Chile’s coast (the grand finale)

Friends from Afghanistan days, Mark and Oke, invited us to stay with them over Christmas in El Quisco, about 90 minutes west of Santiago on the coast. A ridiculously great offer. So we went. Their huge house (and the even more huge view) was perfect. Oke cooked an enormous dinner for 11 people. And there was wine, let me tell you!

The next day, Mark handed everyone a stocking with gifts including chocolates at the bottom. And then we went out for a walk along the Pacific Ocean with a few of their 11 dogs (and one cat who didn’t come). A restful and super slow day. 

The next morning Don and I drove to Valparaiso. It’s a small town north on the coast with a lot of hills and even more graffiti.It’s possible to walk up, of course, but there are also veniculars built in the late 1800s that save time and energy.Views were spectacular:All we had left was to drink one more pisco sour (refreshing local margarita-like drink) and repack our bags for the flight, and weather, we’d find in Toronto. 

Santiago (does not rhyme with San Diego)

Overnight bus was not ideal, but the only way we could get to Santiago. Happily, the large seats, which reclined quite generously, made the ride somewhat reasonable. At least we were conscious enough to navigate the metro (with fans blowing cool water onto the platforms!) to get to our accommodation. At this point, the aftermath of climbing a snowy volcano became clear – sunburned lips and moustache area, apparently two places that are hard to get sunscreen onto. 

We had a short lie down and then metroed to Santa Carolina winery for a tour Don had booked.It’s one of Chile’s oldest wineries and named after the matriarch. It’s now buried behind walls in an industrial area with vineyards in outlying valleys but when it was first created the grapes were right there. Santa Carolina is available at the LCBO (partially why we wanted to see it) and Canada is the second largest importer after China (can you believe it!) and then Brazil. That made us proud 🙂 The tour was fun, mainly because the wines we tried were set up in three different spaces as we went, so sort of like a wine hunt 😉We spent the afternoon walking around the neighbourhood. A lot of pedestrian-only streets filled with booths and sellers of all kinds of things including lots of festive wrapping paper.The next morning we visited a church and the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, which had amazing exhibits about ancient Chile and South America. The wooden statues were decorations on top of graves and the knotted rope was an accounts record keeper.

Pucon (more north than before but not quite middle Chile – got called out on that)

Our plan for the next days had been to visit a few big towns and then Santiago. But we discovered Pucon had many activities and decided to go there en route to the capital. We were not disappointed!

The ride in along the south side of a bay was stunning. The town is small with lots of scenic views and a coastal feel. Our first afternoon we hit one of the hot springs about 30 km to the east. At this point, Don was very happy I’d suggested bringing bathing suits.

The next adventure was climbing South America’s most active volcano, Villarrica. Yep we did that. We started at 200 metres and got to 2860. Initially, we walked on a rocky path but eventually hit snow, which covers the upper part permanently as well as a glacier.We carried up our own equipment, all supplied by the tour company, including crampons, wind proof pants and jacket, and mask for at the crater.At the top, peeking over the rim, we could see and hear the lava spewing. Every so often red fire erupted and a loud crash. And all around were clouds lying below us and the sight of other volcanos in the distance.The best part of the tour wasn’t even mentioned until it happened – sledding down the volcano!! There were pre-made sledding routes so we just sat in these and careened down until we hit ground again. Holy adrenaline- it was amazing!And sunset:

Puerto Montt (middle Chile)

Much plotting, online searching and asking at various travel companies in the south, made us realize that the best (but actually the only) route to middle Chile was by plane. In December a lot of Chileans are on the move to get home and using those precious bus and boat tickets that we wanted.

We flew to Puerto Montt and from the airport, rented a car (another new one that was whitish, I see a pattern here!) and drove to Puerto Varas. We got a little lost trying to drive through the town but finally found the road beside the sea and what a view!

