed by the sight and sounds of this magnificent penguin colony, I felt humbled by the rugged beauty surrounding me and very privileged to be a spectator to mother nature’s wonders. The rawness of the landscape, the sweep of the sea, the softly undulating hills, and the thousands of penguins made it a wonderous sight.

The Magellanic penguin is named after the 16th-century Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan who circumnavigated the world.  These penguins are found only in southern South America and the Falkland Islands. It’s a medium-size penguin with a black back, a white stomach, and two distinctive black bands between the head and chest.  Click here to learn more about this amazing bird.

In 1983, Isla Magdalena was declared a protected national monument, Los Pingüinos Natural Monument, and its only occupants are park rangers there to protect and monitor the penguin population, as well as educate the human visitors who drop in.

As we reached the island late in the afternoon, after 2 hours at sea, we were astonished by the sheer number of penguins on this island. Everywhere you looked, there were penguins. At this time of year, the eggs have all hatched and the chicks are about 6 weeks old – cute, cuddly fur balls that you just wanted to pet and take home with you.  Each adult pair had two chicks.  Nests were dug into the side of the sandy hills and offered safe refuge and shelter for these little families. Penguins are quite territorial and possessive about their nest, shooing away any non-family member who dared to venture too close, including us humans. I even had my ankles pecked as I inadvertently got too close to a nest taking a picture of another family close by.

The cacophony on the hills was deafening but we learned that all this noisy barking served a purpose: penguins identified each other audibly which makes sense when you think about it since they all look alike. How else are they going to find their family when they come home after a day of fishing if not to yell out, Mary, where are you?  Turns out, they recognize each other by their bark!

Lots of penguins (slide show)
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As we walked along the marked pathway, penguins were everywhere.  They waddled in front of us, behind us, beside us, quite indifferent to our human presence.  We were enthralled by their antics including hillside brawls, personal grooming, and open displays of affection.  Now this is an island worthy of a top ten rating for places to see before you die…at least in my humble opinion.

Come for a walk through the penguin colony (video)

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As we stepped off the plane in Punta Arenas last Thursday, we were greeted with a definite chill in the air.  Maybe not as cold as Canada, but definitely the coldest weather we have experienced so far. Daytime temperatures were in the mid-teens if the sun was out, probably closer to ten when it was cloudy. At night, it dipped below zero.  Is anybody feeling sorry for us yet?  I didn’t think so.

As we pulled up to our hostel, La Estancia, the peeling paint and faded sign did not exactly exude warmth and comfort.  On the inside, more peeling paint, worn out carpets and creaking floor boards gave us a sinking feeling.  But all this changed when we met Alejandro, or Alex, the hostel owner.  He warmly greeted us and made us feel so welcome. He helped us get oriented and even made all the arrangements for our tour to a penguin colony the next day (more about that in a separate posting).

Our spotless room was very large with three comfortable single beds (we pushed two together to make a king sized bed – luxury), all covered in thick blankets and down duvets.  We had a TV with English channels (unheard of to date) in our room in addition to WiFi. The towels were extra large and extra thick, another rare indulgence. Each room had newly installed heaters and the common areas were also heated; a must in this climate, but not a very common sight in Chile.  We had access to the kitchen, including a fridge.  To top it off, they served unlimited, extra large mugs of real, filtered coffee with breakfast.  We couldn’t remember the last time we had real coffee in a hostel.  Instant Nescafé is the South American favourite. All this to say, you can’t always judge a book by it’s cover.  All of a sudden, this old, worn out 1920’s era house felt warm and cozy like a comfy old pair of slippers.  It served as an excellent base from which to explore the area.

Punta Arenas is the largest city south of the 46th parallel south with a population greater than 154,000. The city is vibrant and modern.  In the summer (which is now) the city can get dangerously windy to the point where city officials put up ropes in the downtown area to assist with unique wind currents created by the buildings.  It was rather calm during the few days we were there with a mix of sun and cloud each day. When it was cloudy, it felt a lot like a day in late October in Ottawa….brrrrrr. Unlike Ottawa, we are enjoying very long days – it doesn’t get dark until about 10:45 at night and dawn begins around 4:30 in the morning.  It’s deceiving and a little disorienting at times.

