Patagonia
Hello again everybody. I have now returned to Santiago after 3 weeks in the southern part of Chile called Patagonia. This is the place for extreme sports, trekking volcanoes and glacier hiking. I arrived at Puerto Montt by airplane and quickly ensured that my ticket for the Navimag ferry to Puerto Nathales was confirmed.
Puerto Montt
Puerto Montt is not the most interesting of places as it is a transportation hub for people and cargo going to/from the most southern parts of Chile. The ferry would leave in four days so I decided to travel a little bit north of the city to a pueblo called Puerto Varas. A small and tranquil place which is one of the up-coming places for tourists that like to see volcanoes and do extreme sports.
Pictures: Puerto Montt
Puerto Varas
I lodged myself into a hostel owned by a French guy. He was cool and really made his guests feel at home. As I was alone it proved difficult to go on any of the excursions unless I was willing to pay like a million dollars for it. For half a day I was running around like a tourist in the zoo wearing a meat helmet and trying to get a peak at the lions. I was just about to give up when I found a tourist information where all the agencies running excursions were represented. As I was furiously going through their collection trying to understand how this worked someone tapped me on my shoulder asking me do you speak English. An American girl seemed to be in the same situation and we decided to book two excursions together; volcano hiking and canyoning. Her name was Lindsey and she is the definition of the classical California girl. Her catch phrase quickly became, “Hey dude, you want some pizza?” Lindsey is a postgraduate student, out of Austin, Texas University, doing one semester in Santiago. We found out we had the same deadline to be back in Santiago by, and we decided to do the rest of the trip for Torres del Paine together.
Pictures: Puerto Varas
That same day we did a quick trip a bit north to a small city called Frutillar. It was founded by a german missionaire and we visisted their house which is now a museum.
Pictures: Frutillar
The next day we found ourselves with huge hangovers doing a hike up the Volcano Osorno. I felt like I had swallowed a rat which is not the best of feelings when climbing to a 700 meters altitude. We could not get all the way up to the top as this required crampons and ice hatchets. At that time I was profoundly happy about that. After 2 hours the rat disappeared and the enjoyment started. The views were amazing. (Look at the pictures where further information is added).
Pitures: Hiking Volcano Osorno
The next day it was canyoning time. Canyoning is a sport for crazy people and since I now go under the name El Gringo Loco (The crazy gringo), it was right up my ally. In short you wear a wetsuit and helmet and jump off cliffs into fast running rivers and slide down minor waterfalls that only wants to split your huevos (egg) and throw you over the huge 40 meters high roaring waterfall at the end of the excursion. Anyways it was great fun! Ofcourse we didn’t slide down the final waterfall, instead we repelled down (using rope and harness). I got a bit of sunburn and now I’m El Gringo Rojo (The red gringo).
Pictures: Canyoning rivers and waterfalls
The Navimag (Puerto Montt – Puerto Nathales)
Monday morning the 18th of February we lifted anchor from Puerto Montt and could look forward to a four day trip down the fjords of southern Patagonia on MS Evangalista. I had expected to sleep among cattle and oil greased machine workers, but instead we found ourselves having a nice bunk bed in an open cabin with three others. We got three meals a day, they had a sun deck….. and a bar. We had stocked up on beers, rum and pisco (Chilean liquor) for the trip but it would only get us so far. We met a Dutch couple, Gabriel and Mirinda, who were travelling for one year round the world. Also we met a couple out of Guernsey (A small island just south-east of England), Luke and Jar, who had the not only the coolest accent but also stories from around the world that just cracked you up. A couple from Finland, Justin and Annika, had found a friend from Germany called olaf and they were the inventors of the term “woofers”. In short, all living things can be a woofer. You just add a describing word to it like “sauna woofer” (That’s Annika) or “jumping water woofers” (Dolphins). These guys also started timing a women that did her speedwalking exercise everyday on the deck. Her times were very stable! After some pisco sours we were five guys doing speedwalking contests. All together we had the best of times! In the evening of the second day we had a birthday for Lindsey. She didn’t know anything and we had arranged cake, music, dancing and a card with everybody names on it. Even though we brought the blood to her face she was happy and had a great time. So did we all as we didn’t go to bed until 4 am. The scenery on this trip was amazing. We saw dolphins, whales, seals, mountains and of course… a glacier. All the while we were navigating through everything from 7 meter high waves to straits no more than 80 meters wide.
Pictures: Day 1 on MS Evangalista
Pictures: Day 2 on MS Evangalista
Pictures: Day 3 on MS Evangalista
Pictures: Day 4 on MS Evangalista
Puerto Nathales and Torres del Paine
Puerto Nathales is a small city living of the tourists going to and from the most famous national park in Chile, Torres del Paine. Paine is an old Machu word for blue. The waters running down from the glaciers contain minerals that make the lakes blue in a way hard to imagine. My pictures don’t even do the color justice. Olaf, Lindsey and I set out from Puerto Nathales to do 5 days of trekking. I will not bore you with all the amazing things we saw (the pictures will do that for me) but I will say that Olaf is an amazing guy and that rum is good with coffee and for conversation. The towers (torres) is two gigantic granite rocks that have been turned vertical by continental pressure and shaped by wind, rain, snow and ice. We did app. 90 km in five days, sleeping in tents, eating from the portable gas stowe and drinking water from the small creeks running down from the glaciers above. This may sound as any “normal” camping trip but when you are trekking narrow goat trails with steep elevations of 45 degrees in everything from rocks to sand, climbing boulders and roots, crossing roaring rivers all the while the weather changes every 10 minutes from dumping rain on you to soaring sun and wind blows of up to 100km/hr…. well that may depict the circumstances. I will never forget it!
Pictures: Day 1 Trekking Torres del Paine
Pictures: Day 2 Trekking Torres del Paine
Pictures: Day 3 Trekking Torres del Paine
Pictures: Day 4 Trekking Torres del Paine
Pictures: Day 5 Trekking Torres del Paine
Punta Arenas
This average sized city is the last point of commercial entanglement you will meet before ending up in Tierra del Fuego (the land of fire, Ildlandet) which is the most southern point of South-America, and including Cape Horn and the Magellan Strait. Here ended my travels to the south, way beyond the end of the Andes Mountains. I spend two days in Punta Arenas watching penguins, learning some history and relaxing after Torres del Paine. In this city is the official middle point of Chile. You may ask yourself how this can be, but accumulating the Chilean part of Antarctica (longitude 20 – 50 degrees south) you have the answer. I returned to Santiago on the 2nd of March, just in time for my visa to be confirmed and the start of my studies.
Pictures: Punta Arenas
For those who are interested (nok mest til dig mor) I have made a picture album of the flora and Fauna of Chile. This will be updated regularly and a link can be found under pictures on the first page of “Chile 2008”, or here.
Pictures: Chile flora & fauna