Off to the National Park to walk around the base of Valcano Osorno. The path was sand and each of my shoes was totally full by the end of it. But so worth it. Don thought the valcano looked like it had a cotton ball sombrero 🙂On the way back we stopped at the Saltos del Petrohue rapids. Couldn’t quite believe that the Chilean we’d picked up earlier (to drive him back to his car) had kayaked through this. He did say they portaged those grade 6s. But still!Our adventures the next day took us to Chiloe island – awesome ferry ride with the car – to do our own tour of old wooden churches. Built in the late 1800s, the island has approximately 150 of them. First we went to the main town, Ancud, to check the museum, which had replicas of some churches and original doors and windows and crosses on display. And a big game of church shaped Jenga!These are some of the churches we saw. The standout was the blue roofed one in Tenaun, partly because it was open and so we toured the inside. The architecture on the island (including the churches) uses tejuelas, famous Chilite wood shingles, and originally wood nails. However, a lot of churches have been rebuilt with newer materials due to fire destruction. 14 of them are Unesco World Heritage Sites.

Argentinian Patagonia

This beautiful day started at 5:40am. There is a reason I don’t do mornings and I confirm that reason every so often. Yep. Anyway, Don and I booked a tour to El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier (in Argentina) which due to the distance and double border crossing was an entire day. 

In the town of El Calafate we picked up our guide, who told us many interesting things about the area. Calafate is named after a berry (on which the local drink, Calafate Sour, is also based), and has mostly been built up in the 70s and 80s when ranches turned into accommodations to support  tourism. There is no agriculture, just animal farming. 

When the glacier came into view we were all quiet. Wow!It is massive and advancing and calving so it’s in a relatively steady state. As it advances the tip meets ground and eventually forms a barrier and the two sides of the water aren’t level. Soon pressure builds and the water running underneath forms a bridge of ice that collapses every two to five years, without warning!We heard and saw a lot of small ice crashing into the water. And the area around the glacier was crammed with ice floes. To look around, we traversed the many metal walkways built for viewing. Accessible nature at its finest.Some side notes about Chile: garbage is collected from metal baskets on poles in front of each house, good wine is plentiful while good coffee not so much, other uses for wine glasses include jam holders, lots of stray dogs.

More important side note: snowy, cold countries seem to have all rights to creating Christmas and holiday songs. 

Chilean Patagonia

We rented a car to drive to Chile’s Patagonia area and planned a few day hikes. After negotiating a late car return, we were off in a new, white Peugeot with only 311km. White was important, as we noted it is the car choice of colour when hiking in Patagonia.

The first thing that happened after we parked was bumping into two Antarctica travelers! Swapped some stories and got some tips as they’d been here for a couple of days already. We hiked to a large and unbelievably windy beach – way windier than Bay Street on a super windy day. And found a large, lone iceberg washed up on the beach! Maybe not exactly washed up 😉Our next hike was to a waterfall, again in gale force winds. This was the wind warning sign. En route we started to notice all the guanacos (sort of like llamas but not really) watching us. Initially, we stopped the car to take photos (like seeing a moose in Algonquin) but soon realized how plentiful these guys are (so more like sheep) and thereafter just waved or chased them…Our last hike was into the foothills of the mountains. Some breathtaking scenery and a serious cattle traffic jam on the way home.Back to Puerto Natales with just enough time for pasta dinner and a bottle of Chilean Cab Sauv – honouring the homeland 🙂

Antarctica

Our Antarctica adventure began in Punta Arenas, far south in Chile. The company, DAP, held an official briefing for the “Shackleton Group” the night before. We would take a 10-seater plane (although only 6 passengers) and fly 1200km south. Don and I were numbers 5 and 6, the last to book, and thus making the trip a go for all of us.

We hit Antarctic soil (only 2% is ground, 98% ice) at 11am and would be on the ground for 24 hours. The landing strip is 1.6kms, no room for error. The day was cloudy and about zero with little to no wind – fairly ideal!Our guides live in Antarctica over the summer months, and met us at the AP. Both were extremely knowledgeable, one had organized the first expedition to ski to the South Pole in 1988. Note, they planned the trip for 3 years, buried a plane in snow to fly home in, carried all their own supplies on sleds, had a Canadian plane on standby for any emergency and the whole trip took 90 days total (67 of daily skiing).