We spent some time exploring the city, wandering around the harbour and malecon as well as the Plaza des Armas. The cemetery in Punta Arenas resembled the one we visited in Guayaquil, Ecuador and is similarly called the White City.  It was impressive.

Perfectly trimmed European Cypress trees stood like sentries in the city cemetery.

Tombs in the municipal cemetery which was founded in 1894.

These European Cypress trees were perfectly manicured,
even though they were not always perfectly straight.

We were surprised to see flowers such as lupins and roses growing
abundantly everywhere around town – on the side of the road,
in people’s gardens as well as here in the cemetery. 

This old dock had seen better days but it made a
great perch for hundreds of seagulls.

Boats docked in the port.

A nautical monument in honor of the past.

As I walked along the old beams of this dock for a short distance
over the deepening sea,  the strong wind sent ripples
along the surface of the water below making me a little
dizzy and wobbly, but I kept going and I didn’t fall in! 

Originally we had planned to stay in Punta Arenas for just a day to visit the penguin colony and then head north to Puerto Natales from where we would organize ourselves for our camping trip in Torres del Paine National Park.  Unfortunately, a forest fire has been burning in the park since just after Christmas. This has caused quite a raucous here in Chile since we are now in high season and that park attracts millions of tourist dollars at this time of year.  An Isreali tourist is being blamed (and charged) for starting the fire, an action he is vehemently denying.  This is serious stuff – the tourist has been detained and if found guilty will go to jail and be ordered to pay a fine.  Right now, part of the park has been re-opened but the fire continues to burn and fire fighters are still working day and night trying to put it out. We think it is still a precarious situation since any change in wind direction or strength could put the rest of the park, and tourists, in danger again.

So, we’ve decided to hold off on visiting the park, and go to Ushuaia, Argentina instead.  We will then circle back to Torress del Paine in a couple of weeks if the fire situation is resolved. At least we have the luxury of time on our side.

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Listed as one of the top ten islands to see before you die by Yahoo Travel, we were compelled to spend a few days exploring the Island of Chiloé which is separated from mainland Chile by a 30-minute ferry ride across the Chacao Channel.  The island is renowned for its sixteen wooden churches which have UNESCO World Heritage status.  The churches are clustered around the capital, Castro on the island’s east coast.  The traditional palafitos (houses on stilts), distinctive folklore, mythology, cuisine and unique architecture contribute to the island’s appeal.

The island is 190 km (118 mi) from north to south, and averages 55–65 km wide (35 to 40 mi).  Chiloé is located about 80 km south west of Puerto Montt which was the city from which we were flying to Punta Arenas on January 5th.  We decided to reduce our stay in Pucón in order to have a few days to explore this island, which was again recommended as a “must see” by many travellers we have met.

On January 1, we travelled from Pucón to Chiloé, with a bus transfer in Puerto Montt.  When we took the ferry across, we were delighted to see dozens of dolphins swimming alongside the boat, breaching right in front of us.  We even saw a few penguins bobbing to the surface now and then. Closer to shore, we spotted a group of sea lions sunning themselves on a wooden raft. And then we caught a glimpse of a flock of black necked swans, creatures I have never seen before.   What an unexpected spectacle!

We spent the first two nights in Castro, followed by two nights in Ancud, a town on the north west part of the island. Again, we enjoyed perfect weather: warm, sunny, cloudless days.  Considering that for 75% of the year, this island is shrouded in mist and rain, we were incredibly lucky.

View from our hostel, El Mirador (white building to the left of Chris) in Castro.
Our room faced the water offering a gorgeous view, but the hostel
itself was old and worn out and wreaked of stale smoke.
It reminded Chris of his grannie’s house when he was a kid.

Out hostel in Ancud, Nuevo Mundo, was lovely – huge room (queen bed) with
cathedral ceiling with large bay window overlooking the water.
This hostel had the cleanest kitchen we have seen so far
and offered beautiful and comfortable common areas. 

