From the Atacama to Patagonia: EPIC!

Our first three days in Chile were spent in San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny frontier mining town that has transformed into a tiny tourist center in the past decade. It´s in the center of the Atacama desert, which we have learned is the driest desert in the world. You can tell this simply from walking around town: the buildlings and roads are covered in dust, water is scarce, and the sun is mercilessly hot. Still, the town is quaint and has a mellow hippie vibe.

On our first full day in San Pedro, we woke up early to hike to sights outside of town: an Inca fortress, el Quitor to Pucara, and a narrow gorge called ¨La Quebrada del Diablo.¨The scenery on the way was spellbinding. Red desert rocks forming towering mountains, dried up riverbeds filled with scrubby plants, and cloudless blue skies. Unfortunately, we both underestimated the sun a little bit and seriously burned our necks.

That afternoon we took a tour of the Atacama´s nearby salt flat and salt lake, el Salar de Cejar. This place was unlike anything we had ever seen before. First we bathed in one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, la laguna de Cejar. It was so salty we were forewarned against dunking our heads underwater or even splashing -- medical injury to the eyes could result. Swimming with these restrictions might sound lame, but trust us, it was awesome. You could float with absolutely no effort in the water, in fact, we couldn´t go under if we wanted to. If you tried to make yourself vertical in the water, the salt gradually flipped your body so that you were floating on your back or your stomach with your feet in the air. Awesome! After the lake, we jumped in some nearby less salty water to rinse off. Nevertheless, we remained crusted with salt for the rest of the day.

The actual salt flat was ubeliveable -- imagine miles of salt thickly crusted on the soil. The biblical story about Lot´s wife becoming a pillar of salt suddenly made more sense. The salt had literally turned to a rocky topsoil, which we tramped over eagerly.

The next morning we started at 4 am to make it to the 3rd largest geyser field in the world, los Geysers de Tatio. It´s also the highest altitude geyser field in the world and the most active in the Southern hemisphere. Neither of us had ever seen a geyser before, and we were definitely impressed. The journey there, however was a little bit of a let down: it took 4 hours when it was meant to take 2 beacuse our driver showed up to pick us up with a flat tire (it was 1 of 8 tires, but this still was problematic). Our guide´s response was not to change the tire, but instead to clunk all the way up the mountain. Apparantly this is reasonable behavior and not a cause for complaint in Chile...we beg to differ.

We may have been a little cranky on the bus, but once we stepped off and saw the geysers, all negative feelings were left behind. It was spectacular! We saw 64 different active geysers (ie: water sporadically shoots out of a hole in the ground, timing varies by geyser) plus a host of other geothermic activity: boiling pools, fumaroles, and thermal baths. We were amazed.

After the geysers, it was a quick dinner of empanadas and then back on the bus. For 25 hours. Yowza! This was by far our longest bus ride yet, but it proved much more enjoyable than anticipated because we met some super fun brazillian guys to chat with along the way. Before we knew it, 25 hours and thousands of kilometers later, we were in Santiago metro-ing our way to our hotel.

The next day, the plan had been to meet up with Stewś parents when their flight got in at 10 AM. Unfortunately, it was delayed 12+ hours, so we didnt get to spend the day in Santiago with them. We decided to go to Chileś National History Museum, where we got better acquainted with one of our very favorite Latin American heroes, the Spanish butt-kicking powerhouse Bernado O Higgins. We also checked out Cerro Santa Lucia, a hill in the center of the city with epic views. The walk to the top features beautiful marble fountains, a castle, and well-maintained gardens.

It turned out that Stewś parents didnt arrive until 3 AM that night (you are hereby forewarned against ever booking with American Airlines), so much for a day of sightseeing with them in Santiago! After meeting up with us, we hope, the trip got much better for them :)

The next day we all hopped on a flight down to Punta Arenas, a city in Patagonia. It is one of the southern-most cities in the world, and home to the southern most brewery in the world (sidenote: yes, we are finally in a country which produces both good wine and good beer!). After a brief lunch of sandwiches, we hopped on a bus to Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine, one of Patagoniaś most famous national parks.

Our hostel in Puerto Natales was one of the coolest places we have stayed in our journey. It was a cozy little home adorned with handmade wool textiles and warmed with gas ovens. It was incredibly warm and cozy, plus the owners were extremely helpful with everything we needed. If you find yourself in Puerto Natalaes, and you should because the town is delightful and Patagonia is awesome, be sure to stay at La Amerindia.

After an amazing breakfast (Tori sends many thanks to her parents for sending down lox and cream cheese with the Pollocks!), we set off for Torres del Paine. We found out they are not named for the towering revolutionary zeal of Thomas Paine (to Stew and Mr. Stewś disappointment), but because Torre means Tower in Spanish and Paine means Blue in a different language. Thus, the set of giant rock pinnacles appear as blue towers in the Patagonian mountains (not the Andes at this point but something else).

