---

Chile

Puerto Natales and Torres Del Paine

We arrived in this small port town in Southern Chile which is the starting point for the Torres Del Paine trek. We would be trekking for 5 days in Torres Del Paine. The night before the trek began we had absolutely delicious fresh seafood. We entered the National Park and took a catamaran to the starting point. The first day was hard because we weren't used to the weight of our packs. We had five days of food, our tent, sleeping bags, clothes, and cooking supplies. The trek was a difficult trail constantly taking us up and down hills, and across streams, but our hard work was constantly rewarded with stunning scenery. We reached our first campsite which was right next to Glacier Grey. We were very lucky that we had beautiful weather for trekking and camping. On our fifth day we reached the huge granite towers which are what makes the park famous. The final climb to the tower viewpoint is extremely strenuous but the view was amazing once we reached the summit.

Puerto Varas and Pucon

We took a flight up to the lake district of Chile. We spent two days in Puerto Varas which is supposed to be a gorgeous town but after two days of rain and grey skies we decided to head north to Pucon. Pucon is a quaint town located at the base of an active volcano. The volcano is covered in snow and has a glacier on part of it and is the perfect backdrop for this town. It also has chair lifts for skiing and snowboarding. One day we did a hike to a secret waterfall guided by a treasure map. We tried a new sport called hidrospeeding. Basically it is boogie boarding down white water rapids. It was exhilerating and a truly fun time! If you want to see a video of us hidrospeeding, the link is...

Rachel is in the white helmet and Ian is in the orange helmet. Rachel decided to climb the volcano one of the days in Pucon. Despite the fact that we had just finished trekking in Torres Del Paine the trek was extremely difficult. She had to trek up the steep volcano through fresh snow. She had an ice pick because at certain times it was so steep that you had to stop yourself from sliding down the volcano. The views at the top were wonderful. She could see Pucon, part of Argentina, and other snow covered mountains and volcanos. She even saw the volcano spew lava twice. Then we changed into different clothes and began to descend the volcano in the most fun way ever....sledding!! She had a blast cruising down the mountain and she could control the speed by using the ice pick.

Santiago

In Santiago we went to the fish market and tried some fresh fish. We walked around the city and went on a tour to see the historical buildings. We went to a famous bar and tried their signature drink called a terremoto which is fermented sweet Chilean wine with pineapple ice cream in it. One was enough because it did not taste good but yet it was really strong too! The other interesting thing in Chile was called "Coffee with Legs." Coffee was never popular in Santiago so they opened a coffee shop where the girls wore really short skirts with stockings while they served coffee and suddenly coffee became very popular in Santiago.

---

Photos

Volcano safety light
We had a green light the whole time, no eruptions!!!