Nuevo Mundo on the inside.

Throughout our visit on the island, I kept trying to figure out what all the fuss was about. Sure, it had lovely, picturesque landscapes of rolling hills, meadows of wild flowers, healthy livestock grazing contentedly…… but it really could have been anywhere in rural Ontario as far as I was concerned.  The little towns and villages that dotted the coast reminded me of Atlantic Canada. Again, very pretty, but also very similar to home.  Of course, we observed subtle differences like the unusual patterns of shingles used as siding on the houses.

A typical house on the island.

One of the famous churches; this one was in Achao, a small fishing village
we travelled to by local bus for an afternoon.

The pier and beach in Achao while the tide was out.

Colourful houses on one of the main streets in Castro.

A common scene when the tide was out.

Many of these boats were badly in need of repair.

Chris was fascinated by the technique being used to repair this boat:
one guy wedged string between the new boards using a hammer and chisel,
and the other guy applied some sort of a putty or seal on top,
followed by a thick coat of paint.

The language was different too, in fact, completely different from mainland Chile which left me puzzled and frustrated in equal measure.  Ordering food became such an ordeal – I could not understand the menu and then I could not understand the waitress who tried to explain the menu – towards the end, I resigned myself to eating salmon for several meals because that is all I could recognize on the menu. I know, no sense of culinary adventure, but what can I say, sometimes, I just want to eat something remotely familiar. We did get our fill of seafood and enjoyed a few local dishes that were very good.

Perhaps a visit to the cove of Puñihuil, home to two types of penguins, Humboldt and Magellan, would knock our socks off.  We were certainly amazed by the sudden change in weather as we approached the western side of the island.  Within minutes, we went from warmth and sunshine to heavy mist and cold wind.  This shift in weather completely changed our impression of the landscape; suddenly it all looked very mystical and mysterious.  Maybe our grand weather was a curse after all!

We spent about twenty minutes in a small boat visiting three tiny islets just off the shore line where we observed a few dozen penguins along with a variety of birds.  This may have been impressive if we had never seen penguins before; perhaps the Galapagos Islands have forever ruined us.

A short video of our visit to the penguin colony.  

While we didn’t feel the magic of Chiloé, it was a very pretty island and our few days meandering around the island were relaxing and quite enjoyable.  On Thursday morning we left bright and early to head back to Puerto Montt where we would catch our flight to Punta Arenas, located in the southern most region of Chile.

Example of the palafitos, houses on stilts,
with a flock of black neck swans in the foreground.  
These swans are smaller than the swans we have at home
with distinctly black necks and white bodies.
Unfortunately, I think they had all dunked their heads in the water just as I took this picture!

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A big thanks to our friend Daphne in Holland (pictured to the left with her boyfriend Jasper) who customized the header on our website with personalized images from our recent travels.  We think she did an awesome job and we’re thrilled with the new look. Daphne is a young web designer with clearly lots of talent.  She did this on her own initiative and sent it to us as a gift.

If you’ve been following our travels, you may recall that we met Daphne and Jasper while on our Galapagos cruise which seems like ages ago.  They were the young couple that joined us on the second day of the cruise.  It was Daphne who took all the great underwater shots when we were snorkelling.  We hit it off with them right away and ended up spending time with them after the cruise too.  In fact, we kept running into them so often that we jokingly accused each other of stalking.  It was downright bizarre when we ran into them weeks later while watching the Mama Negra parade in Latacunga.   Such a small world out there.

Thanks again for a wonderful gift; it’s one we’ll enjoy all year long!

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I think we’re going to remember the last day of 2011 for quite some time as it’s not every day you climb to the brim of an active volcano that is covered in snow, and then slide all the way down on your bum. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

We arrived in Pucón last Thursday morning after a pleasant 10 hour (780 km) overnight bus ride from Santiago.  Pucón was added to our itinerary on the recommendation of many travellers we have met over the last couple of months.  We’re glad we listened to the advice of so many strangers.  As we neared Pucón, we felt like we were travelling in Ontario cottage country; it all looked so familiar, from the landscape to the types of trees to the style of houses.  It was like the mirror image of Ontario in the Southern Hemisphere.  We felt so at home.

