The Lakes District of Chile

Puerto Varas is a cute touristy town. It received a lot of German-speaking immigrants in the second half of the 1800's (as were a lot of towns in the Lake District) and still has such a German feel, mostly due to the architecture. We found a big, very old hostel, which used to be a house to an immigrant famil. It was massive, and the stairs were tilting to the left.. it definitely had a haunted house potential. Jesse watched the rest of the Packers game when we got in (they lost, first loss of the season). We then cooked soup for dinner and got to sleep early. The next day we did a walking tour of the town. All the German architecture makes it feel like it's not Chile! There isn't a veranda or adobe wall to be seen in the whole town. It's a very European feel, and the rain, clouds and green hills adds to it. The churches are all fashioned after German style churches as well. After the tour we took a micro to a small town called Frutillar. It is another very German looking town. It's very clean and pleasant and is also right on the lake. We just walked around and took pictures, then got back to Puerto Varas and made BLT's for dinner. 

Fruitillar

The next day we headed into the national park on a micro. We stopped at some beautiful rapids, which were crawling with tourists, but we found a small hiking trail that no one was on which took us to a beautiful river. Then we went further into the park and hiked up a trail which took us very close to a volcano. It was gorgeous scenery and there was not one other person on the trail. We got back that evening very tired, and made grilled cheese sandwiches and soup for dinner. We had planned on going to some more national parks to hike and camp but the weather was still cloudy and rainy and the forcast said it would be that way for a week. So we changed our minds and took a bus north to escape the rain, to a town called Valdivia.

In the bus station we met a Swedish kid called Stean, who was also headed to Valdivia. When we got there the three of us found a cabana style room at a hostel. It had a tiny kitchen and bathroom attached. Pretty luxurious!! We took off for the Kuntsman brewery after we ate, and Jesse and Stean got a “column” of the unfiltered. I got the taster. 

The next day we went to two of the Spanish forts in the area. The Spanish were pretty paranoid in this area and had tons of forts. There was a battle for independence here as well. We had to take a little ferry across the bay to the second fort, where there was a re-enactment happening at 4pm, so we hung around! It was pretty good. I've never seen a re-enactment. Then we took the ferry back. Jesse and I wanted to try to go to a museum, but when we finally found it it was closed. So we walked around a bit and went home.

The next day we took a 3 hour bus to Pucon. It's another town on the lake with a big volcano next to it. But this volcano was smoking! As in, there was smoke coming out of the top! Crazy, huh! The first day we just set up camp and walked around town inquiring about various buses and renting a car. We found a cheap car to rent for Christmas Day.  So on the 25th we headed up early to the National Park Villarica, which is where the volcano is.  We did a 3 hour hike around the base of the volcano and it was really beautiful..  We made it high enough to see snow, so we did have a white Christmas! Then we drove on to a small town about 30 miles away which is known for it's Mapuche heritage (local indigenous people), but everything was closed for the holiday, so we drove up to one of the lakes known for it's nice beach and sat there for a few hours.  We even went in the water because it wasn't that cold.  Then we head to the Los Pozones thermal baths, which are all naturally heated from volcanic activity in the earth.  We got there right at dusk and it was really relaxing!  We spent about and hour and a half going from pool to pool, then drove back to Pucon and crashed for the night!  

The next day we took a bus back to the village and saw the Mapuche museum and ate a traditional Mapuche meal, which was very good.  No meat, just a quinoa with vegetables and bamboo hearts.  At the restaurant we met another couple (the only other people there) who were from San Francisco! Then we headed back to Pucon and caught a night bus back to Santiago, arriving at 7:30am.

Now we are cat sitting in Santiago for a week. It is in the 90's here and there's no air conditioning!  It's our friend Michelle's cat, which is the cat I found in my apartment building lobby 6 months ago and fostered for 2 weeks.  Her name is Misha, and she is obsessed with food. So it's like having a dog almost!  It's so nice to have an apartment to ourselves. Our own bathroom, kitchen and internet access! Such luxury! 

