Santiago De Chile

I had great plans to do lots of sightseeing in Santiago and have a day trip to Valparaiso but unfortunately my first meal in Santiago, eel and chips did not agree with me so my plans changed.

I managed to fit in two walking tours for tips with Where's Wally guides. They were very interesting but it was sad to learn of all the suffering that occurred during the Pinochet years. Santiago does have some beautiful buildings and it was good to learn more about them.



The main cemetery is very beautiful and treated like a park by the locals. The children's section is decorated for the holidays, though seeing all the deaths from 1972 is a stark reminder of Chile's history.







These door handles, symbolizing people power and recycled in the new arts centre are full of history. Created as part of a community building project for a UN meeting in 1971 they were turned upside down during the Pinochet years, when the building was the base from which many people disappeared.



Unfortunately I also managed to be on a subway train when someone jumped in front of it to commit suicide and experienced my first subway evacuation. But I also had some great times hanging out with the people from my Patagonia tour. And I spent an hour and a half just chatting with a friend of a friend outside a subway station. Interactions with locals, especially my friends, new and old has definitely been the best part of my travels this year.

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Lakes and Volcanoes, Bariloche and Pucon

Bariloche, Argentina is nestled amongst the mountains and lakes of northern Patagonia. It has a distinct Swiss feel to it, complete with whiskey barrel touting St Bernard dogs to have your photo taken with. I wasn't feeling great during our brief visit there but did have a lovely wander around the artisan markets and enjoyed sitting at the lake, despite the pebble beach.



We then journeyed from Argentina to Chile, our last border crossing, via what is considered one of the most beautiful roads in South America.





Luckily as we entered Chile we were able to see the volcanoes around Pucon because it poured with rain for our entire visit and the town was shrouded in mist. As we left on Monday morning the sky cleared and we finally saw the famous Villarica volcano again. It meant for a quiet but fun weekend, with a walking tour of the city, fancy thermal pool visit and a fun almost end of tour party.

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El Chalten to Bariloche, through the steppes of Patagonia

Two 12+ hours days of driving through the steppes of Argentina took us from El Chalten to Bariloche. Even seeing cattle or sheep was rare. Though we did see a few guanaco, an animal similar to an alpaca.



Day one had three highlights.

One we stopped to help a guy broken down on the side of the road and ended up towing him 60km to the nearest town. It must have been quite a sight as the big yellow Tucan truck drove through the town towing a local estancia owner in his dual cab ute. We got even more stares than normal.

Two, the enormous sandwiches served at our afternoon toilet stop. Each slice of bread was equal to at least four regular slices.



The third was when our driver and tour leader pulled over to help a guanaco who was stuck on a fence.

The rest of the day consisted of knitting and sleeping. I made some Christmas decorations for the truck. Which the driver, Ritchie has said he likes so much he will keep them for his next truck. An amazing compliment as he told me stories of tearing down Christmas decorations previous groups had made as soon as their tour finished.




Day two had three highlights, a hot lunch, every toilet stop being at a flushing toilet and having a little step ladder to get up into the truck (both due to a lady with some mobility issues joining the group on El Calafate, I miss ditch toilets).



We're now in the Lakes District of Patagonia, which is what I expected most of Patagonia to be like, very green.

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El Chalten, Argentina

On Sunday morning we drove four hours to El Chalten. It's a small town created in 1985 to stop Chilean border encroachment and as a haven for hikers and climbers in the summer. As we drove in we had beautiful views of its most famous peak, Fitz Roy.



However on Monday we finally experienced true Patagonian weather. Most of the 22km hike was in okay weather but on the steepest part (where we climbed 400m in 1km), up to the viewing spot we encountered sleet and strong winds. Hence our lunch time view was rather cloudy and lunch was eaten very quickly.



As we headed back into town the weather cleared and views became much clearer. I was lucky enough to have a large condor fly right in front of me at one point.

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Perito Moreno Glacier, El Calafate, Argentina

Yesterday we crossed back into Argentina and travelled to El Calafate. Where we gained four new people to join us in our journey north to Santiago. For dinner I had some beautiful roast lamb, almost as good as 'Homewood' lamb.

Today we did a day trip to Perito Moreno Glacier which was amazing. Photos don't show how large it is, 60m high and it goes back for thousands of kilometres. We were lucky to see lots of 'calfing', small icebergs falling off.







On the way back Mary, Larry and I stopped off at the Ice Bar. Twenty minutes of -9.4℃ and all you can drink. The temperature reminded me of doing yard duty in Colorado.

