13 January 2010

Picture of the day: Volcán Osorno, viewed from our dinner table in Puerto Varas.

12 January 2010

Picture of the day: morning kayaking on the Puntra River in Chepu, Chiloé.

We intended to do a nice little 2-hour kayak trip at dawn. We actually did a 5-hour marathon starting at 8am--hey, it may not be Patagonia, but the sun still rises really early here! People sometimes joke about trekkers who end up looking like little human T-Rex's (massive muscle-bound legs, itty-bitty puny arms). After this kayaking trip, I think that won't be so much a problem for us. By the fourth hour, my arms were ready to fall off. Massive biceps, here I come!

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!

ALIVE!! (take 2)

We survived our second trek, the famous "W" in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine.

And by survived, I mean barely survived. There was a nasty incident with getting very, very ill at one of the most distant points of the trail (apparently there's been a breakout of norovirus or some other similar nasty at all the campsites on trail for the past 2 weeks). However, Allison is a total champ who can hike 11 km--that's 4.5 hours!!--with a full pack to get back to civilization, even if she's been throwing up all night. We found out later that a group of 20 people had been evacuated the same night from the park to the hospital at Puerto Natales. (Wimps.)

However, most of the trek until the last day was beautiful weather, beautiful views, and wonderful hiking. We knew we were going to have a good time when we arrived at the park, got on the catamaran to get to our first trailhead, and were rewarded with this view:

Los Cuernos behind Lago Pehoé

Water water everywhere

Thought you were done with pictures from our cruise through the Beagle Channel and surrounding archipelago? Not so, I'm afraid. We took close to 500 pictures. (Hey, digital cameras make taking photos cheap!) Plus, we are lining up several posts so that you all are entertained while we hike around Tierra del Fuego.

The most surprising thing about the islands at the very southern tip of Patagonia has got to be the waterfalls. I had assumed we'd see glaciers and snow and ice; waterfalls, not so much. But all that snowmelt has got to go somewhere:

Several waterfalls cascading down the side of a small island.

A bigger waterfall, below a larger icefield.

A view of the ship, below a large snow field.

You know you're on a luxury ship when they serve you whiskey (or coke!) after every excursion... chilled by glacier ice, of course.

23 December 2009

Picture of the day: the view of Ushuaia from the Beagle Channel.

Ushuaia is in Argentina, while the Beagle Channel is split between Chile (south half) and Argentina (north half). This picture was taken in Chile, of Argentina.

22 December 2009

Picture of the day: the Chilean flag flying over Cabo de Hornos.

21 December 2009

Picture of the day: the Pía glacier.

20 December 2009

Picture of the day: Fuegian forest and stream.

Mare Australis

Below are some pictures from our cruise. It was the priciest part of our trip, but I think we can both say it was worth every penny.

We left Punta Arenas at 8pm on Saturday. The landscape there was flat and windy; when we woke up on Sunday morning, this was the view out of our cabin window:

The Cordillera Darwin (the end of the Andes), running east-west across Tierra del Fuego.

Sunset from the bow of the ship (about 10:30pm).

Looking south over Cape Horn. Next land: Antartica (600 km).

The Mare Australis, behind the ice fields by the Glacier Pía.

Cementerio, oh Cementerio

Those who know me really well probably don't know this about me: I'm crazy about graveyards and cemetaries. Seriously. Some of my best memories of Iowa are when I could convince Kyle, who grew up 20 miles from the college, to drive me around to the old graveyards down practically unused dirt roads.

I don't know what it is about them, but in case any of you are as enamored as I am of old headstones and cool crypts, the following pictures are for you. (Since we're currently at sea and unable to post, I thought I'd set up these pictures to keep you all coming back...)

The cementerio municipal in Punta Arenas is probably one of the best cemetaries I've seen in South America. According to Lonely Planet, "in death as in life, Punta Arenas' first families flaunted their wealth--wool baron José Menéndez's extravagent tomb is a scale replica of Rome's Vittorio Emanuele monument." See for yourself:

Headstones and sculptures stretching as far as the eye can see.

Crypts lining the walkway at the entrance to the cementerio.

19 December 2009

Picture of the day: looking out over the town of Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan.

Blogmistress note: The pictures of the day for 20 December through 23 December will not be posted until we land in Ushuaia on the 23rd. They should be stellar, though, so stick around to see the penguins!