Chile

We are off on our second 3-month escape from Wisconsin winter. This time we're going to be traveling mostly along the west coast of South America, where the days will be the opposite of the North American mid-west – long and summery. Our first stop will be Santiago, the capital of Chile. We're also anticipating a jaunt east to Buenos Aires at some point in order to join Adam and his girlfriend Joana in the city. Must be a nice city – this will be Adam's second visit to Buenos Aires. Doug and I have been studying Spanish via Rosetta Stone, which we both like. It's coming a little easier for me due to my age-old Spanish classes at UW.

When we change flights at the Atlanta airport, we overhear a conversation at Starbucks. Two young men are chatting, and one of them says he's from Santiago. Cool luck. Turns out he is not only from Santiago, but even the same neighborhood where we will be staying, Providencia. Joaquan has spent the last 5 months as a Rotary International exchange student in a small town high school near Nashville, a very different environment from Santiago. (He declined learning how to chew tobacco.)  He's friendly and helpful, so I ask him to audit my list of things to do in Santiago, which he undertakes and then offers some tips on Chilean cuisine. 

Santiago
                                                                            

It is hot and sunny in Santiago, around 90 F. I start our visit with a bang – I've forgotten to list my leftover apple slices and craisins when filling out the customs declaration form at the airport. Not a good idea here in Chile – they're very serious about protecting their agricultural industry. After one customs screening, followed by a private interview in the office, and six pages of paperwork (each of them signed and stamped by Luis, a pleasant customs official, and counter-signed by me), we are free to go. This took about an hour, and there is a long line of travelers behind me waiting with their little bins of confiscated foods in order to go through the same process. I'm glad I was one of the first to be collared. The only upside is that Luis has done this often enough to know how to speak slowly and simply in basic Espanol and I feel I've actually communicated with him. I suspect he speaks more English than he lets on, but this good practice for my next infraction. He was pretty clear in communicating that next time it will be a significant fine. And I'm now in their database as an cranapple-criminal. I find out later that I've admitted to committing a misdemeanor.

Santiago and Smog

Claudia's Place

The airbnb website has come through for us with a great place to stay. Claudia's house cleaner is just finishing spiffing up her apartment for our 4-day stay, so Claudia walks us around on a brief tour of the restaurants and cafes and cajero automaticos (ATMs) that are all very near by. Her apartment is small, but has a great balcony and the building has a swimming pool. It seems that most people, including Claudia, leave their windows open, sans screens. There is a remarkable lack of insects. She warns us that we shouldn't drink the water if we're not used to it. But Doug has purchased a Steripen, which uses UV light to quickly sterilize water. Sure hope it works, I'm thirsty. Claudia lives here most of the time, but is off to the beach with her dog when she gets airbnb customers like us. After Doug uses the ATM, we're down for naps – the overnight flight did not leave us feeling well rested. Imagine that.

We didn't see too many classic old homes like this in Santiago, but this one was near Claudia's place.

91 degrees in Santiago, and not a cloud. It's warm, but not humid. After talking with Felipe at the oficina turisma about our future transportation needs, we take a long walk along the riverside (sort of a dirty canal, really, but not smelly). We stop for cokes – it's quite dry here, sort of a Mediterranean climate. A tiny old woman is holding a paper cup to collect coins from passerbys and brings us a menu from one of the other tables. I get out a few 100 peso (15 cent) coins to give her when we get up. A grungy but friendly guy spots them on our table and says he needs something to eat, so I give him some coins, including an American quarter. After 15 minutes he's back, showing me the quarter and saying something about it not being a Chilean coin. I should have figured – he didn't look like the type who uses banking services. When I give the other coins to the woman she is so friendly that I have trouble separating myself from whatever long story she's trying to tell me. There are not a lot of street people – fewer than I see in most American cities, these are just two that I happen to engage.

We approach the central market, but it's Saturday and things are real busy, so we opt instead for the art museum. We'll save the market for Monday. The art museum is nice, plenty of contemporary works and some old classics. In both the museum and in some of the street murals we've passed there is a focus on the thousands who were tortured and killed during the years of the Pinochet dictatorship, which began in 1973. President Allende was a socialist and most of the Chilean legislature was conservative, the economy went into a tailspin, and the Nixon administration, fearing the spread of socialism in South America, directed the CIA to back a coup. Pinochet, the head of the Chilean military, was happy to to get the backing. Is there anywhere in the world where America hasn't meddled? At the airport Joaquan had said his father had experienced the coup. Both Allende and Pinochet were on the radio rallying supporters to their side. Pinochet publicly said he'd order the bombing of the presidential palace if Allende did not surrender. Allende didn't and Pinochet did. People could hear guns and bombs during Allende's final address to the nation. Some Santiagans rushed to support Allende and others rushed away to avoid the bombs. Chilean socialism died with Allende's suicide, which he reportedly accomplished using a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro.