Last night we went to our friends Joanna and Jorge's apartment for dinner.  We made shrimp spring rolls which were delightful, and I loved playing with their 1 year old daughter, Emma.  Joanna is from Seattle.  She did a study abroad program in Chile during college and met the daughter of an old co-worker of mine during it. So that is how I came to meet her.  And she introduced us to her friends:  David, Leslie, Pamela, Pablo, and we kept meeting more and more Chileans, so it's been all thanks to Joanna we've had such a great social life here!  

I am enjoying not having anything to do and getting to catch up on world events, read, upload my photos to Facebook, etc.  But then it's back on the road for another 5 months! Eek!

Happy New Year everyone!  Plan a vacation for 2012! :)

Land of Seagulls

We arrived to Quellon, on the southern coast of Chiloe after only 3 hours on the ferry. According to our Lonely Planet guide book (the last one for Chile was published in 2008), right near the dock was a cheap hostel... so we took a right and started walking. We didn't see anything but sheep, so Brad asked some passing guys where we were. Turns out we were about 10km from town! The dock had completely moved locations in 3 years! So we got on a city bus and went downtown, found the hostel, checked in, then went looking for food. Jesse and I ate some yummy sandwiches at a cute little cafe: one steak and one crab! Mmm. 

Then we went back to the hostel. There was a TV with satellite in our room, which means channels in ENGLISH and so I watched The Queen, a really good movie, while Jesse and Brad played cribbage in the common area. They met a traveling salesman called Alexi from about 4 hours north, and he offered to drive us all to the next town, Castro, the next day, at 11:30am. So we got ready and waited. And waited. He finally showed up at 12:30 (typical Chilean) and told us he had to wait on a sales appointment at 1, so we couldn't leave until 2:15. He then offered to drive us to end of the PanAmerican highway, which is just minutes outside of town. The PanAmerican highway runs from Alaska all the way down to Chiloe. So we went. And we lingered there until about 2, and we were all wondering about his appointment he was supposed to have... we finally went back to town and he wanted to have lunch, so he took us to this cheap local place which was pretty good. Jesse had some sort of bean soup with sausage and a fried egg on top. Then Alexi had his appointment, while we sat in his car, and then we finally all headed north to Castro. When we got there Alexi bargained with the hostel owner to knock $4 off the price of our rooms! Such a salesman!

The next day Brad and Jesse and I did a walking tour of Castro, saw the really cool Italian designed church in the square, the famous parajitos (houses on the water built on tall stilts), a cute marketplace where I bought some local cheese, and the cemetery, and then Brad headed off north to Ancud and then the western coastal town of Chepu. Jesse and I went out to dinner and had lamb! Lamb is a common dish, and they cook it whole over a fire, so we wanted to try it. It was pretty good. .

The next day we took a bus to a long island just a few thousand yards off the big island, to the town of Achao. This town had the oldest church in Chiloe, from 1790. Chiloe is famous for it's Jesuit-built wood churches. There about 60 of them, and I think 10 are on the Unesco World Heritage Site list. The church in Achao was pretty cool to prove it. But apart from the church there wasn't much going on in Achao. It was a cute town, clean and pleasant, just boring. There are several islands close by where people lived, and I really wanted to try and take a boat over to them, since I love tiny islands! But instead we walked for a long time down the beach. On the way back we saw a huge hog run down onto the beach and start rolling around in a pool of water happily. It was really cute! Then the owner came down with his long stick and shooed the pig back up. We followed them down the street, and I saw the pig go into her yard and hop her sty fence. She totally knew where she was going! It was so cool seeing a pig being herded down a town street.

The next day we headed off to Ancud, by way of a coastal village called Quemchi. There was supposed to be a really great restaurant there, and I love to eat, so wanted to go. Chiloe is very like northern and central Europe – fields full of sheep and cows and farmhouses. We found the restaurant and their daily special was lasagna, which I enjoyed. They wanted us to sign their visitor book too. We then went off to Ancud at the north of Chiloe. When we got there, we found out the last bus to Chepu, where we had hoped to kayak through a “sunken” forest, had left for the weekend. So we went up to a beautiful campsite on a cliff over-looking the water and set up camp. It was sunny and beautiful. We walked back into town to the grocery store, and then cooked up some chicken sandwiches.

