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CHILE
TORRES DEL PAINE - PATAGONIA.
3 days trekking in this isolated area of the very south of Chile. It's a challenge and a survival experience!! South America... after 7 months on the road, we'd finally made it here!
Our South American journey began in Santiago, Anto's home city. The first couple of weeks were spent visiting the city and near by regions, and more importantly, preparing for Anto's sister's wedding. When the big day finally arrived, it went off with a bang. The ceremony was great, and the reception even better, until the Bride and Groom thought they'd be super heroes and try drancing on a table suspended in the air by Pisco-induced guests. Pisco being the locally made drink of choice here in Chile. Well, to say the least, both Bride and Groom ended up in hospital. no broken bones though, so all's good. It did bring the night to an abrupt end though.
After the festivities and recovering, we headed straight for the bottom of the earth... well kind of. Destination: Punta Arenas, where you can almost throw a stone and have it land on Antarctica. Reason for being down here? Torres del Paine. A spectacular national park full of glaciers and stunning peaks. Unfortunately for us, the weather wasn't so spectacular, so we only spent one night camping there instead
CHILE
VALPARAISO - This is a mystic port-city built up on a steep hill and it's the inspiration of most of the Chilean famous writers and poets.
of the planned 4 and headed back to the warmth of a hotel room in nearby Puerto Natales. Fortunately, the weather did get better atleast for one day when we went to Argentina's famous Parque Nacional Moreno to watch massive walls of ice carve off the amazing and continually advancing Moreno Glacier. An awesome sight.
Then it was back into Chile and head up north a bit to Chiloe', an island off the coast of Chile famed for it's houses which are practically built in the sea, standing only on skinny sticks that look like they would blow over if a decent gust of wind blew by. From here we went to Puelo where we stayed with one of Anto's friends. He took us out fishing for the day in an area famed for its Trout and Salmon. Chris finally managed to catch a fish after 4 months of trying and we all ate trout for lunch that day. Next was Puerto Varas, to Huevo's house, another of Anto's friends. He makes a good Pisco Sour which we all happily helped him drink. He also knows how to cook a good steak! He has a great family too.
CHILE
VALPARAISO - This is the view from the top of the hill.
On new year's eve this city has one of the world biggest fireworks show (80 tons) We then headed back into Agrentina, to the resort town of Bariloche, which lies at the base of the Andes mountain range. We did a bit of trekking and ate some good steaks while there.
Then it was back over the border to another of Chile's famous attractions... Pucon, home of the Volcan Villaricca. It's an active Volcano, and at night time, you can see it glowing red. Chris made the climb of 2800 metres with a few other people on a clear day, but with a head on wind blowing sulphur down into our faces. It wasn't too good for the lungs! On the top, we could see the lava spewing up from below. Quite an eerie sight. We didn't hang around long, and took the easy option of sliding down the volcano, thanks to a nice thick layer of snow covering the top half of it.
Back up to Santiago and Quillota to say 'Hi' to Anto's Family, then headed right to the top of Chile, to San Pedro de Atacama on the Altiplano, which is a large plain up at around 4000 metres. It{s the driest desert in the world, but the town is lucky
CHILE
VALPARAISO - there are several lifts in the city to take people up the hill to their homes. Some are more than 100 years old. Made of wood. enough to have underground springs, which supports the limited amount of life here. the surrounding areas are as unhospitipal as the come, with geyser fields, volcano's and salt lakes covering the area. the Llama's and Alpaca's don't seem to mind it though. The sky here is amazing at night, and we took advantage of it by taking an astronomy tour of the sky where we learnts a few things like which planets were what and galaxies and so forth. We even got to see Saturns rings!
That was it for Chile though. We booked a 3 day trip from San Perdo de Atacama through the salt lakes and geyser fields to Uyuni in Bolivia...
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