11 January 2010

Picture of the day: palafitos (traditional houses on stilts) in Castro, Chiloé.

10 January 2010

Picture of the day: fishing boats in the tiny town of Quemchi on Chiloé.

This is where we stopped for lunch--a big bowl of curanto, or a traditional stew of mussels, clams, pork, and potatoes. (I suggest only the brave click that link to find out how the stew is made. After Torres, I fear no food poisoning!)

The churches of Chiloé

We caught a very early flight out of Punta Arenas and arrived in the Chilean Lakes District with plenty of time to rent a car and hightail it to the Isla de Chiloé. What a change from Patagonia! It was all rolling hills and tiny fishing hamlets. And rain. (Did I mention the rain?)

Chiloé is famous for its churches, which are built out of wood and painted wonderful colors. The blue church above was down a long, long dirt road, in a town of about 600 people called Tenuán.

The ceiling of this small church was painted light blue, with stars.

The church in Quemchi, also painted brightly.

The interior of the church in Castro (the capital of Chiloé), built completely out of native hardwood.

9 January 2010

Picture of the day: a totally unreal sunset in Punta Arenas (timestamp: 11pm). No photoshop involved, I swear!

Goodbye, Patagonia

On our last day in "real" Patagonia (technically, I think the Lakes District is considered Patagonia by the Argentinian government, probably just so they can label wine as Patagonian!), we traveled back to Punta Arenas, where we had flown in nearly a month before. Our bus made it into town with just enough time to run to the docks and catch a boat, all so we could fulfill Allison's final Patagonian wish:

PENGUINS. PENGUINS. PENGUINS.

We sat down for another (knee-agonizing) 2 hours to make it to Isla Magdalena. Totally worth it.

There are 69,000 breeding pairs of Magellanic Penguins on the island. I tried to fit them all in this picture, but some were hiding in their burrows.

A set of penguin chicks, looking very cute. They're starting to lose their gray fuzz and develop the distinctive black-and-white feathering of adult penguins.

I stared at the pengüinos, and some of them stared back.

8 January 2010

Picture of the day: sunset over Lago Nordenskjold and the Valle de Francés, a few steps from our campsite on the third night.

7 January 2010

Picture(s) of the day: Glaciar Francés, right next to our campsite the second night. We kept hearing claps of thunder every 20 minutes, and wondering what in the world it could be, since Patagonia almost never gets thunderstorms. The next day, we figured it out: avalanches! (Check out the second picture to see a nice avalanche we finally got a shot of.)

6 January 2010

Picture of the day: the mountains around the Valle de Francés.

This was the third, and most beautiful, day of the trek. We hiked up the Valle de Francés, which was stunning in a way that is hard to capture in photos. On one side was huge, Andes-like mountains with hanging glaciars. On the other side was sheer rock mountains, too steep to hold snow. It was like someone pushed together Rocky Mountain National Park and Yosemite National Park into one very small valley.

5 January 2010

Picture of the day: Glaciar Grey stretching back to the Southern Patagonia Ice Field.

We spent our first night of our trek on a beach next to this glaciar. Not surprisingly, it was a bit cold that night!