Torres del Paine is known for being staggeringly beautiful as jutting snow peaked mountains jut through the pampas and glacial lakes pool at their bases. The numerous lakes take different colors based on their sediment content: those formed by deep underwater springs, millenial glaciers, or the run off from snow melting in the peaks and carrying deposits from the rough (and steep) sides of the Mordor-like tectonic upheavals. When viewed in proximity, it looks like a paint chip of blue shades lacking its captions of aqua marine, glacial ice azul, gel deodorant blue.

The wildlife is also worth note, if not entirely wild or alive. First, we saw a milodon and its cave. The cave was pretty cool: like a 10,000 year old empty hot pocket of the earth. Settlers found the bones of a milodon (giant land sloth) here and promptly took them to London. Now, there is a statue of a milodon, complete with giant, slothenly descending huevos. Outside, we saw baby owls, generally recognized as one of the cutest things that one cannot have as a pet. Later, we came across a herd of guanacos which are basically llamas but are not (to our knowledge) domesticated. However, if an animal lets you get within five feet of it, we do not think it really counts as wild, either. Also on the list were condors, flamingoes , rheas (ostriches but a little different), foxes, and maybe more!

After a delicious lunch of salami and laughing cow cheese (Thanks again, Kirsh-Cliffordś!), we took a hike to see glaciers and ice bergs in their natural habitat (a really cold place). We only had an hour to do the hike, so we ran our hike. ¿Have we mentioned how awesome we are? The icebergs and glaciers were impressing and, thus, we were impressed. Itś difficult to describe them, but cold, icy, big, intimidating, jagged, blue not white...these are beginnings.

The next day, we went to see more glaciers. (Sorry...after the previous failure to describe glaciers, this must seem to be an inauspicious beginning for a whole dayś entry). This time, we were aboard a speed boat. We knew the day was going to be good when half the activities were eating and one was drinking whisky. Most of the day was spent boating out to our main destination, but along the way we saw various frozen and flowing waterfalls of a kilometer or two in length (height?) with fleets of condors that seemed to be frozen in the air, relaxing on the air currents and maintaining their positions while looking for delicious dead animals. Being a scavenger has got to be good in an environment that is basically the worldś biggest walk in refrigerator. We also saw a colony of cormorants (flighted) chilling on the side of a cliff. Nifty.

Eventually, we got to our glacier hike. Slow pokes on the trail inhibited our new love of running hikes. This glacier was much bigger and scarier. Scary because the nooks of crannies of the ice were clearly visible (it is summer), but one can understand how in the winter it would look flat and appear passable. This is not the case, however, and a wrongly placed foot leads to a hundred foot fall into icy water. Standing in the driving hail over the water next to a giant icy english muffin, we gained a healthy respect for natureś frozen wonders. Floating in the water below, one could see ice bergs that had, due to global warming, broken from the glacier. While these melting chunks breaking off are probably only the tip of the iceberg of global warmingś effects, they remain massive. True to form, the majority of their mass is concealed beneath water but they still appear titanic.

As a prologue to lunch, we were served whisky over millenial ice. Technically, the ice is decamillenial given that the glacier was formed in 10,000 b.c.(e). but since it is not clear if this is the correct formulation of the latin root, we can forgive the tour guide. Nonetheless, a noon oclock whisky is an excellent segue into a two hour antelunch nap. When we woke up, we hiked up to an agroturism destination: one of the southern most ranches in the world. We dined on lamb that had been spitted and smoked in halves over a fire in front of us. Also, they gave us wine.

Today, we rented a car and headed south toward Punta Arenas. We stopped along the way to see a huge colony of penguins. The colony consists of 10,000 infants, adults, and offspring ("¿why do infants not count as offspring?", one may ask, without resolution). Apparently, we came at a bad time and many had run off to important meetings and lunches, all dressed up in their cute little tuxedos. Nonetheless, we saw about 1,000 relaxing on the beach like hung over highschool boys still drunk from prom. Others were waddling along the beach as only sea animals (and the rotund) can do. A particularly cute one nipped Toriś shoe, Stewś mom got all up in oneś face as they got to know each other better, we all saw a mating dance, and Stew stepped in penguin poo. Also, because this was allegedly a busy time (when the penguins go out to fish), it meant that we were the only tourists at the park and (as they say) "ïf you have seen 1,000 penguins, you have seen a lot."

Now weŕe in Punta Arenas and are flying back to Santiago tomorrow. Stewś parents have to get back to square old cold north hemisphere and we have to go to work on our warm black berry farm. Yippee, though we will miss Stewś parents. We will also miss the amazing beer of Patagonia (which we toured today, at the factory and the bar).