The next day we visited the museum in Ancud, which was really good, and then had lunch at a place famous for it's curanto, which is a local dish of Chiloe that is mussels, scallops, sausage, chicken, pork, and a potato, served with a bowl of rich broth. It was absolutely crazy. We had ordered one each, and it proved to be way too much! But it was really really good and Jesse almost finished all of his!

Then we visited an old Spanish fort, which was one of the last holdouts of the Spanish in the whole of the Americas. There was just the outer wall left, with cannons facing the ocean. It was pretty cool. Then it was back to the tent. We didn't even eat the soup we had planned to make for dinner because we were still full from the curanto! We watched Hangover 2 in the tent (awful and not my choice of course) and slept. It rained again, but luckily this time it cleared up in the morning and our tent dried out before we had to pack up and leave. We got a bus out of Ancud to Puerto Montt, where we were going to switch to a micro (pronounced: mee crow) to get to the lake-side town of Puerto Varas.

Next up: The Lakes District

From Patagonia to Chiloe

We arrived back to our couchsurfing host in Punta Arenas pretty late in the evening. There were three other couchsurfers there, all exchange students from the University of California. Marcelo fed us, then we stayed up late chatting with him. The next day Jesse made a pork chop parmesan dish for us all, then we headed back to Puerto Natalas on the 6pm bus. We got back and stayed in the same hostel as before. Our bus to El Calafate was at 8am and took 5 hours. We had to cross the border back into Argentina, which wasn't too bad since it isn't a high-traffic crossing. The landscape was flat with hills and mountains and tons of sheep. It felt very remote and huge.

El Calafate is very touristy, thus very expensive. It reminded me kind of a ski resort town in Colorado, just without the snow right now. It's full of wealthy American retirees on their package vacation. There are tons of artesan shops selling really cool stuff, and tons of tasty looking restaurants, so it was painful for me! We found a hostel and put our stuff down then went out to find lunch and money. All the ATM's were out of money! It took us about 3 banks before we found one with only $100 in it! Then we went to a restaurant and ate a pizza. We got back to the hostel and streamed the Packers game online. It was a pretty bad connection and was painful to watch, which sucks, because it was the best game of the season – they won with a field goal in the last few seconds of the game.

I slept in my sleeping bag on the bed because it was kind of shady place. In every place we check for bed bugs because Jesse had a bad experience with them in a hostel in Asia. We didn't see any. So we went to sleep. But at 5am Jesse woke up, turned on the light and said “Bed bugs.” And he was right. There were bed bugs everywhere. And by everywhere, I mean, at least 4 that I saw myself, which is a pretty bad infestation. They are really really tough bugs, who can live for a year without eating (sucking blood) and mate with their family members, so tend to reproduce rapidly. Every city has them, and they will eat and eat and eat. Jesse had at least 40 bites on his body. Bugs like him because he's got warm blood... maybe from those German and English genes of his. So we spent 2 and a half hours picking through our stuff looking for bugs. I found three. It was really gross. They are round and very black. They can't move fast, so it's easy to kill them. Then, at 7:30am, we left... we didn't tell the guy there were bed bugs and we didn't want to pay... because of course they would deny it and there would be an altercation.

So we were standing in the street at 7:30am not sure what to do. Jesse suggested another hostel that we saw which was only $6 a night, but I vetoed the cheap hostel idea immediately. We walked a couple blocks and stopped at the first place we saw, which was a house-hostel, not a hostel and was $15 a night each. We checked all of our stuff again for bugs, and the mattress, and went back to bed. That day at 1pm we had a tour of the Perito Moreno glacier in the national reserve.

We got to the park, which was an expensive one hour bus ride – about $50 each, then paid to get into the park, which was another $50. But the glacier was very very cool. We had 5 hours to hang out, which we thought was nuts, since it was just a chunk of ice, but it turned out to be almost perfect. The glacier was just so cool, and there was a winding platform of pathways. They had built metal walkways everywhere – I guess for in the winter, when snow and ice would make walking on the ground dangerous. We sat and ate sandwiches we'd made and watched the glacier do it's thing. You can hear it creaking and groaning, and then a chunk would fall off with a loud echo into the water. It was captivating! We wanted to see a huge chunk, but only small chunks fell. Jesse hopped the walkway and went down to the lake to feel the water. Some other guys had brought back a chunk of ice from the water, so we got to touch and taste millenia-old ice!