Political street art related to Pinochet dictatorship

Next day we climb up the big cerro (hill) in the center of Parque Metropolitano, topped by a big white statue of the Virgin Mary. It's going to be hot again, so we start out right after a light breakfast. Since it's Sunday, a few roads are closed to traffic for the sake of bicyclers, runners, and walkers like us. At the base of the hill we begin to realize just how popular the Sunday ascent of the hill is – the road is filled with everyone from athletes in spandex to parents dragging kids. We stop for a fruit drink. The fruit drink menu is out of date and the vendor doesn't speak English. We're struggling to understand her but a biker shouts out translations for us. We throw caution to the winds and drink local water that's mixed with the fruitilla (strawberries). At the top we meet the same couple from Minnesota who were fellow fruit villain detainees at the airport. On the way back we stop at the market right next to Claudia's place for empanadas and peaches. At Claudia's we both feel depleted, from heat, exercise, dehydration, lack of salt? Anyway, we take it easy the rest of the day and sleep well that night.

Next day we take another long walk and visit the Catedral San Francisco and see lots of paintings of a bloody Jesus. We have a late supper of pizza and vino, debate the pronunciation of vowels in Spanish, and finish the night with the evening light show at the fountain.

In the gardens of the Cathedral San Francisco, Santiago

Valpariso

Next day, with advice from Claudia, we navigate the Metro (subway) to one of the many bus stations, and manage to get on the right bus for Valpariso. The inter-city bus system here is very good. On the way we pass through the coastal range and some of Chile's many vineyards. It's quite hilly and dry; the vineyards and the few other crops are irrigated. The guidebook says Valpariso will be different from downtown Santiago. Santiago was clean, orderly, level, safe and sunny. Valpariso is gritty, steep, completely jumbled, and periocicaly engulfed in coastal mist. I love it. We take a taxi to find our next airbnb rental. Along the way the crumbling walls are covered with ad hoc murals. The houses are brightly painted, reds, yellows, greens, blues, oranges and more.

Valpariso, steeper than San Francisco

Valpariso, park with care

Valpariso, down by the docks

Our airbnb rental is in a new building HIGH on one of Valparaiso’s 42 hills. We're on the 18^th floor and the view from the balcony is awesome. We can see most of the city and harbor laid out in front of us; later as the lights come on it's like looking into a jewel box.

Valpariso from our balcony

I have a difficult but friendly chat in Spanglish with the doorman. I'm mystified by his Chilean accent. He's mystified by my desire to learn about the bus that passes the front door. He probably figures if we can afford to rent one of these condos we should be taking a taxi, but what fun is that? We finally resolve that they are not “autobuses” but are “minis”, they are very inexpensive, and they run all night. I'm glad to hear it because climbing back up this hill every time we go out seems daunting. We pay our 350 pesos (55 cents) and hop on the mini, which is filled with happy youngsters singing away. They seem to be on their way to a sporting event because they all get off at the same stop. This is the first bus ride I've ever taken where I need to hold on almost the entire time as the driver goes careening up and down and around the long and winding roads.

We've paid our bus fare to go to “El Plan”, the old, flat part of town near the waterfront. We want to get ourselves oriented to the city. We think we're approaching El Plan as Doug makes out a landmark. But soon we're picking up speed as the road straightens out along the coast, and we see signs for “Vina”. Vina del Mar is the adjoining beach side town that we'd planned to visit later. But we've just arrived in Vina for only 55 cents per person. The last passengers get off and the driver turns the bus around, pulls over, and indicates that it's the end of the line and he's taking a break. We sort of explain that we're lost, but willing to pay whatever it takes for the return trip to Valpariso. After a short break we're on our way again and after almost two hours he grins and indicates the market in the center of El Plan and we finally get off.

One of Valpariso's many"ascensors", funiculars built at the turn of the century

But now it's getting late and despite that fact that we're hungry and in the right place for good cheap seafood, it's not the part of town where we should be getting lost our first night, so we decide to walk on to a more upscale area. This turns out to be a pretty long but interesting walk. We pass through Victoria Square, where much of the city hangs out a night strolling and shopping from the street vendors. We start heading up the hills where we can find restaurants, and the hills rise quicker than we expect and we find ourselves climbing. Doug checks the map and we decide we're getting close enough to our apartment that we can get there on foot, but where will we eat? Doug spots one restaurant on the map near the apartment and we hope and pray it will be open. The road we're walking along gets narrower and steeper, but we're going in the right direction. Eventually the “road” becomes a dirt track and the houses around us looks like shacks. It's starting to get dark. But as we huff up the track it eventually becomes paved again and we find the restaurant on top of the hill. It's lovely and I have a big chunk of Chilean farmed salmon with capers and avocado. Yum. We should be drinking Chilean wine but it's been a long hike so we opt for Chilean beer. 

After we get “home” I climb into bed and listen to the symphony of neighborhood dogs. I can count up to six seconds without hearing a dog bark, but most of the time they're much prompter in filling the gaps. There are tons of stray dogs in the city, but they don't look mangy. You just have to avoid stepping in their doo-doo (in a Mediterranean climate at least it dries out fast.) You'd think you wouldn’t hear much on the 18^th floor, but Valpariso (Valpo to the locals) is so steep we're actually pretty close to the homes on the hillside behind us. But the canine symphony is muffled and we've never been light sleepers, so it's time for a good night's rest.

The German Pirate

At the Santiago Turismo office we had asked about Spanish language tutors in Valpariso, and were connected with Michael Arnold. He's German by birth and married to a Chilean wife. On his web site he identifies himself as the “German Pirate”, a la Francis Drake and other international buccaneers who've sacked Valpariso. He offers general tourist services for this area. He arrives at our apartment as scheduled on Wednesday morning and we discuss Valpariso. Michael the pirate tells us that due to the Humboldt current, Valpariso is often foggy in the morning. Depending on the winds, it clears in the afternoon. When we ask if it might rain, he assures us that it never rains in summer, a hard concept for me to get used to. We agree to join him and a few other tourists tomorrow for a visit to his friend who lives in the coastal village of Quintay, and then to see the vineyards in the Casablanca valley.