The town of Pucón reminded us of Banff in the summer time.  This was obviously a tourist mecca that offered outdoor enthusiasts plenty of options. In the winter, people flock here for the outstanding skiing and in the summer, for the biking, rafting, hiking, kayaking, fishing, birdwatching – you name it, you could do it here.  Located on the shores of a huge lake, it offered swimming and boating too. The beach was made of coarse stone that resembled gravel, but that didn’t stop the tourists from sunbathing and swimming.  The town was bursting with restaurants, bars, and boutiques, and gorgeous flowers everywhere.  We loved this place, the energy, the atmosphere, the whole look of the place.

We settled into our hostal, called Ecole, which we loved – felt like we were in a cottage with our pine panelled room. We spent Thurday exploring the town and checking out the adventure options.  We decided we would go mountain biking on Friday and then hike the Villarrica volcano on Saturday.

Little did we know our cycling route would be so strenuous that we could barely walk our bikes up many of the hills – probably not the wisest thing to be doing before a major hike.  Our goal was to cycle to the Caburgua waterfalls, supposedly an easy 20 km bike ride from town, or at least that was how Chris understood it when he got directions.  But first, we got lost and went about 5 km down the wrong road.  Getting lost seems to be something we do quite easily these days, whether on foot or on a bike!

Once we found our way, we enjoyed the stunning views – snow capped volcanoes served as a backdrop to picturesque meadows with sheep and horses grazing contentedly.  We were exhausted by the time we reached the waterfalls and wondered if we could somehow hitch a ride back to town like we had done on our Baños bike trip – but no such luck. We were pretty exhausted by the end of the day – it was much more challenging that we expected and we were wondering if we were doomed for our hike the next day.

The water was icy cold – too cold to swim.

Back at our hostel, enjoying a well deserved “cerveza” after the bike ride.

After biking, we headed over to the shop to get suited up for the big hike.  There we learned we were part of a large group – close to thirty people plus all the guides.  The next morning, we met at the shop at 6:45 am and by 7:30 we were at the base of the mountain trekking to the chairlift.  Taking the chairlift was optional but highly recommended; everyone in the group took advantage of this option.  We were surprised at how high we already were once we got off the chairlift.  We donned our helmets and listened to the instructions on how to use our ice pick to stop ourselves in case we lost our footing and started to slide down the mountainside out of control, a visual I didn’t really need.

A hot day ahead of us!

I’ve never used an ice pick before!

There were lots of other groups on the mountain that day which I wasn’t too thrilled about. It was downright crowded.  Guess it was to be expected as this was one of the most popular activities and it was the last day of the year.  We started the hike in single file, ascending at a slow, steady pace.  The first half was actually quite easy – we found the pace very slow and the slope was not too steep.  And our footing was quite secure in the snow.  All that changed in the second half when the pace remained the same, but the slope became much more vertical.  We were all huffing and puffing as we reached the top.  Imagine walking up flights of stairs for over 4 hours steady – you’d be huffing and puffing too.

Feeling good at our first rest stop – but we’ve barely begun.

Hordes of tourists making the trek.

About half way there.

Can you believe this slope?

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – yummy!

Caught with my mouth full.

Spectacular scenery even though visibility was obscured by the continuing
ash being spewed by a nearby volcano that had erupted six months ago.

Having fun with the ice pick.

It got very steep near the top.

We were warmed by the hot air emanating from the mouth of the volcano as we peered into the caldera. Toxic fumes took our breath away and seared our lungs forcing us to retreat a few feet, gasping for some clean air to breathe. As I walked along the rim of the caldera (leaving Chris behind), I was astounded by the views both within the caldera and the gorgeous 360 degree vistas in front of me.  You could clearly see the lava flows from previous eruptions, not to mention more volcanoes and mountains in the distance.

We made it!

Peering into the caldera.

The rim of the volcano.

The view from the top.