Finally the bus came back and we got on thankfully, since it was starting to get chilly. About 10 minutes into the ride the bus pulled over and the driver hopped out then hopped back in and yammering something in Spanish. We all looked blankly at him, so one of the Spanish-speaking tourists said in English, “The bus is broken. A new bus will come in one hour.” I was not super thrilled at this information, given our unfortunate incident with bed bugs that morning, and because it was already 8pm and by the time we would get back to town the grocery stores would be closed and we would have to either spend a lot of money on dinner in a restaurant, or eat just the 5 eggs we had with nothing else. So out we got, and within 10 seconds I saw a car coming around the corner and I stuck out my thumb and smiled big. They stopped, there was a guy and a girl and no one in the backseat. We told them our woe, and they said to jump in. They were a lovely couple, Lucille and Marcelo, from Brazil, tax lawyers, spoke English well, and were really pleasant company. They dropped us right in front of the grocery store and we thanked them profusely. Jesse made ravioli and garlic bread for dinner, and we shared it with the hotel manager lady.

The next day we were supposed to check out at 10, but since our bus was at 9pm, we pushed it to 11. We had nothing to do all day because there is nothing to do in El Calafate but eat and shop, and it sucked we couldn't hang out in our room... it was such a nice and quiet place. We walked around and visited a small park, but the wind was pretty bad that day, and then it got chilly. So we grabbed the computer and sat at a restaurant for about 3 hours. Then we went back to the hotel and asked if we could sit in the living room for 3 hours.

Our bus ride to Rio Antiguas was overnight and took 16 hours. There were tons of tourists on it. We met cousins, from Ireland. Chris had the thickest Irish accent I've ever heard and I could only understand about 70% of what he was saying. It was the weirdest thing! The road to Rio Antigues was only paved for about 3 hours in. All night we were on a gravel road, and the bus was alternating from hot to cold when the AC was turned on and off. It was pretty miserable. We finally made it to the Chilean border and had to take a little mini-van over the border to Chile Chico. Chile Chico is a cute town on this huge lake, and we had to wait a day and a half to get the ferry across. We are working our way north, to Chiloe. In Chile Chico we set up camp, and at the campsite ran into 2 Isrealis, 2 Americans, and 2 Germans. One of the Americans met the Irish cousins in the grocery store and invited them to share our asado (bbq) that night. So it was quiet a community! Everyone was so cool and we really enjoyed the company. One of the Americans, Trinity, is the girl who is walking up to Columbia with her two friends. The other American, Brad, is only 20 and is on the same University of California exchange that the kids in Punta Arenas are on. He's from Santa Barbara, and was coming our way too, so we have been traveling with him.

With 2 Irish and 2 German friends about to get on the ferry from Chile Chico

In Chile Chico we went on a small hike next to the lake. We jumped into the lake off of a rock and it was COLD! Like, painfully cold. I can't believe I let Jesse talk me into it! The lake was just so clear and blue, it was hard to resist. There were little islands just offshore that looked so cool, and it was such a shame the town did have kayak rentals or something!

We got to the other side of the lake on a 3 hour ferry from Chile Chico, then took a bus to Coyhaique. This region of Patagonia is called Aisen, and is absolutely beautiful. The most beautiful landscape in Chile, in my opinion. The road is called the Carretera Austral and is famous with travellers: cyclists, hitch-hikers, etc. It was so lush and green, with mountains, clear rivers, beautiful colorful Lupin flowers everywhere. Just so picturesque it was hard to believe it was real. Sheep and cows and horses everywhere, as well as sweet looking farm houses dotting the flat lands. At one point the bus stopped and a farmer ran out and brought the driver a big plastic Coke bottle of milk! The German couple was still with us at this point, and had arranged to work on a farm in exchange for food and board. Pretty cool!

We could only stay one night in Coyhaique because there was only one bus up north at 8am the next day. It had taken Brad a whole day at information desks to find a bus. It was a mini-van again, and we were the only tourists. The drive was again, simply stunning. There are so many reserves and parks in Patagonia, and we went through one. We saw another mini glacier on top of a mountain. We saw gringos cycling through as well, with their bikes loaded down with all their gear on either side. I can't imagine the stamina and strength it would take to do that! It was raining the whole time!