Doug and the German Pirate

After Michael leaves, we go out for a late breakfast and wander the twisty streets of Cerro (hill) Concepcion. This and neighboring Cerro Alegre are the artsy parts of town where most of the tourists shop and eat. We thoroughly enjoy wandering around, getting lost, and looking in the galleries. We know if we keep heading downhill we'll be moving toward our destination, the Supermercado. But before we buy food we need to know how we're going to return to our rental. We stand on several different corners watching minibuses and looking for the 612, the only one that goes up our hill. No luck, so I use my halting Spanish to ask several people where to catch the 612. They are all very interested in helping us, but keep assuming that we want to see the sights, when all we want to do is get back “home.” One fellow goes on forever in Spanish rapido warning us that the city can be dangerous at night. We get it – we just don't get how to find the 612. One young man does his best to help us, but doesn't know where the 612 runs. After we've talked to several other people, he reappears and carefully shows us on the map where to catch the 612. Obviously he has gone off to find the info we need and returned to tell us. We are grateful. We acquire our groceries, buy peaches and cherries at a tiny store, and actually get on the bus. Yeah!, mission accomplished.

Next day Michael comes back to pick us up for the tour. We are joining three others. Joe is an 88 year old retired architect from Houston who visits Chile often in the winter. His friend Dago is from Santiago, but now lives in Houston next door to Joe. Cesar is from Valpariso, and we never really figure out how he came to know the others. Michael has instructed Dago and Cesar to speak to us in Spanish so we can learn. Cesar, however, has good but limited English which he is intent on practicing on us. So Michael is trying to tell us about the sights from the front seat, Cesar is chattering to us in English, and Doug and I are trying to reply to Cesar in Spanish. It's fun. We learn that as an 11-year old, Cesar was bound and blindfolded when arrested during a protest against the Pinochet government. Michael was jailed for eight months as a young man for trying to escape from East Germany. Joe was an architect who somehow ended up becoming a liberal in Houston. Michael repeats the warnings about being careful where you go in Valpariso. He said he once stopped in a poor neighborhood on top of a hill to take a picture, and had to use pepper spray against two men with knives. His wife had to negotiate with a neighbor to return stolen goods to one of her visitors. She was only partially successful – the neighbor told her next time to tell him in advance if she didn't want certain people to be robbed. We need to remain vigilant in this city. It's economy has been through multiple booms and busts, there are some very poor neighborhoods, and there are those who prey on travelers. 

Early grapes, harvest will be in a month 

The vineyards of the Casablanca Valley, between Santiago and Valpariso

With Dago, Joe & Cesar at the vineyard

Michael drives to the coastal village of Quitay, south of Valpariso. It's small, isolated and beautiful, but is being discovered by the rich. Michael's friend here is an 88 year old retired tax agent. He is also a Renaissance man. He built his entire house, perched on the rocks over the coast, by hand. He bought a 100-year old telescope, restored it, and added an observatory to the house. He collected artifacts, fossils and what-not from all over Chile, so he also ended up building himself a museum. It includes his large scale model ships of the Chilean Navy with working engines. He's also got the remnants, mostly clothing, of a dead Chilean soldier dating from the war with Peru and Bolivia (including the bullet that killed him) that he found in the desert, and a mummified Indian baby, age unknown, that he belives was left in the desert due to birth defects.

On the coast near the village of Quintay

After empanadas, we head to the Chilean vineyards. They are large and impressive. Michael tells us that since they must be irrigated, they are putting a strain on the aquifer. This is also a problem in the northern deserts, where the poor have been convinced to sell their water rights to the mines, and some villages now have no wells that reach the water table. We taste some wines and buy a bottle of a red from a vine that only grows in Chile (Carmenere). Dago wants to tell us how to get it home, but we tell him not to worry, this wine won't live that long.

This video shows the loco mountain bikers who zoom down the steep and colorful hills of Valpariso.
http://www.bikemag.com/videos/video-combing-valparaisos-hills/

Next day we return to the Desayunador (“The Breakfaster”) in Valpariso for another of their wholesome and tasty breakfasts, then make our way to the inter-city bus station. We've decided that our next stop will be the Chilean Lake District, which doesn't look so far away on the map, but will be 11½ hours on the night bus. I've been looking at the bus schedule on-line, so it's somewhat familiar, but I'm still proud to be able to make the seat selections and the purchase in Espanol. We opt for the fully reclining seats.Then we get back on the local 612 bus for another trip to Vina del Mar, this time on purpose. Michael has invited us to his apartment to meet his Chilean wife Carolina and practice some Spanish. We arrive early enough to stop at the botanic park first, which surrounds an old mansion from 1910 that is now closed due to earthquake damage. 