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Spectacular Torres Del Paine National Park

Words and photos simply do not do Torres Del Paine justice. We were blessed with three days of incredibly clear weather, the wind on the second and third was strong but I still mostly hiked in shorts and a t-shirt. Our hiking guide, Isabella from Poland led us on two long hikes and several short ones. Tuesday we had a very challenging hike, about 20km up and down steep tracks, with a final ascent of 300m over 1km to have lunch underneath the towers themselves. Wednesday we visited a waterfall, then the icebergs of Grey Lake and the Condor lookout and Thursday after taking the ferry across Pehoe Lake we hiked about 15km of the French Valley, which was only steep from th fee Italian Camp, where we watched avalanches as we lunched.

There were three things which surprised me at the park. I had no idea the park contained the third largest ice field in the world and hence I would be able to be a few metres from huge icebergs. This was a major highlight for me. The second was the dead forests as bushfires here mean the trees are dead and there are no new trees unless replanted by humans. Smoking is now much more strictly banned than it used to be because of a huge bushfire started by an Israeli hiker who burnt toilet paper in the middle of the forest. But that said the huge park only had 35 rangers this season. The sheer number of people in the park also amazed me, particularly doing the Towers walk we were constantly giving way to other hikers. When we got to the lake for lunch there were at least 100 people there and there were constantly people coming and going. Up to a 1000 people a day visit and there is talk of a permit system and increasing the park entrance fee (about A$35).

We camped inside the park in a privately run area complete with flushing toilets and hot showers. Kim and Ritchie,our Tucan tour leader and driver, cooked yummy food for us as we hang out around the campfire. We decided it was definitely "glamping".

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Punta Arenas, Chile

On Saturday, 14 hours of driving, including 100km that took about 4 hours as it was so rough took us from Ushuaia, Argentina across Tierra del Fuego to Punta Arenas, Chile. It was a pretty boring drive, luckily I had bought yarn before we left and was able to knit an entire baby's vest during the trip.

We had six stops for the day, a bakery while the truck was fuelled up, Argentinean immigration and then twenty minutes later Chilean immigration, a very quick stop for our tinned lunch to be prepared (we ate as the bus drove on), a toilet stop by a ditch and then to see a shipwreck when we were almost in Punta Arenas.



The highlight of the day was seeing baby Commerson's Dolphins during the twenty minute ferry crossing of the Magellan Strait.



We had two nights in Punta Arenas as we were meant to go penguin watching but the penguins haven't arrived for the breeding season yet. This is a concern as they should have arrived a month ago and started breeding immediately.

Punta Arenas is a pretty port city, it's Antarctic offices reminded me of Hobart.



Today was a five hour drive to Puerto Natales ready to head into Torres Del Paine National Park early tomorrow morning. We did have a forty minute detour tod, one of my fellow travellers left his jacket in the hotel and realised twenty minutes out of town as we were discussing my new jacket (purchased yesterday in the duty free mall).

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The End of the World

I've spent the last five days in Ushuaia, Argentina, the southern most town in the world. It's located on the island of Tierra del Fuego which is split between Chile and Argentina. Most people come here to start a cruise to Antarctica but instead I've came to begin a 21 day tour with Tucan Travel that will end in Santiago, Chile.

I came two days early because I could but shouldn't have. It turned out there wasn't a lot to do here and it's very expensive. But it is amazing to have snow capped mountains right by the ocean, for 350° around you.





I started with a beaver watching tour that ended up to be rather lacking in beavers but I had a lovely time anyway. Had a yummy meal, champagne and mulled wine and made friends with an Italian family who are coming to Australia next year.



The first day of the tour began with a Beagle River tour which was lovely to see the area from the water. It also provides another opportunity to get to know those I'll be travelling with. Six Aussies, an Irish Australian, a British, an Austrian and a Brazilian. Our guide is British and driver a Kiwi. Apparently four more people will join the group at a later point.





Over two afternoons I spent some time at the maritime and prison museum which was very interesting. It's all housed in the old prison.



Today was meant to be a hike in Tierra del Fuego National Park but it is blockaded by striking teachers for the second consecutive day. Instead with three others I walked to the Martial Glacier on the outskirts of the town. We've been promised much better glaciers and national parks as we head north, starting tomorrow.





Now it's time for a little gathering with some of the group to eat up the nuts we can't take into Chile tomorrow, and drink a little of the local wine. Who knew that a one litre A$1.30 cartoon of wine was drinkable?

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