We weren't sure how to get to Chaiten, which is were the ferry to Chiloe was leaving from in 2 days. No one could tell us if there was a bus or what time. We transferred buses in another town and made it up to this road-side town called Santa Lucia, which was totally ugly and depressing and tiny. But where we found out that there was an 8am bus to Chaiten. We pitched our tents on the side of the road (literally) in the rain, ate salami and cheese and bread for dinner because there was no restaurant, then watched a movie on our laptop. It rained. And rained. And our tent leaked on the sides, where the cover didn't reach. Jesse's stuff got pretty soaked, but mine seemed okay. Packing up the tent in the morning, however, was not a good time at all.

We arrived in Chaiten and found a nice hostel and slept all day, then Jesse made pasta and chicken and we watched the Packer game of course. Chaiten is right next to the volcano that erupted last March, and it was covered in ash. There were houses mid-high in ash. It was really crazy.

Now we are on the ferry to Chiloe. It's huge and pretty comfortable. It's supposed to take us 5 hours to get to Chiloe! But at least it isn't raining and the scenery is beautiful. 

Next blog: Chiloe (which means"land of seagulls")

Eat Hike, Sleep Hike

Two days ago we met a girl from Colorado, Trinity, in Chile Chico.  She is hiking with two friends from Ushuaia to the Columbian border over one year.    She was in town because a street dog stole one of her shoes and the new ones she bought gave her awful blisters and she needed to get to the biggest town nearby, Coyhaique, where we are tonight, to buy new hiking shoes.  While she was staying at the hostel in Chile Chico, where we were camping in the yard, another hostel guest stole her hiking pants.  So now she has to buy those too!

Anyway, here is her blog:

Eat, Hike, Sleep, Hike

Patagonia

On Nov. 22nd at 1am we caught a flight from Santiago to Punta Arenas.

Punta Arenas is in the far south of Chile, in Patagonia. It's cold there. About 45 during the day. We don't really have the gear for this type of weather and are reluctant to buy it for the week or two we'll be down here... so let the cold begin!

In Punta Arenas we had arranged another couch surfing, but our flight got in at 5am so we slept at a table in the airport until 9am, then took a taxi to Marcelo's house. He had a nice house and it was really warm! The use natural gas there, and it's a lot cheaper then petrol. The first day we went on a tour to Fuerte Bl....., which was the first fort established by the Spanish in the area, but was abandoned because it was so cold. The locals, natives called …...... , then took all the wood the fort was made with and used it for their fires. So the fort was rebuilt in the 1940's. It still looks really cool. That night Jesse made a beef stew with dumplings for us, and two other couch surfers that had just arrived. It was really good.

Then the next day we went for a hike in the hills over-looking the city. It was really beautiful, but really windy!

The next day we took a 12 our bus ride to Ushuaia, which is the southern-most city in the world. There are other towns, but not of any significant size. The bus had to cross on a ferry to the island Tierra Del Fuego, which is half Chilean territory and half Argentinian. We rolled into town about 9, but our couch surfing host was not home from work until 12:30! So we ate, then sat around at a cafe. Yep, tired! Our couch surfing host is Andres, a lively guy who is from Buenos Aires, but has lived here for 4 years and works at a hotel. His little apartment has this tiny loft that we are sharing with another couch surfer, Nitsan, from Isreal.
Ushuaia had a lot of Croatian immigrants after the area was colonized, and it reflects in the architecture, which gives the city, which is half surrounded by snowy mountains, a ski-resort in Switzerland feel. It's really cute, and really expensive! We can't afford to go on any boat tours, they are all about $80 each! Which is too bad. But we will go hiking tomorrow in the national park, which should be amazing. And today we went to a really great museum about the indigenous peoples the Selk'nam and Yamanas. They were amazing people who lived on the shores of the waters and lived off mussels, seals, whales, otters and guanacos. They didn't wear clothes, because the clothes they wore would get wet from the continual rains and would only make them colder. They would wrap themselves in huge animal skins and go about like that. It's astonishing to me they could survive with no clothes in the climate there!