After celebrating our achievement and the end of the year with champagne, we prepared ourselves for the descent – which would happen on our bums for the most part.  Imagine a luge, you know the kind you see during the Olympics.  Imagine the track the luge travels on.  And imagine the speed it goes and the way it slides from side to side as it builds momentum. Now, forget about the luge – our bodies were the luge and when we needed more speed, we sat on little plastic sleds. Our ice picks and our own strength served as the brakes.  The tracks were like tunnels of snow carved into the mountainside.

We did a test run without the sleds, where we all slid down the first set of tracks at a pretty decent speed, but nothing too scary.  It was a blast.  I felt like I was ten years old again. There were four or five more segments to go, each of varying length and slope. It took a little bit of practice to get your form (sitting upright, knees bent and feet together – total ab workout), and to handle your ice pick without gouging yourself, but after the first leg, I felt confident that I could manage the rest.

After the second segment, I was terrified.  I was going so fast down that hill and using every ounce of my strength to try to slow myself down, I thought my arms were going to fall off.  At one point, I was airborne after careening over a huge mogul, landing off the track, creating my own track as I continued to barrel full speed ahead down the mountain. I was sure death would follow next, but somehow I managed to get myself back into the track without seriously injuring myself.  I have to say, that segment scared the crap out of me, and with arms aching with fatigue,  I didn’t think I had the strength needed to keep death at bay on the next segments.  I mustered up my strength and courage to keep going and was relieved that nothing was quite as daunting as that second segment, and the rest of the way down turned out to be a lot of fun, with only minor moments of fear and terror.

That hike and slide down the mountain did me in.  I barely had energy to get showered up and eat dinner before I crashed in bed at around 7:00 pm.  Chris followed closely behind.  We had set the alarm for 11:00 pm thinking we would get up and get out and join the New Year’s Eve celebrations; but when the alarm rang, we both awoke, mumbled we were both tired, turned the alarm off, rolled over and slept til the morning.  Happy New Year everybody!

Video of our trek to the top of Villarrica Volcano.

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Santiago is the biggest, most modern city we have visited in South America thus far. With a population of more than 7 million inhabitants in the greater metropolitan, sprawling over an area of 58 km2, this city is huge. It boasts a sophisticated transportation infrastructure that includes an underground metro system that would match any North American city. This cosmopolitan city has extensive suburban development, dozens of shopping centers, and impressive high-rise architecture.  The city is also undergoing a building boom – cranes and construction sites were everywhere.

We stayed for one week in a very tiny apartment in the Santiago Centro district, about a 10 minute walk from the Santa Lucia metro station. We found the apartment on airbnb.com, the same place we found our Quito apartment.  The apartment was in an ideal location within walking distance to most tourist attractions and a 10 minute walk to the metro.  The apartment was somewhat disappointing; it was very compact (about the size of our old kitchen), the kitchen was minimally and rather poorly equipped, and the apartment was very noisy. Still, we were happy to be in an apartment where we could have some privacy and make our own food.  And it did give us a sense of how many Chileans live in the congested down town core.

View from our 16th floor apartment balcony.  It was congested.

While in Santiago, I was recovering from a rather nasty chest cold and had to spend two days in bed. We were also feeling some travel fatigue where we were just tired of playing the tourist.  This was bound to happen especially with the pace we’ve been following the last few weeks.  Frankly, I was in a bit of a funk probably from a combination of being sick and feeling a little homesick for family and friends over the Christmas season. So we took it easy this week, keeping our sightseeing to a minimum. We cooked a few meals in the apartment which was grounding for us too – a little taste of normal life.

When we were tired of just hanging out in the apartment, we walked around the down town area (Santiago Centro) and the popular Bellavista neighbourhood. We were impressed by this city – it is clean, safe, lively, and very modern. And of course Chilean wines were abundant and cheap, just $2-3 CAD dollars for bottles that retail for about $15 in Ottawa. We drank a lot of wine – that helped the funk too!

The Metropolitan Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas.

Common street scene: lots of people doing their Christmas shopping.

At the top of Cerro San Cristóbal – great views of the city,
and I think Chris looks pretty good too. 

More views from the top of Cerro San Cristóbal.

