Land of Fire

June 15th – Our last day in Patagonia, we woke up early in order to catch the ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan to the town of Porvenir on the island of Tierra del Fuego. The ferry ride was a lot of fun, if a little cold. It took over two hours one way, and we didn’t have much time in Porvenir until the ferry left to go back to Punta Arenas. We saw some more dolphins and seabirds on the ferry, along with several penguins in the water. It was quite the experience going to a place that you’ve heard about your whole life, and it was a little unreal. The farthest south we made it was 53° 19’. After getting back and picking up our luggage, we went to a little restaurant and ate a huge plate of Chorrillana. Chorrillana is basically a gigantic plate of French fries covered in sausage, onions, egg, beef, and anything else greasy and delicious. We didn’t want to pay for another night in the hostel, so we waited in the airport until 5:00 am when our plane left. We made it back safe and a little tired.


Our ferry.


The town of Porvenir.


Tierra del Fuego


Bundled up for the ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan

June 16th – We got back to my house around noon, and we slept for three hours to prepare for the night’s activities. First we went to a locale called the Piedra Feliz in Valparaíso where we met up with a bunch of friends for salsa dancing lessons. That was a lot of fun, and by 11:00 our legs were pretty tired. The lessons were taught by an animated Cuban man. After leaving Valpo, we went back to Viña to meet up with my host mom at the casino. She had received some sort of offer that if she got a new person to sign up they could get free credits and she would also get a coupon. Both Nicole and I signed up, and we then spent about an hour playing the slot machines with our “promotional credits”. However, whatever we happened to win did get translated into real money. Unfortunately Nicole lost, but I ended up winning around $25 and my host mom won $60 right at the very end. It was my first time in a casino, and it was a pretty unique experience. I don’t think I’ll ever play with my own money, but it was fun to play with free money. I’ll have to sign up more often.

June 17th – Today was a sad day because it was Nicole’s last in Chile. We spent the day going to class, doing some last minute shopping, packing, and traveling to the airport. Her flight left at 6:30 in the morning, but again, due to the bus schedules, we had to get there around 11:00 pm. We napped a little and did a crossword puzzle, and Nicole is waiting to board as I’m typing this.

Dorotea

June 14th – We slept in a little, and decided to go on a hike locally. After taking a taxi a few miles out of town, we paid an entrance fee to someone’s property, and climbed up a hill that overlooked the surrounding glacial plain. It was a great hike, and we got to see some terrific views, several Andean Condors up close, and an Austral Parakeet. After the hike the person we paid the entrance fee to made us lunch, and we took a long hike back into town. Much of Patagonia is devoted to sheep herding, and we saw much of this during our hike and the past few days. After picking up our luggage at the hostel, we took a bus back to Punta Arenas, and checked into another hostel (one with heat).


An Austral Parakeet that cooperated well with us.


The fjord and town of Puerto Natales.


More condors that flew close overhead.


The glacial plain.


Our shadows at noon.




Two sunset pictures around Puerto Natales

Torres del Paine

June 13th – We woke up early to start on our tour of Torres del Paine. We had hired a bus and tour guide to take us around the park, and we shared the bus with two other people who were staying at the same hostel as us. We started off by going to the Mylodon Cave National Monument. This was a large cave where early European explorers had found the bones and skins of several mylodons (aka giant ground sloths). Apparently they had been hibernating in the cave, and after conveniently dying in this location, their remains lasted another several thousand years for us to discover. We kept traveling into the park, and we had amazing views of the granite features of the park all day. The park’s namesake, Torres del Paine, are huge granite towers that have lasted the erosion of a couple million years, and jut up into the sky from the surrounding landscape. There are also other granite formations, and this is the southernmost part of the great southern ice field. We got to see a glacier, an avalanche from comfortably far away, and icebergs in a glacial lake that had calved from the glacier. The day was mostly spent driving in the van, stopping for a scenic overlook, taking pictures, and driving to the next place. We also got to see some wildlife including Guanacos, Darwin’s Rheas, Upland Geese, and a solitary Humboldt’s Hog-nosed Skunk scampering away across the road. The vistas were incredible, and it was well worth the trip down south to see the landscape. We were very tired from the day, and went to bed soon after we got back to the hostel.


A flock of Upland Geese, the males are white, the females brown.


Darwin's Rhea, basically a dinosaur


Andean Fox


Black-chested Buzzard Eagles, one juvenile and one adult


The cave where the Mylodon was found.


Gray Lake and some icebergs calved from the glacier that feeds the lake.


The avalanche we saw.


The structure on the right is known as the "Cuernos del Paine" and it is produced by two layers of rock, one granite and white, and the other igneous and black, that have both been eroded into towers.


The famous Torres del Paine on the right and surrounding mountains.


Wild guanacos. The species from which llamas and alpacas are domesticated.