Carolina is lovely. She and Michael have only been married four months, and he has been continually correcting himself after he calls her his “girlfriend”. Michael shows us his method of learning Spanish. He's created his own computer program with audio, and also created a card file of sentences in Spanish. He tells us to learn the verbs and to copy sentences from writings or conversations and file them alphabetically by the verb. I've already determined that focusing on the verbs seems to be a good way to approach the language. We expected to be conversing mostly in Spanish, but are amused by the ongoing debate in English between Michael and Carolina about language learning. She's fluent in English and Spanish and is learning German from Michael. She says he's too German and tries to get each word just right. He says she's too Latin American and makes too many mistakes. They confirm that Chile is a difficult place to learn Spanish, and that the accents and word variations in Valpariso are about the worst of all. 

After two hours we go look at Vina's famous big clock made out of flowers, then get on the 612 back to Valpo. Vina is definitely more upscale than Valpo, with many tree-lined boulevards and nice shops. It's getting a little late, but we head for the gritty area around the docks in Valpo because Michael says we should be able to find good cheap seafood there. The days are long and there are still plenty of families on the streets, so we feel safe. We stop at the first restaurant that clearly features seafood. Surprisingly, this little place has a waiter who speaks English and we order his recommendation, fish covered with oysters, shrimp and clams in a creamy white wine sauce. Muy rica! 

Dinner in Valpariso at one of the nicer restaurants

We get back on the good old 612 bus to climb back up the hills to our apartment. We thought we were getting on at the end of the line and heading directly uphill, but somehow this bus speeds on past the docks and we are again getting a free ride to God-Knows-Where in a part of town that's not even on the tourist map. Oops. When we finally reach the end of the line the driver turns to look at us questioningly, and we point on the map to our destination. He says “sit, don't worry” in Espanol, heads back on his return route, let's us off in totally unfamiliar territory and points down the hill. Doug feels a little oriented, so we get off and start hiking down a steep hill (actually, they're all steep hills). We pass the Naval Museum, wonder why it's way up here on the hill, find the funicular that takes us back down to the waterfront, eventually find the 612 route again, and return to the apartment. We finish the wine and watch TV in Espanol again. I believe I'm starting to understand it just a little bit more, maybe it's the wine. Another great day in the Valpariso area.

Seafood "for two guys"

We (I) take it easy the next morning while Doug spends another 2 hours trying to communicate via instant messaging with AT&T to figure out why our international phone service is not working. This is in addition to his previous hours at home setting it up. His conclusion – if we need to make a call we'll use Skype. We walk over to Pablo Neruda's home. He was Chile's most famous poet. It's Saturday and the tour buses and crowds are there. We enjoy the garden but decide to skip the busy home. Doug says “Well, he was a poet, not a painter, and he wrote in Spanish, so what are we missing?” We walk on past murals by college students, which turn out to be less interesting than the hundreds of ad hoc murals all over town. We spend a little time at the natural history museum, the waterfront, and head to a bar/restaurant frequented by sailors and dockworkers and Anthony Bourdain – it's old and funky. We're now in the seedy area where we've already had great seafood, so we look for some more. We order seafood for “two guys” off the English menu, and are delivered a pile that could feed four. Oysters must be in season, they are plentiful. And we get directly home on the right bus!

Anthony Bourdain ate here (a photo of the restaurant's photo)

Our last day in Valpariso, and we haven't been robbed. We've heard more stories about robberies in broad daylight, some involving guns. Good thing we are not out looking for nightlife. It's summer and the days are very long, so we go back down to gritty Serrano and Colchrane Streets for seafood. But Sarita, our favorite so far, is closed tonight. We ask around and find Restaurante Marisqueria. Seems Anthony Bourdain actually ate at this one, and only had drinks over at La Playa Bar & Restaurant. We order the “Garden of Seafood” for two. When it's delivered, we realize that the crab, shrimp and oysters are cooked, but the rest is not. It seems to be clams, mussels and something else we're not at all sure of (the waitress does not speak English). We ask ourselves if it's a good idea to eat this just before getting on the overnight bus, but wisdom does not prevail and we dig in. Good luck or our iron stomachs prevail, and we are fine on the bus, though Doug is a bit too long for the reclining seat and is not as comfortable as I am. The deluxe reclining seats we've booked come with pillows, blankets, eyeshades, headphones, socks, snacks and water.

Some of the plentiful street art in Valpariso

Villarica

We arrive in Villarica at 7:30 am. We're staying at Hosteria de la Colina (on the hill).  It's lovely and we can check in early and have breakfast. I've reserved a room and as Chantel shows us around we select a large room in the main building with a great view and a door onto the terrace. They've cleverly installed one-way glass so we can see out, but others on the terrace can not see in unless we have the room well lit. This proves to be unimportant as we are almost the only guests during the week. Chantel says it will fill up for the weekend, but the main vacation month in Chile is February, so out timing is good. We love having the place to ourselves. From our room and the terrace we can see some of the town, and beyond it big, blue Lake Villarica, and beyond that volcanoes in the Andes. The weather is perfect as we relax on the balcony. We walk into town to look around, and order shrimp and salmon ceviche (more raw fish!) for a snack, but we receive such a mound of it we need to keep walking to work up an appetite for dinner. We walk along the waterfront, where families are swimming and relaxing, look at some of the nice woodwork done by the Mapuche people, have a light supper, find a chocolate shop, and call it a day.

The terrace and gardens at Hosteria de la Colina at sunset. The Andes are in the background.

Doug finds the volcano. It's smoking at the top.

..

