To start things out, here's some funny signs, and a weird "stick" thing that was served on the airplane.
Read the post previous to this first, if you haven't already done so, If you have, cary on, you're doing good, the crisis will be over soon.
We had plans for spring break, Southern Patagonia, and Torres del Paine, and Mac had a friend coming to visit and join us. Thus I had a means to get some needed supplies from north of the equator both for our adventure, and for general life down here.
Real Coffee doesn't exactly exist in Chile, so I sent a message to Walden's coffee house in Reno asking if they would put together some coffee for me, and I would have it picked up and brought down to me. Not only did they do this, but Mark, the owner, and a bike riding buddy of mine told me that his son, Joe (also a good bike riding buddy) would be down here later in the week. so I got in touch with him, and he was able to join me and my host family for dinner one night. Thanks again Mark and Joe.
It was great to hang out again Joe, we'll have to hit the road when we both get back from our adventures. Mark, thanks for the coffee For those of you in reno, buy coffee at walden's it's darn good stuff, and the staff is rad.
Our group for our spring break adventure consisted of 4 people, Mac, Amy, Steve, and myself. In an early discussion about the trip, it was decided that our little group would be called "team Chupacabra" but that didn't stick due to possible bad connotations down here in Chile, thus I have now decided to rename to "team fireball".
I think the name fits.
We flew from Santiago to Punta Arenas, where we took that last picture while eating lunch. From there, we took a bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Nutales, where we spent our first night in a cozy little hostel.
This is right off the bus in Puerto Nutales, before we found our hostel. notice one thing, those are fishing poles that I have sticking off the top of my pack, these would be a huge pain in the ass for the next 5 days before finally reviling their utility.
The next morning, we got up stupid early, ate a typical Chilean breakfast ( a piece of bread, butter, jam, a cookie, Tang, and a cup of instant coffee) and were greated by this while we waited for the bus.
Not too bad of a sunrise.
I will address an issue that everyone seemed to have. There does not exist an acurate map of the Torres del Paine National park, it jsut doesn't exist. All of them are bad, Lonley Planet BAD, Government of Chile BAD, CONAF BAD, anything you find on the internet BAD. Please don't write to me and tell me that they're not, because all that will mean to me is that you don't know how to use a map. THEY ARE ALL BAD MAPS. So I modified one that I found, and it's a bit more accurate, but it's still a BAD map.
Go ahead and open the map in a new window, so you can read, and figure out where I was, more or less.
The bus took us 1 hour and 45 minutes from Puerto Nutales (1), to the CONAF (ranger) station inside Torres del Paine national park(2). Here we had to pay US$25 to get in. From there we got back on the bus and went to the ferry, where we had to pay another US$20 for a one way 45 min ferry ride (3) to Refugio Pehoe (4). Refugio Pehoe is a nice looking resort that just doesn't belong. It's run by a bunch of money hungry asshats, much like the other refugios in the park, thus they are labled duchebaggerys on my map.
From there, we put on the packs, and headed to Campamento los Guardas (5). We spent 2 nights here due to rain. Day 3 we went from Los Guardas back to asshat duchebaggery, then on to Campamento Italiano(6). We spent the night here, in the morning, Steve and I hiked Valle Francis (7), then back to Italiano, and on to a refugio between points (7) and (8) I forgot to put this one in... let's call it point (6.8) In the morning we hit Las Torres (8). Here we were planning on spending the night, then doing one more day of hiking, but due to 60-80 mph winds with gusts up to 110mph we decided to head out. Steve and I hiked the 7k to the CONAF station (2) to avoid spending US$4 on a transfer bus. From there, we bussed back to Puerto Nutales, and slept at the same hostel.
This is the CONAF station where they take your money. point (2)
This is on the ferry between points (3) and (4) on the map
Also on the boat looking back at the Torres National park.
This is the "asshat duchebaggery" point (4)
These photos are of the first hike between points (4) and (5) on the map.
Point (5)
Lady hiking with high heels, no point here, except this is close to "asshat duchebaggery".
Valle Francis, point (7)
Water looks cold doesn't it? That's because it's glacier run off.
So Steve and I jumped in, and yes... it was cold.
Setting up camp at point (6.8)
Steve eating shit at point (6.8)
Night at Points (1) - (11)
Morning at point (6.8)
Enjoying some Walden's coffee, before we get underway.
Serious group photo
Serious girl photo
Me standing on a rock in south America
Steve and I nearing the end of the Torres del Paine backpacking excursion.
And this ended the excursion of "team fireball" in the Torres del Paine National Park.... now I resume from back in Puerto Nutales
In the morning, "team fireball" split up, due to differing interests, the girls were looking more toward beds, restaurants, and possibly some pampering, Steve and I decided we didn't get enough, we went shopping for some man food, stuff like sausage, beer, butter, polenta, and oatmeal, and headed back toward the park after paying US$5 for a large salmon fillet, a mound of frenchfries covered in fried onions and 2 fried eggs, each. It's a beautiful thing, it's called Salmon a lo pobre.
I forgot to take a picture of our glorious meals, but... I did a google search for "salmon a lo pobre" and this was the 4th picture that came up, so here it is.
This is where things went stupid good. Seriously... STUPID good
This is the Milodon, it's essentially a very large prehistoric sloth that lived in caves and sold souvenirs in southern Patagonia. It also greets everyone that enters Puetro Nutales.
We hiked out of Puerto Nutales, toward the park again, we probably covered about 7 or 8 miles on the road hitch hiking before we were picked up by some very nice ladies from California (9).