We walked to the Antarctic sea at Maxwell Bay, put on orange jumpsuits for extra warmth and headed out in a zodiac to Ardley Island to see 3 types of penguins that hang out there (Gentoo, Chinstrap, Adelie) and pick up a German scientist (aside – he’s taking pictures of penguin poop to assess whether different penguins make different colored poop that can be distinguished from outer space – oh the things scientists work on that we mortals have no idea about!).From there we went to Collins Glacier. In the past week the glacier had been calving, so we drove over a lot of ice floes. It was snowing gently. The glacier was magnificent and some icebergs had that blue hue of young ice.The next stop was to see Elephant Seals. Lazily hanging out by the shore, they checked us over every so often, but mostly yawned a lot or lay still. Like penguins, these seals have no land predators, so they aren’t worried about us, just curious. In some places the snow was reddish, caused by snow algae according to George, our guide. Our last stop was to the Chinese station, which had been organized earlier but confirmed with the following radio message: Chinare, did you get my Whatsapp message, are we good to go?

Then it was dinner and story time. Alejo, one of our guides, talked about the many expeditions he’s done and some facts about Antarctica: no human life, biggest desert in the world (snow and ice don’t equal water), only peace and science happen here, buildings are built above ground so doors can be opened all year, you can fly to the South Pole for $45,000USD (includes return), some stations only get replenished once a year. But it was the German scientist who told us the most important information: the 2017 NYE party will happen at the Russian station and everyone will cheer in all the new years beginning at 7am 🙂

A pretty good sleep in a cabin (thanks to an electric blanket) and our second morning was spent visiting the Orthodox Church (with a full time priest), and the Russian and Chilean stations. We said good bye to the penguins around 11:30am and then waited for a large group of Chinese workers (hired by Brazil to build a station – of course!) before taking off around noon.Wow is all I can say! Oh wait, also, I’ve been to 7 continents.

Still Buenos Aires

Today we slept in. I mean we really slept in. The kind of sleeping in after you’ve been up all night, but not in that good kind of way 😉 And then greeted by coffee. Universal love 🙂

The Museum of Modern Art is close to our hotel. Yay!Ok, that last one is actually an artful bathroom sign, albeit with two shoulder shrugs going on 😉

And then we walked around all afternoon. San Telmo, where we’re staying, seems the liveliest. But it couldn’t compete with a protest (by what looked like students) at the main square, Plaza de Mayo. That balcony, where Evita talked to the people, is just out of the shot to the right. Married Don about town:Tried out the subway to get back to the hotel. Thoughts: really good signage, clean, and helpful locals who pay your way when you only have enough credit (given to us at the airport by a fellow backpacker) for one ticket. TTC could come here and learn a few things or everything!

South America – Buenos Aires to be exact

Argentina!!

Although if you’d been at Pearson with us last night, you might have doubted this. Friends told us we could buy the “reciprocity fee” that Argentina charges Canadians, on our arrival. That is currently not true. With about 30 minutes to boarding time, Don and I rushed to Information on the 1st floor (from Departure on the 3rd) to buy the fee online and print the receipt.

First the website was down. Then the printer wasn’t working. Then I couldn’t get my phone to connect. All not good. But loved the woman at the Information desk, who called her supervisor, and verified that we could NOT use her computer and then turned the screen to me anyway. A solid 10 minutes later, Don and I were running for the check in with our print outs.

Wow, these guys do not make travel easy 😉 While stressed, we were not deterred!

Arrived late afternoon – here are scenes from our neighbourhood:Cheese from a big indoor market for tomorrow’s lunch – a few pesos. Vegetarian dinner – a few pesos more because we could only use our debit card.

Listening to Don speak Spanish – priceless. Particularly without the phrase book!