The next day we took a 9km bus ride to the national park, Tierra del Fuego, which means Land of Fire. It was called that by earlier European invaders because as they sailed by, they would see all the fires from the indigenous people.
We went to the park with another girl who was couch surfing at the same house we were. Her name is Nitsan, and she's from Israel. The park is truly beautiful. Lush, damp, cloudy, snow-capped hills, thick forest. We were having a great time hiking along the coastal trail, when Nitsan slipped on a wood bridge and hurt her ankle. She couldn't walk. We had a passing tour guide radio to the rangers what had happened, and then Jesse piggybacked her to the beach. We weren't sure if help was coming, but we suspected it would. Passing tourists gave Nitsan asprin and candy for energy. She is only 22, and had just started her 8 month tour of South America. Finally a ranger came and waited with us until more rangers came with a body board to strap Nitsan too and carry her out. It was a long way! 3km, I think! Jesse helped to carry for awhile, until some beefy Spanish guys came by and offered to help. I was taking pictures on Nitsan's 35mm the whole time. They finally got her up to the road where and ambulance was waiting. When Jesse and I got back to the house later that day, she was lying in bed with a cast on her ankle. She had fractured one of the small bones on the outside and needed minor surgery the next day. Luckily, she wasn't in pain though. I felt sooo bad for her. She will probably have to go home, since she can't walk for 30 days and then can't strain in for another 30.

We made it out of Ushuaia the next morning on a 5am bus back to Punta Arenas, where we were spending another night with our couch surfer host, Marcelo, who we really liked, and then heading up to Torres del Paine, a very famous national park in Chilean Patagonia. I will write about that soon!

We've had limited internet access, since none of the couch surfing hosts have had internet! It's been pretty cold and wet here in Patagonia, even though it's Spring here. It reminds me a lot of England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man - always overcast and raining. There are also millions of sheep and cows to add! But it is just so beautiful here, that it's magical, and sucks you in and makes you want to stay. I just wish I was in better physical shape, so I could hike more!

Norte Chico

Since Usallata

As you know, we have quit teaching English, moved out of our apartment, and started traveling. Our first stop was to hop over the border with Argentina to get a tourist visa. We were on a work visa, and it had expired, so we needed a tourist visa in order to keep traveling in Chile. We were worried there would be a problem at the border, there is always a problem when you try to do anything involving bureaucracy in Chile because the initial people you come into contact with don't actually tell you the correct information regarding the materials, papers, payments, locations you need. There are minute things like the size of your passport photo that can delay the whole process.

But there was no problem! We camped in Uspallata for 2 days. We saw some cool petroglyphs in the desert, which had been made 2 to 10 thousand years ago, which was pretty cool!

Then we went back to Santiago for a couple days and stayed with our friends Alex and Naoko. We of course watched the Packers game at our friend Gregorio's house, and then left on a bus on Monday night at 10pm. It was an overnight bus. The trip was 15 hours up to Chanaral, a town in the Norte Chico region of Chile. I am a pro at sleeping, even in transportation modes, so I slept most of the time, so it wasn't too bad for me. We arrived at Chanaral at 11am, pretty weary. We were headed for the national park called Pan de Azucar, but we weren't sure how far away it was and if we could get there that same day. Our guide book said there was a cheap bus that could take us there, but we soon found that that bus only ran during peak season, which is January and February. A taxi was following us and told us that he would take us for $40 round trip. Which is crazy, but it was the only way. So we quickly bought some food because we were camping, and went up to the park. It was so beautiful and uninhabited. We pitched tent at an amazing camp site right on the ocean, and then took at boat ride to an island just offshore where we could see Humbolt penguins. The next day we hiked into the hills through a valley, at is was just so gorgeous, something out of the imaginations, like something Disney would build for a a theme park ride. It was a perfect hike, only 3 hours, and we brought sandwiches with us and ate them when we got to the head of the valley where there was a spring.