Our plan was to go fishing, so after a while along a desolate dirt road, it got close to a lake, and Steve and I got out, and figured we would give it a go.
As it turned out, this place was beautiful, but had no fish, and after leading Steve into about the 5th bog of water, with pouring rain (10) and it was getting dark, we decided to maintain our direction and continue the hitch-hike. We got picked up by a resort van, who radioed ahead, and found us a campsite, we were driven to this farmer's land, and thus we set up camp(11) behind his farmhouse. We enjoyed a meal of churizo sausages, polenta, and (in my opinion) some beer from the best brewery in Chile. (sidenote: I haven't tried all the beer here, but this stuff isn't bad, and their Pale Ale is actually pretty decent, the company is called Austral. They've still got nothing on Dale's Pale Ale.)
We went to sleep, and were greated by this view in the morning.
That is the Torres del Paine National park, with point (5) on the left, and point (8) on the right.
This was camp.
This would be our fishing day, not a bad backdrop for fishing. we set up our poles, and headed out. We were fishing in the "Rio Serrano" or for those of you that don't habla espanol, the "Serrano River". For all intensive purposes, we failed on acquiring fishing licenses, and thus we were on constant guard whenever we heard the rare car in this desolate paradise. It wasn't 20 minutes before it was all worth while.
This is the biggest trout I have ever caught, it's a german brown, and well worth carrying those fishing poles to the bottom of the world.
Steve caught the second fish, and just to prove that these are fish, here's a picture of it in the water
Here's Steve holding lunch.
Another fish, and yet another photo I forgot to turn the right way, sorry about that. I would change it, but it takes super long to upload on Chilean internet.
Ahh yes... The shack...
So while we were fishing (and watching our backs) there were these guys that kept driving by on an ATV, after a couple of passes by, he stopped. I thought we were headed to Chilean fish jail. He looked all official, carried a clipboard, and walked over to us...
The suspense must be killing you...
He then interviewed us on our reasons for choosing that location for fishing, BUT... a bit later, a truck kept on driving by, finally it stopped too, and again the driver came over to us. He saw that we had a fish, again I thought we were screwed. This time however, he wanted to take samples of our fish, so I gave it to him. He said to come by his shack after we were done fishing. So we did. He had washed and cleaned our fish for us, and served us a hot cup of REAL coffee, and some cookies. It was rad. We went back and made lunch
This is your #6 fish stand with a brown trout seasoned to perfection.
As we finished lunch, it was about dinner time, so we just kept on cooking and eating. For those of you know me, you know that my primary food source is the burrito. This has been a problem down here (in Chile), burritos DO NOT exist. So we decided to buy makings for some bean burritos.
Now I know what you're thinking, "Wayne... now how the hell are you going to fold that?"
"Well... I'm glad you asked"
This is how.
Here's Steve and I enjoying LunchDinner.
The farmer was mostly drunk the entire time, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't nice. Our stay here consisted of gorging ourselves with food, a day of beautiful fishing, and having our fish cleaned for free while we were served coffee and cookies. Steve threw boiling water at me, and we hitch hiked back to Puerto Nutales after 2 nights here.
This is me hitch-hiking... or just giving a thumb's up to the mountains behind me. As per that silly ass hat that I'm wearnig. I lost my good Mountain Hardwear hat, so I bought that one, and i told Steve that it was his responsibility to have me remove it before any pictures. (let it be known that "silly ass hat", and "asshat" are two totally different things)
He Failed.
This is moments before Steve threw his stove with a boiling pot of water on my foot.
This is the only photo I have of me at the famous Straight of Magellan, and I don't have any idea why I'm in that pose (or wearing that hat).
Again... the hat.
Any photos you see with both Steve and I in them, this is how they were taken.
From Puerto Nutales, we caught a bus back to Punta Arenas, were Steve and I stayed in a HORRIBLE hostel for the first night, then found an AMAZING hostel for the second night. There we made a ton of food, shared it with our hostel friends, owners, and such, and went to sleep looking forward to a 4:30 am taxi ride.
No, I did not piggy back her all the way back from the airport. Believe it or not, Chile has cars which can be used for transportation.
We went to La Vega Central with Francis, and had some Pastel de Choclo.
I tortured April with one day of classes, this is lunch of that day.
We got the opportunity to meet up with the family she stayed with when she did "Un Techo Para Chile" which is like a Chilean version of Habitat for Humanity.
Ok, this is the appartment that we rented for the time she was here, and yes, I did find that shopping cart in the elevator.
This is Will trying the mystery fruit that I bought at the grocery store.
This is some of the crew.
More of the crew.
It was a light night, we just shared a bottle of wine, and ate some caviar, and talked about finances, and our futures.
This is on top of Cerro Santa Isabel.
We went out for a nice dinner, in Bellavista.
Yes that's right, "Los Beetles", and they sang in English. ...and yes EVERY chilean that was within earshot was singing along, but not in English, not in Spanish either, it was just this sort of noise making to the beet of the music.
This is April with a whole plate of death in front of her. I'm not saying that because I'm afraid that those clams, shrimp, urchins, muscles, or whatever else had feelings. I'm just allergic.
This is April hanging out with Vincent Huidobro. He's a pretty friendly guy.
April in front of the Neruda House.
Outside of the Neruda house.
I know, "This is hard, even for a monster"
It's just a little taste of their own medicine. If this photo shocks you at all, I had to break it to you some time. Me and my girlfriend... we kiss.
Staging for the group photo.
The group photo. April, the host family, and myself.