The beach at Lake Villarica

Next day we have another great breakfast (included) at Hosteria de la Colina and just relax on the terrace. We talk to Caroline, the owner, about options to see the waterfalls and to drift down the river and fish for trout. Then we go into town again and buy bus tickets for Puerto Montt, which is close to Chiloe Island. We are assured that we can easily take another bus across the ferry to the island. Now we just have to figure out where we'll stay when we get there. We walk along the lake again and I try a “mote de huisilla”, which everyone here seems to be enjoying. I looked it up last night and it said it was a corn and peach drink. What?!, that's just crazy enough that I have to try one. It's actually 2/3 of a cup of cooked trigo (wheat) topped with an apricot in a very sweet juice. Unique, Doug says he only needs one sip. We finish our day with cocktails (pisco sours) and salmon for dinner, finished off with raspberry pie and home-made ice cream.

Trout fishing in America del Sur

Trout fishing from rowboats

The next morning we go fishing for trout in the Rio Tolten, which is the outlet for Lake Villarica. The volcano towers over everything here, including the river. The river is cold and clear and includes class two rapids, just enough to make it interesting but not unnerving in our little rowboat. Our guide is Antonio, who speaks a little English, primarily “Okay mister”, “reel in”, and “bye-bye fish”. He earns his fee, simultaneously rowing away from the banks, through the rapids, bailing, baiting, and diligently watching the tips of our poles for bites. We each catch one baby and one keeper. At the end of the trip he whips out what must be an extremely sharp knife and has our two keepers scaled and fileted in the blink of an eye. We spend most of the afternoon planning our next stops on our trip, reading, playing games and relaxing on the terrace. For dinner the Hosteria cooks up our trout.

Fresh trout

Best way to fish - we catch & eat, someone else cleaned and cooked.

Next day our host at the Hosteria, Caroline, has set us up with a husband & wife team of guides who will drive us around to see more of the area. Anita and Rodrigo have been guides for just 7 months, but we enjoy their company, laughing over our Spanglish (or as Rodrigo says, “Espanglish”). He asks us to speak slowly in English so he can understand us, though his English seems pretty darn good. Anita holds their guide license, but speaks less English, so they make a good team. We see several waterfalls, walking through lovely forest preservation areas. Timber is a big industry here in the foothills of the Andes, but it is carefully managed. Rodrigo says copper (cubre) mining is Chile's biggest industry, but tourism is growing.

Our guides, Anita & Rodrigo

At the waterfall

At the river

Vulcan Villarica

We drive through Pucon, 27 kilometers from Villarica. Pucon is the tourism hotspot around here, heavy with buses and shopping. We're glad we stayed in Villarica. We see more mountain lakes and the ojos (eyes), where clear, cold mountain water cascades into ponds and has a very blue appearance. Our last stop is at one of this area's many “termas” (hot springs). This one has six pools of varying temperatures alongside the river. It's very nice, but it's a warm sunny afternoon and we left our hats in the car. We find just a little shade and decide we'd better get out earlier than our alloted two hours. Just as we finish dressing Anita comes to find us and we're surprised that it has been two hours after all.

Anita and Rodrigo kindly drop us off at another great seafood restaurant. One good thing about the shape of Chile is that you're never far from the coast. Our guides adamantly refuse any tip and it's impossible to convince them otherwise. We haven't got this tipping thing figured out yet. Usually 10% will be added to a restaurant bill. But at this restaurant it is not. Our waiter Javier seems pleased that we've added it. He's been busy on his smartphone looking up translations for the ingredients of our seafood stew. There is a big barnacle in each of our bowls. We're surprised by it's delicate flesh; it reminds us of lobster. And for our pre dinner hourderves, I had to try another local delicacy – sea urchin, raw. I've read that it's flavor is sought after, but we both find it rather bland, even with lemon and cilantro.

A Three Bus Day to Chiloe Island

Next morning we use our pre-purchased bus tickets to take us south to Puerto Montt, a salmon farming and port town on the coast. This ride takes 5 hours. We have 30 minutes at the Puerto Montt bus station to buy our onward tickets, find a snack and use the banos before our next bus leaves. The next bus is less comfortable and takes 4 hours to reach Castro, the capital of Chiloe Island. This ride includes about a half hour on the ferry to the island. Once we finally reach Castro, we hit the ticket counter again and buy our final leg of the trip, about 40 minutes to Chonci. This is the smallest and least comfortable bus, but at least a short trip. We are already reconsidering our intent to bus north toward Buenos Aires after we visit the Tierra del Fuego area. That would be a very, very long bus trip.

The harbor of Chonchi, our village on Chiloe Island

On the balcony of our cabana in Chonchi

Chonchi is a small town on the east coast of the island. I had stressed over finding a place to stay on the island – it's popular with Chileans this time of year, and this seemed to be the last reasonable housing option. But Chonchi is a small quiet town, and the Cabanas Treng Treng turn out to be delightful cabanas overlooking the coast and the town. Out in the bay they are farming salmon and shellfish. It's scenic and quiet – only a few barking dogs in town and one squawking seabird whose two fledglings live under a berry bush next to our balcony. The weather is cooler here, but quite pleasant. Our host advises that tomorrow is Sunday and the supermarket and most restaurants will be closed, so we rush to get groceries before the market closes in 30 minutes. Success – we have enough staples for breakfast and fried egg and avocado sandwiches for dinner. And Magnum bars for the hike back up the hill to our cabana. Doug remembers these ice cream bars from our Peace Corps stint in Malaysia many moons ago. They seem to be available world wide, even in Wisconsin Rapids.