The statue of the Virgin Mary graces the top of Cerro San Cristóbal.
Even though it was the day after Christmas, we enjoyed listening to
familiar, English Christmas music which was piped into this park like setting.

We also visited a winery, Chile’s third largest winery, Santa Rita which is located about 35 km south of the city. We decided to venture there on our own using public transportation. It took over 2 hours to get there but at least we found the place. We got a little lost on our way back since we took the wrong bus, but with the help of strangers, we found our way back by bus, train and metro. Chileans are very friendly and more than once we have received the assistance of a helpful passer by.  Often people will just stop and ask if we need help – in Spanish of course – more about that later.

The main gate to the winery.  We had to walk another kilometre
to the main building where the tour began.

The Maipo valley is located in the Metropolitan Region to the south of Santiago in the foothills of the Andes, which causes high thermal variation of 20ºC between day and night. It has a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers, dry falls, moderate winters and springs free of frost – perfect conditions for growing grapes.

Next year’s crop.  Harvest is from March – May, 
the fall in the southern hemisphere. 

As the third largest winery in Chile, Santa Rita is equipped
to produce large volumes  – something like 72 million bottles of wine each year. 

One of the wines offered during the wine tasting.  
This is now one of our favourites.  At $4,000 pesos (about $8 CAD), its expensive by Chilean standards, but we think its a real bargain.  I hope we can get this in Ottawa when we go home.

Lots of wine ready for market.

We splurged on lunch in the winery’s lovely restaurant.
Exactly one year ago, I came up with the crazy idea for this trip.
We thought that was something worth celebrating! 

A comment about the language in Chile – I can’t understand a word of it! They speak their own Spanish dialect which includes a lot of unique vocabulary. Plus they have the habit of dropping off the last syllable of a word so “dos” (two) becomes “do”. As if this wasn’t bad enough, they talk so fast, I can’t even distinguish one word from another. All this to say I am quite discouraged about my language skills and feel I’ve taken a giant step backwards. Quite frankly, I’ve pretty much given up using my Spanish while in Chile. Chris cracks me up when he asks someone to speak “mas despacio por favor”, more slowly please, like that is going to help us at all. We’ll listen to someone give us directions, and Chris will ask them to speak more slowly so they’ll repeat what they just said, just as fast, and then we’ll walk away, look at each other and shake our heads, nope, didn’t understand a single word.

Taking shelter from the sweltering sun whatever way we can
as we wait for the train back to the city. It was sunny and hot every day –
daytime temperatures in the high 30’s but the heat was dry so quite bearable.

On the subject of directions, we have learned you can’t trust a Chilean to point you in the right direction.  They mean well, but I think they would rather give you wrong directions than none at all. For example, one day we were trying to find a very large, very popular shopping mall and we were given three completely different directions from three different people.  We eventually found our way, but 2 of those three people were wrong.  Or who knows, maybe we just didn’t understand what they were saying!

A week passed quickly, and on Wednesday we packed up our stuff and hit the road again, this time we were going south to a town called Pucon, about a 10 hour bus ride from Santiago.   Here we would ring in the new year, and we wanted to do something memorable.  I’ll tell you all about it in the next post.

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Chile is a mere sliver of a country wedged between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean.  It is only 430 km wide at its widest point, but it is more than ten times that in length, at just over 4,630 km.  We are heading to the most southern town of Punta Arenas where we plan to do some serious hiking in the Patagonia region. This journey is daunting and we debated how best to cover this amount of distance.  Of course, we could fly, but that would mean missing out on seeing large parts of this beautiful country.  We’ve decided to do most of the journey by bus, but we would break the trip up into several manageable segments.

The buses in Chile are amazing – they come in various classes from basic to luxury with an accompanying price tag of course. For overnight legs of our journey, we have only managed to secure “semi-cama” seats as the “full-cama” have always been booked solid. Regardless, the semi-camas are spacious, comfortable, almost fully reclining with good support for your lower legs.  We are served snacks during the trip, similar to the snacks you get on an airplane.  Averaging 5-6 hours of sleep during the night, we we feel pretty good when we reach our destination in the morning.