Then we walked along the shoreline, which was just stunning. We were the only people. There was no one else the whole time we walked. I was shell collecting, as usual, in the beautiful rock pools. The next day our taxi driver picked us up and took us back into town to get a bus south to Caldera. Caldera is a really historic town in Chile because it was the first port in the north. We visited the cemetery, which was very cool because there were graves of the first immigrants from Germany, England, Scotland, and even China there. We also visited a religious shrine for Padre Negro, a black priest who lived in the area 80 years earlier, and then we went to a beach town just south called Bahia Inglesa, because the English pirates and sailors used this bay to hole up while resting. It was really beautiful, although a bit windy. We are traveling a bit before the high season so there really aren't many tourists and the beaches and towns have all been pretty empty, which has been nice, but also annoying since transportation and tours haven't started yet.

After Caldera we went down to La Serena, which is the second oldest colonial town. And it looks really colonial. It's as close to Europe I've seen yet on this trip. I really loved it! There were tons of old stone churches. We went to the beach but it was a bit chilly and windy. We stayed with a couchsurfer, Cecelia, who had her own little townhouse up the hill from the center of town. She was really friendly and we had our own room. She was having a lunch for her brother's birthday on Saturday and invited us and we had a great time. No one spoke English though, so I had a hard time trying to follow the conversation! I tried more Spanish the more wine I drank! The next day we were getting ready to leave on the bus for Valley de Elqui, when Cecilia's brother, Jaime, told us he was cooking the wild rabbit he shot last night for us... so we stayed for that. It was pretty cool to be eating a wild rabbit he just shot, and it tasted good, but about twenty minutes after I ate it, it came back up... not sure what happened there! :)

We got on the bus to go to Pisco Elqui, which is deep in the valley, about an hour and a half. It's such a beautiful ride through the valley. The vineyards are so beautiful contrasted with the rocky hills and mountains. The Elqui valley is the center of pisco production in Chile. We camped there for 3 nights in a really cute campsite at the bottom of the valley. There were hot showers! And only a couple other people camping. We rented bikes in Pisco Elqui and rode 7km to an artisan town called Horcon. There were some serious hills and it took about 2 hours to get there! We stopped at a cute artisan pisco brewery called Los Nichos, where pisco is still distilled and bottled in the old ways. Then on to Horcon. I bought a necklace. The artisan booths weren't all open, there were only about 6 or 7 out or 20 open. But the stuff we did see was really really cool and I could have easily spend hundreds of dollars on gifts there! We had hoped to find a restaurant but everything was closed. We were told there was a shop to buy sandwiches deep in the valley, so we set off on our bikes and ran into a really great little hidden spot – it was actually someone's home cum restaurant and the girl made us some great chicken and rice and salad for $8. We were the only ones there and it was gorgeous and peaceful. Then it was the ride home, which went much faster since we were going down most of the hills. It was really fun. The next day I was so exhausted and we only took a 10 minute bus ride to the next town called Monte Grande, where the Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral was born. Her old school was turned into a museum and we visited it for about a dollar.

After Pisco Elqui we took a slightly terrifying bus ride along the valley hills to Vicuna, where we hoped to visit an observatory to see the amazing night skies. But it was too cloudy and we didn't go. But during the day we had visited an house-museum from the 19th century, which belonged to Basque immigrants who got rich exporting Chinchilla leather to France for clothing. It was a very cool house with beautiful furniture from all over Europe. Then we visited the Capel brewery, the most popular and distributed pisco in Chile. We took a tour. Some of the pisco is actually put into barrels make from North American oak. As we were walking back from the distillery we saw a massive spider walking along the side of the road. Massive, as in big, round, hairy body and legs. At least 40cm long and 12 tall. Which was really ironic, because Jesse had wanted to visit the local bug museum anyway! There are some serious bugs in South America that I hope not to encounter!

We wanted to go on a tour that night, of the observatory near town. Which is why we stopped in Vicuna. But there were so many clouds, that we knew the tour would be canceled. We were really bummed out. The stars are amazing, filling up the sky. I used to see them like that when I was a kid and we went camping near the California-Oregon border at Jedidiah Smith State Park. I think that was the first time I saw how many stars are in the sky. Before TV and radio and Iphones, I bet people spent every night watching the stars and planets.

So, we left Vicuna and took a 9 hour bus ride back to Santiago, stayed at Alex and Naoko's again, and then took our stuff to our friend Pamela and Pablo's apartment for them to store for us until July. On Sunday we of course watched the Packers game.

Then we took a 1am flight out of Santiago to Punta Arenas.