The next day we enjoy our view over the bay and our cabana, venturing out only for a walk through town and onto the fishing dock. We're feeling lazy, and that's okay. It's time to relax. And the next day turns out to be rather the same. Our home in Wisconsin is quiet and looks over the water, and this place has similarities. We do a bit of “research” and book airplane tickets to the south, then use airbnb to book 5 days in Punta Arenas, pretty darn far south. We may need to buy some warmer clothes there if our layering plans fall short. And we've got to decide where to see penguins – we could take a trip to the west side of Chiloe Island, wait until Punta Arenas, or look for them later on the east coast of southern Argentina. Can't miss the penguins! 

I was proud to book our air tickets in Espanol (my only option for this Chilean airline), but in the afternoon we receive a mysterious email in Spanish about our tickets. I'm trying to translate it on-line, and Doug is reading it into his smartphone app and getting garbled responses. We're getting nervous, so I go to the office and ask our host to please interpret. She speaks English pretty well. She reads the email several times and says our tickets seem okay, but the airline needs an additional fee before we can fly. She calls the airline and after a long conversation she tells me we owe about $30 more, that we can't pay it without a Chilean account, and that she will pay it and put it on our tab. What great hospitality! We walk down into town for, what else, seafood and Chilean vino.

Boardwalk through the virgin forest in Parque Nacional Chiloe

Trees in the forest of Parque Nacional Chiloe

Next day we cross the island on the local bus to visit Parque Nacional Chiloe. The bus is crowdedL and apparently I qualify for old lady status, because a pleasant young man offers me his seat. Doug, unfortunately, has to stand for the entire ride. The park is on the west coast, facing the open Pacific. We walk among the trees of the virgin forest, but they are not what I expected. The tallest of them are only about 25 feet tall, twisted and gnarled and covered with moss and ferns. I understand better why warlocks, forest hags, gnomes, sorceresses, and witches are part of the lore of this island. The signboard says the boardwalk we're walking on does not rest on the soil, which may be several meters below us. Instead, we are on top of piles of fallen trees and vegetation. We climb up to see the overlook to the Pacific coast, and finally see the clouds and mists of the island. We've got our ponchos and are prepared for the typical rain, but the sunny sky returns as we get on the bus for the return trip to our cabana in Chonchi. Then it's out to dinner – seafood of course. For a change of pace we order German-style beer instead of wine. There is a strong German heritage in much of Chile, dating back hundreds of years. In addition to the beer, we've seen kuchen on many menus.

Flowers in the parque

We leave Chiloe Island via reverse bus ride back to Puerto Montt. We need to go back north in order to fly south to Patagonia. As the bus crosses the ferry we see seals hauled out and resting on the buoys. We spend one night in Puerto Montt, a port city. We walk up the hill for an overlook of the shore, then end up walking all the way up to Anglemo, the older fishing docks. It's a lovely afternoon and Chilean families are enjoying the waterfront. By the time we reach Anglemo we're tired and thirsty and the first restaurant that looks promising. It's tiny, only 4 tables, and the kitchen appears to be the size of a large phone booth, but it's upstairs and has a nice view. The staff are carrying mysterious looking bags of raw flesh to and from the cooler on the balcony. Doug orders salmon and I order curanto, a local traditon going back hundreds of years. It used to be cooked in pits on hot rocks. It's a high protein mound on a platter – two types of clams, a chicken thigh, a chunk of pork rib, and a sausage. There's also a baked potato and two types of dense, bland pancake-like starches that I can't identify by looks or taste. I enjoy as much of it as I can handle.

Puerto Montt waterfront

My pile of curanto in Puerto Montt

Next morning we fly south all the way to Punta Arenas. The flight takes us right over the Andes and we have a clear sunny day to see snow-capped mountains, glaciers, glacial lakes and icebergs. 

A glacier in the Andes

Mount Fitzroy, in the Andes

Glacial lakes in the Andes

We're pretty close to Antartica when we arrive, but they are having a warm spell and it's shirt-sleeve weather. Our taxi driver complains about the heat wave. I've reserved what should have been a small apartment for 5 days, via airbnb. This is where our luck in lodging finally fails. It's high season and options we're limited. I booked a place that was a newer listing and had no reviews yet, always a chancy prospect. It turns out to be a hostal – we have a tiny bedroom with a bathroom. The photos of the living room, dining room and kitchen that I saw on the web are all shared spaces. I point out (in Spanish) that this is not how it appeared on the web, but the young woman at the “desk” is confused. She opens the web site photos and says sure, it looks just like this. I think they don't realize that when you book an “entire place” on air bnb it's supposed to be an entire private place. We decide we'll spend the night, taking turns passing between the cabinet and the bed, and getting into bed one at a time because the bed is in the corner pushed up against two walls. We laugh and despair at the same time, and decide to book an immediate boat trip to see the Magellanic Penguins. The boat leaves at 5:00 pm and returns at 10:00, so we'll have a minimum amount of time in this cruddy little room. I tell Doug at least we should get a nice home-cooked breakfast in the morning, but I'm wrong again. In the morning the place is dead silent, we see no one from “management” anywhere. The dining room table is set for 10, and there is hot water in a thermos, instant coffee, a basket of rolls, jam, a small plate of some type of lunch meat, and a bowl of very-over-the-hill fruit. We eat a little, go up to our room and cancel via airbnb's web site, and head to the bus station. We've decided to move on to Puerto Natales, 3 hours north, in order to be near the famous Torres del Paine Parque Nacional. Post-note: Airbnb handles this very well, with a good refund. I check the web listing a day or two later and see that it is now shown as a “room”.