Puerto Natales

June 12th - We woke up early to catch a bus to a town a few hours to the north called Puerto Natales. Puerto Natales is the jumping off point for Torres del Paine National Park, which is the South American equivalent of Yosemite. The bus took up half of the daylight hours, and we spent the rest of daylight wandering around Puerto Natales, which is on the banks of a fjord and surrounded by impressive mountains. There were flamingos in the fjord, as well as black-necked swans and assorted ducks. We stayed in a great hostel, and had a pleasant evening cooking, drinking coffee, watching movies, and planning our next few days.


Chiloe Wigeon in the fjord next to Puerto Natales


A Black-necked Swan


The fjord next to Puerto Natales


One of the flamingos that inhabits the fjord.

Erizo

June 9th – After classes, Nicole and I traveled up north to Reñaca to try to find a seafood restaurant to eat at. We had heard of a seafood buffet, but couldn’t find it after a little searching. However, we did find a great place to eat, and I was feeling adventurous enough to try erizo. Erizo is the Spanish word for sea urchin, and the delicacy consists of the raw sea urchin roe eaten with lemon juice. It was definitely an interesting flavor, unlike anything else I’ve ever tried. I liked it, but I couldn’t finish all of my plate because it was a lot of a new and strong flavor. Nicole tried one piece, but claimed that the texture was like that of “a partially decayed lung” and refused to help me finish the plate. She ordered conger eel soup, and that was much more of a standard fare. I think if it was offered to me, I would eat erizo again, but it was kind of expensive and I probably won’t order it again. At least not any time soon.



The infamous erizo.

June 10th – After going to classes all day, we packed up and prepared to go on a trip down south to the end of the world. A month prior we had bought plane tickets to Punta Arenas, and we would be visiting the southernmost part of Chile for five days total. We ran into the same problem with the plane/bus schedule as before, so we had a nice five hour wait in the airport before boarding. There was an electrical problem with our plane, so we also ended up waiting for a couple hours on the runway. However, we arrived safely in Punta Arenas at around 7:00 am, and grabbed a couple hours of sleep before heading out to walk around town.

June 11th - Punta Arenas is sometimes billed as the world’s southernmost city, and it is certainly an interesting place. The winter solstice is very soon, and for our time down there, sunrise was at around 9:00 am and sunset at around 4:30 pm. Also, the highest the sun gets above the horizon is around 14 degrees. We walked around town for a few hours, saw some southern seabirds and dolphins, and then rendezvoused with two friends who had come down the day before. After cooking a pleasant dinner, we spent a very cold night in our heatless hostel. Needless to say we didn’t spend another night there.


This is a sign I've seen around Chile, and if anyone can figure out what it means, please let me know and post if here.


A crab we found on the beach in Punta Arenas. It was still alive, but a little sluggish.


The city and port of Punta Arenas

June 5th – Today we got up early to go with some friends to La Campana National Park. It was a nice day and enjoyable, but Nicole had come down with a cold and wasn’t feeling well. Also, the birds were frustratingly skulking, and despite hearing many birds all around us, we didn’t see very many. After getting home very tired, we took a little nap before the start of an asado at my house with the friends of my host family. Nicole was feeling pretty sick at this point and went to bed soon after it started, and I went to bed relatively early at around 3:00 am.


The Campana crew.

June 6th – We slept in late (until 1:00 but we were still up and about before my family was). I was hosting an asado at my house with some fellow exchange students this night, so all we did during the afternoon was go to the supermarket and prepare for the asado. It was a great success, and everyone had an excellent time chatting, eating, hanging out, and singing karaoke.


Nicole's favorite fruit ever, the uchuva or Cape Gooseberry.

June 7th – We slept in a little, and then Nicole and I went up north a little past Concón to walk around and search for a birding spot I had heard about but didn’t know exactly where it was. After a couple hours of fruitless wandering, we finally found access to the beach, and were successful in finding the birding spot, the mouth of a river that had some lagoons and marsh. The best thing we found were hundreds of American Oystercatchers and plenty of other fun Chilean birds.


Some of the Oystercatchers we found.


I'm happy because I found a marsh :)


More of the marsh and Pacific Ocean.

June 8th – Another day of classes, and Nicole was kind enough to attend some of them with me. My classes are wrapping up at this point, and I only have another couple weeks before the classes finish. In the afternoon, I spent several hours working with two other students on a paper for my history class, but we finally finished it and turned it in. A low-key day overall.

