I hope everone had a great Thanksgiving! I´m finally down in Patagonia and having a blast. From Puerto Montt, I headed south to Hornopiren, intending to check out some thermal baths in tidal pools on an island just off shore then catch a ferry to Chaiten. But the ferry to the island was only running twice a week and once there you had to stay at the expensive hotel. Also, the ferry to Chaiten only runs in peak tourist season (Jan - Feb). The only good thing about the day was talking with Yohanna while I waited for the four hour [View Full Entry]

---

---

This week marks our class' trip to the south of Chile, where we toured Puerto Montt and San Rafael Lake. It was a heck of a time. This is our 2nd and final trip where all 20 of us will be together. Tue, Oct 27 2 more days until our trip to the south! In class we talked about our weekends, as well as what we should to to prepare for our upcoming trip. We were going to take a bus to Puerto Montt, stay there for a day, and then the next day get on our cruise. That made a [View Full Entry]

---

---

We took the overnight bus form Concepcion to Puerto Montt. We left Concepcion at 11pm. We were on the second level of a double decker bus. We were so excited so I didn´t go to sleep until about 1 or 2 a.m. Christina ended up getting sick on the way. I woke up to a beautiful sunrise. You could see Volcano Osorno. I went to the bathroom but I struggled to get the door open. It was really hard! Granted I wasn´t very awake but I got some weird looks. They served us coffee and cookies on the bus. I don´t [View Full Entry]

---

---

Trudging up the hill, the only thing that prevents us becoming airborne it seems is the suction of our boots to the slop. The poncho that envelops us isn’t helping much aerodynamically, but beneath its shelter, shackled to my back, Kiva somehow manages to sleep. "It’s possible to experience four seasons in a single day in Patagonia", I recall, as a hail seeded wintry-mix swirls up through the valley gusting every-which-way, the sun's rays somehow penetrating the squall from a crystal-clear blue sky above; leading me to believe in the possibility of experiencing them simultaneously. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Hey gang sorry its been so long we´ve just been incredibly busy in the last month and more. Firstly we got a boat from some random place in Uruguay down soem winding tributuries (thats my 5th attempt atspelling that word and i nkowits still along way of) witha few wooden shacks dotted around, then got near argentina and shacks were replaced by fishing lodges and rich kids on speed boats then we actually got into argentina to soem horrible resorty place but got a non underground tube to central Buenos Aires. Where we found a hostel which you walk into and [View Full Entry]

---

---

Z Chile Chico jsme vyrazili odpolednim autobusem, nebo spis malinkatym busikem, smer Puerto Guadal. Male mesto (nebo spis vesnice) u velkeho jezera (2. nejvetsi v Jizni Americe). U mesta jsou fosilie, vodopady a niklovy dul. Odbornici spatne spocitali kolik tam toho niklu je a tak to vypada jako by melo tohle male mestecko byt zanedlouho vetsi a vetsi. Bohuzel je dul zavreny a nove stavby zeji prazdnotou. Prochazka kolem pobrezi a pak do stareho dolu, konci pozde vecer. Spime v opusenem kempu na konci mesta. Dalsi den vyrazime do nedalekeho Tranquilo. Projeli jsme se lodkou po pobrezi a ... ( [View Full Entry]

---

---

Wednesday saw me and my Swiss-Israeli companions getting stuck in La Junta - no bus connections, of course -, a very sleepy town. We walked through the night in a slight drizzle, needing about an hour to find a hostel that had free rooms. Luckily, the lady of the house was more than friendly. I made an unimaginably great breakfast, which cheered me up to quite the extent. Scrambled eggs made love to avocado and a fine regional cheese, and all of this in tasty chilean bread. Nice. The 'bus' we took the next day most likely broke my arse and [View Full Entry]

---

---

The Carretera Austral links the previously inaccesible (well, only by boat) villages south of Puerto Montt in Chile. It's a pretty rough track, winding past fjords, lakes and rocky mountains. While travelling on it, one sees the vegetation change from south Patagonia's lenga and ñire woods to a lush temperate rainforest. Tall trees, damp moss, bamboo and a really sexy scent coming of the forest make for quite the new outdoor experience. If it weren't for the pretty damn low temperatures, this would feel very tropical. I started of in Coyhaique, a rather uninteresting town with the very nice c [View Full Entry]

---

---

It´s been a couple of weeks since the last update so we´re backtracking a bit here. Going back a couple of Thursdays: THE PLAN: Get this bus (Friday morning) a few hours south to Villa O Higgins and do a couple of days trek over the border into Argentina and the small town of El Chalten and do a few days trekking around there as it is supposed to be really nice. After that, we would go to El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno Glaciar and then back into Chile to visit Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine. These 3 places [View Full Entry]

---

---

After our amazing horse trek in the Andes we made our way to Puerto Montt, where we launched our 5 day Navimag cruise to the glacier at San Rafael. We checked our bags and strolled around the city for a few hours before disembarking. On board there were 130 passengers of which 110 were Chilean. The remaining 20 were English, Spanish, French, German, and Canadian. Rounding out the passengers were 40 crew so it was quite a full ship. The ship was originally a cargo vessel that has been partially transformed to transport passengers. It's [View Full Entry]

---

---