View from our room Thursday night

View from our room Friday night.  This one cost a bit more.

Penguins!

Our boat to see the penguins turns out to be a creaky old ferry, though it's not carrying vehicles. These southern waters can be very rough and the ferry is a stable ship. It's not very comfortable inside. We're bundled up because we won't get back until late. It's incredibly hot, stuffy and crowded inside and it takes two hours to get to the island, so we're wondering if this is going to to be another bad choice. We have to go outside to cool off – warm weather is so unusual the only way to cool the ferry is to open the doors and they don't have many doors. We're finally getting close and begin to see a few penguins swimming in the sea. Finally we reach the island. It's a wildlife sanctuary and there's no dock, the ferry beaches and drops the vehicle ramp and we all climb off.

It's simply amazing – there are penguins everywhere. They're swimming along shore, jumping out onto the rocks, waddling to and fro, standing around calling to each other, and huddling in their shallow burrows. We see thousands. It's late in the breeding season and the young are almost full size and beginning to moult their baby fuzz into the black and white suits of their parents. There's a constant low hum of their calls, Doug describes it as something between a purr and a cough. They are quite accustomed to the tourists and some of them waddle right up to us on the path. The naturalists occaisionally stop us as so that penguins can waddle across the path. We, along with everyone else from the boat, go totally shutter crazy. This was completely worth the ferry ride. After an hour we waddle back onto the boat for the return to Punta Arenas. We glimpse austral dolphins (black and white) in the ferry's wake. It's 10:30 pm when we dock, and still late twilight here at the southern tip of Chile.

Magellenic Penguins at Isla Magdelena

Young penguins begging their parents to feed them

The penguin rookery, Isla Magdalena

Next morning we take a 3 hour bus ride north to Puerto Natales. The part of Patagonia we see out the window is a vast flat plain. As we approach Puerto Natales we start to see trees and mountains. We've booked ourselves into a very nice hotel overlooking the Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope) Sound. The sound was named by Magellan, under contract with the Spanish authorities in Lima to find a sea route to the Atlantic from the Pacific. They were getting tired of hauling everything across the continent and building new ships on the Pacific coast. We stop at the hotel's tour desk and decide that since we don't expect to visit Patagonia again, we'll book a private tour of Torres del Paine Park. We end up booking two full day private tours and a half day horse ride. Then we go out for a long walk, buy our bus tickets for Rio Gallegos Argentina 5 days hence, and seafood dinner. We go to bed late, but can't seem to sleep. The long days have gotten our sleep cycles out of whack.

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

Condors! Puma! Guanacos! Rheas! Flamingos! Waterfalls! Avalanche! This park and our wonderful guides bring us a fantastic day, and this is only the first half of the park. The name “Torres del Paine” means towers of blue. The towers are granitic pillars that pushed through the sedimentary rock, “blue” refers to the color of the glaciers around the towers. Our primary guide is Lynn, a young Chilean woman who can tell us about wildlife, botany, geology, colonial history, archeology, Chilean politics, the economy and everything else we can think of asking. We are accompanied by Tomas, her University intern, and Sergio, our driver. Pretty good ratio – three staff for the two of us. We are blessed with more good weather, though in the late afternoon we get a taste of more typical Patagonian weather as the clouds move in the a cold wind picks up. Lynn calls it a breeze. She's concerned about other tourists getting too close to the waterfalls, saying a gust could push them right in.

The "horns" at Torres del Paine Parque Nacional

The Torres, granitic pillars that pushed through the sedimentary bedrock.  We were lucky that the clouds cleared.

We start with a one-hour hike, but we have so many questions for Lynn, and her answers are so good that it takes us 2 ½ hours and she has to modify our afternoon plans. We see guanacos. They are a threatened species that are the parent species of llamas, but they have never been domesticated. Lynn says in most places their guard animals (they stand on the ridgetops) will see you a mile away and the herd will move on. Here in the park, however, they've learned that they are safe from people and you can approach within 30 feet before they move. We see hundreds of them, including the young. Due to the altitudes they inhabit, they have four times the red blood cells that humans have. They can run up to 35 mph over rough terrain. We see males chasing other males away from their females, and Lynn asks us to guess how the males fight for dominance, since they have no fighting tools other than speed. Lynn says that the males carry their testicles high under their tales, and the dominant males chase other males and bite off their testicles. A pretty effective method of achieving genetic dominance!

A condor flying above the Andes in Torres del Paine Parque Nacional.

A guanaco posing for us in the park. 