After travelling for several days on unpaved roads in Bolivia, it was a relief to get onto a paved road about 500 m from the Bolivian border. We cleared Chilean customs in the small desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, a tourist mecca (population about 5,000 although 95% of the people we saw were tourists).  San Pedro de Atacama was built around an oasis in the Puna de Atacama, an arid high plateau in the Atacama Desert, reputed to be the driest place on earth.  This 105,000 km² desert is so dry that the average annual rainfall in a neighbouring city, Antofagasto is a mere 1 mm.  Evidence suggests that the Atacama Desert may not have had any significant rainfall from 1570 to 1971. Needless to say, it didn’t rain while we were there, continuing our lucky streak of sunny, dry days. With the desert came the heat and we basked in the glorious warmth, marvelling that it was below zero back home.

We were shocked by two things in this little town – the number of tourists around town and the price of everything.  A matrimonial room with private bath in a simple hostel ran $30,000 pesos, about $60 CAN.  We settled on a room without private bath at almost half the price.  Meals were similarly overpriced running about $15-20 per person for a decent dinner.  It wasn’t uncommon to spend $20-25 for a very basic breakfast for the two of us.  Our pocket book took a hit and we hoped prices would be better once we got away from the touristy areas. Unfortunately, since we are now travelling in the high season (Dec-Feb) in Chile, we have been warned that we will be gouged wherever we go, often paying more than double the low season rates for everything from transportation to meals to accommodations.  Oh well, hopefully it all balances out in the end.

A little bit of Christmas in San Pedro de Atacama.

Now that we were back on line, we had some catching up to do with emails, etc.  We were saddened to learn that Chris’ uncle Wayne (McKinnon) was gravely ill.  We managed to contact Chris’ sister Connie (through Skype) who brought us up to date. Sadly, Uncle Wayne passed away later that very night.  This was very hard on Chris; he was very close to his uncle growing up and was saddened that he had not stayed in touch with him for the past few years, and that he missed his chance to say goodbye. Chris spent a couple of days laying low, coming to terms with his loss.

Before we left San Pedro, we did a 4-hour guided tour hiking the Valley of the Moon and Death Valley. Valley of the Moon is so named because of its moon-like landscape with ruins of old Chilean salt mines, and worker huts.  Death Valley has gigantic sand dunes and strange rock formations.  It was a lot of fun; the highlight for me was running down the huge dunes in my socks and watching the sand boarders “ski” down on their boards.

We ran down this dune, but this was only the bottom half!
Notice the guys at the top getting ready to sand board down the hill. 

Hiking through Death Valley.

Cool rock formations.

I couldn’t coax Chris any closer to the edge.

Sandboarders walking to the top of the sand dune.

People travel from far and wide to San Pedro to go star gazing at night, and the lucky ones get a spot on a tour with French Astronomer, Alain Maury.  The tour begins with a geographic explanation of the sky and its constellations, continuing with observations of really amazing objects, such as moon craters, Saturn rings, cumulus of stars, galaxies, and other wonders of the universe through his private collection of powerful telescopes.

Our tour began at 11:00 pm, way past our bedtime.  Maybe it was the hiking tour we did on the same day, or the two very strong Pisco Sours we consumed at dinner, but we were dead tired by the time we started the tour.  In fact, we could barely stay awake during the first part of the tour.  We perked up when we started looking through the telescopes and Chris was completely engaged when a photography lesson was given about how to shoot the night sky.  The constellations in the Southern Hemisphere are very different from what we are used to seeing in the North.  In spite of our fatigue, it was a very informative and interesting night.

La Serena

After a 16-hour overnight bus ride through the Atacama Desert, we arrived in La Serena at 7:00 in the morning with plans to stay for 3 nights. Unfortunately, a mix-up with our hostel reservation meant we only had a room for one night. We made the best of it, and spent the day walking around the main plaza of this very popular beach destination. The town was bustling with Christmas shoppers as it was only a few days before Christmas. We were back on the bus by 11:00 the next morning, on our way to Santiago.

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