June and things

June 1st – I had been having some problems with my eyes over the past couple weeks, and I’d noticed that they were itchy and sometimes I was having problems with sensitivity to light. I thought that it was just allergies or some sort of thing in my house, but I woke up this day and was not able to open my eyes. I clearly had an eye infection, and it was almost impossible to open my eyes except for a short glimpse. I wasn’t able to get an appointment at the clinic until the afternoon, and until then Nicole led me around to keep me from bumping into things. The opthamolagist said that I probably had a viral infection, but I think it was probably bacterial because it had been getting worse for a couple weeks, however, I’m no professional. Regardless, she gave me steroid drops for the inflammation and anti-biotic drops in case it was bacterial. The drops helped very quickly, and by the next day I was able to open my eyes and walk around. Needless to say, it wasn’t very pleasant, but I did get out of going to class, and I got an extension on one of my papers.


My new Spanish word for the day.

June 2nd – I wasn’t feeling 100%, but definitely better enough to go out. Nicole and I ended up going to the National Botanical Gardens, and it we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Nicole is continuing to add Chilean birds to her list, and we had a great time. It’s so great to have her around, and we’re really enjoying spending a significant amount of time together. It’s been a year and a half since we’ve been together for more than a week, so this is fantastic. I slept during the afternoon, and then we went to bed at the normal Chilean time around 12:00.


Nicole couldn't even wait to get to the Botanical Garden before finding flowers.


Us at the botanical gardens.

June 3rd – I was able to go to a couple classes today, and Nicole and I got to know a little more of Valparaíso. By this time many of the exchange students had been missing American food, and after classes we went out with the other Messiah students to Ruby Tuesday’s for dinner. We mostly all got burgers, and there were many content faces after dinner. We walked around Viña a little bit, and got to sleep at a reasonable hour.


This was one of the logos on the cargo boxes stacked up in the port in Valparaiso.

June 4th – So far we missed seeing one of the birds that Nicole wanted to see, the elusive Many-colored Rush Tyrant (its Spanish name is Siete Colores), so today we went to Concón once again to search for it. Fortunately we were successful, and we got some great looks at it. However, it’s not necessarily a good poser for pictures, and I’ve posted the best one I got bellow. After getting back home, we went out to the house of Vanessa (the ex-girlfriend of my host brother Felipe) for dinner and good conversation. We had a great time, and ended up spending about four hours there talking with her and her family.


After seeing the Many-colored Rush Tyrant!

Nicole's visit

I know it's been almost a month since I've posted anything, but in an attempt to redeem myself, I'm going to retroactively post what's been happening. Over the past three weeks Nicole was visiting me here, and we had such a fantastic time together. It's been over a year and a half since we've spent this much time together in one go, and it has been so much fun and such a blessing. Here goes with my posts...


First time together in three months!

May 28th – Nicole arrived at the airport very early much to my excitement. However, her flight arrived early in the morning, and there aren’t buses that go to the airport during the night. Therefore the standard procedure is to go to the bus terminal in Viña at around 8:00 pm, get off in Pajaritos bus station in Santiago, and take a shuttle bus to the airport. Nicole arrived without incident, and we spent the morning waiting in the airport for it to get light out, and then walked a little bit around Santiago. We took the bus back home to Viña, took a little nap, and took a short trip to Valparaiso. My host mom was kind enough to allow Nicole to stay in my house during her stay here, and it was such a blessing to be able to spend so much time with Nicole.

May 29th – We slept in late to get acclimated to Chilean time (aka sleeping in until 12:00), and took a short trip to one of my favorite places in the area. It’s called the Roca Oceanica, and it’s basically a rocky peninsula that juts out into the ocean a little north of Viña. It has a great view of Viña and Valparaíso, and there are also some great birds that fly by every now and then. Nicole was sharp-eyed enough to spot a Humboldt Penguin, and we even saw one hopping about on some rocks a little down the coast. After that excitement, we went to an asado for one of the Frisbee/poker guys who was going away for several months.

May 30th – Today was some sort of celebration in Chile, and a bunch of things were open for free around Viña and Valparaíso. The president’s vacation home (kind of like Camp David) is in downtown Viña, and it was open for tours. Nicole and I walked over there, but the line was a couple blocks to get in, and we didn’t feel like waiting. Instead we walked around Viña for a bit, and eventually made our way over to the Sporting center for the weekly Ultimate Frisbee game. I know I’ve mentioned the stray dogs here before, but many of them have a special system where they choose a tourist to follow around for a while, and then hope to get some handouts for their loyalty and companionship. We picked up a dog that followed us around for most of the day, and it even followed us back home up the hill. It even stuck around overnight and we found it the next morning when we left for the day! They definitely know what they’re doing.


Lunch!

May 31st – Today we slept in a little and then took the bus to Concón for a little birding trip and empanada trip. We were able to see some good birds, and it was great weather. The past couple weeks before Nicole got here were pretty chilly, but it’s definitely been nicer weather the past few days. After a nice day outside, we hung out at home, and spent the night inside.


A typical scene on our outings.


I'm not entirely sure what this cat was thinking, but eventually it gave up.


Translation: "Avocados: 3.3 pounds per dollar"