A bird of prey in the park

We complete our day with a thoroughly confusing dinner at the hotel. The beer that's been recommended is not good, so we may have ordered it wrong. I order a pizza with smoked salmon and “pomodoro”, which I expect to be a nice tomato sauce like it is in most of the rest of the world, but here in Chile it's goat cheese. I like goat cheese, but my digestion doesn't like so much of it. We figure the tip they've added onto the bill is adequate, but as we're returning to the room Doug realizes he may have made a mistake filling out the credit printout and tipped the waitress as much as the entire cost of the bill. He returns to straighten it out and the bartender takes him to the front desk for translation. We find out we haven't actually tipped anybody anything, so now we need to tip the wait staff, the bartender and the pleasant young man at the front desk who explained it all.

Tomas and Lynn, our wonderful guides

Americans in dorky hats

A gaucho and his sheepdogs along the highway,
 he  probably just moved sheep to a summer pasture

The next day Lynn is unable to join us, but Tomas and Sergio are still with us. Cristobel (Chris) is our new main guide. His English is a bit limited, and may be why he has less to say, but Tomas steps in and talks things up. Today we're visiting the west side of the park. It's much greener, but as a result of the trees we won't see much wildlife. Tomas makes sure we eat some calafate berries – Chileanos say that this ensures that you will return to Chile. We take a walk along a river full of glacial meltwater, it's very grey due to the sediment it's carrying. Then we turn up a clear stream of snowmelt, stop by a beautiful little waterfall and have a snack. Tomas assures us that the water is good to drink, so we do. It's been 40 years since I drank clean surface water (in the Boundary Waters, where you're not supposed to do that any more).

A Rhea

The beautiful glen where we drank clear snowmelt

The Grey Glacier, part of the world's third largest icefield

An iceberg from the Grey Glacier floating in Grey Lake

Our second hike today is toward the Grey Glacier. It's the world's third largest ice field, only Antartica and Greenland have larger ones. We slog across gravelly glacial outwash for what seems like forever to get to the overlook. The wind today is about 50 kph (30 mph). The guides tell us it's just a breeze. This area gets winds up to 120 kph, due to cold air from the glacier rushing under the rising sun-warmed air. We're looking across the length of Grey Lake to see the glacier, and this end of the lake has numerous blue icebergs floating in it. Tomas advises us to see the documentary “Chasing Ice”, which shows the impacts of warmer weather on glaciers all over the world. On the way back we're facing a bit more into the wind, crossing the gravel outwash again. This time our legs are already tired. It's like walking through jello, with ball bearings under your feet.

We're not ready for our picnic lunch until 4:30, so Doug and I decide it will be dinner and indulge in the bottle of red wine they're brought for us. It's a little cool, so I have a glass of wine in one hand and a cup of excellent hot chocolate in the other. They make the hot chocolate with real ground chocolate, not cocoa. I find this to be exquisite cuisine, along with my salmon sandwich and the cheese. Chris, Sergio and Tomas entertain us with descriptions of horrid Chilean drinks: Fanchop: beer mixed with orange Fanta, Piscola: pisco brandy with coke, and “Dead Man Standing”, which Tomas says is drunk only in response to peer pressure. You down a shot of tequila, snort the salt up your nose, and drip the lime into your eye. Doug says it sounds great - get drunk, obtain a nosebleed and go blind all at the same time. Tomas suggests that we try saltenas, Bolivian empanadas, which just may be better than Chilean empanadas.

Tomas tells us about his working visit to New Zealand. He picked kiwis with some Argentinians who were also on a working vacation. The Argentinians seemed a bit standoffish at first, then said “We speak the same language, but we can't understand what you're saying”. Tomas says that in a typical 20 word Chilean sentence, at least nine of the words will be unique to Chile. Spanish speaking people all over the world complain about Chilean “Spanish”. You can buy special dictionaries for speaking “Chilean.” Then we return to Puerto Natales on the Ruta del Fin del Mundo, the end of the world highway.

Doug and the giant sloth found in nearby Milodan cave.
(Not the original sloth.)

Above the Condors

We rest in the morning, then go out with Chris, Tomas and Sergio for our last Patagonian adventure - horseback riding. Chris points out condor nest on the cliffs high above our starting point. You can only see the white droppings. Then he says we're going to be riding up above them to the top of the cliff face. I think he's joking, but he's not, that's where we're heading. The riding guides here are too cool for school, dressed in traditional gaucho clothing. Our guide is an attractive young woman. Her long blond hair hangs out of her gaucho cap, which looks like an oversize beret. She wears baggy black pants tucked into high leather boots. She leads us up and up and up to the top of the cliffs, going around the back where the horses can manage the grade. We pass through open meadows and wooded areas. The view from the top is astonishing. We see the lake far below, the sound between the sea islands beyond it, and the mountains on the horizon. Then she leads us down, down, down. The horses, of course, know the route, but it's hard to imagine that they can handle this grade. We have to keep our legs braced in the stirrups to avoid being dislodged over the horses' necks.

American guachos, on the cliff above the condor nests

Salto Grande (Big Falls) in Torres del Paine

Next morning we board the bus for southern Argentina. We've been in Chile almost a month, longer than we had expected, and we never got north of Santiago. The people of Chile have been unfailingly friendly, generous and helpful. They don't hesitate to step forward and offer a hand, whether or not we can understand their version of the Spanish language. Almost everyone we've passed on the street or on a nature trail has offered a smile and a “hola” or a “buenas tardes”. I envy their social nature. Our guides at Torres del Paine meet the national park rangers fairly often, but only for a short time and on a professional basis. Yet each meeting seems to include a genuine smile, a warm handshake, and a little bit of conversation.