The Real Patagonia

We left Argentina´s lake district and made our way to Puerto Montt, Chile where we met up with our friend Leslie Camacho. We are now traveling five deep: Rowan, Katie, Amelia, Camacho, and Brendan (our awesome friend we picked up in El Bolson). After considering our options, we made a collective decision to head south on the next available bus to Punta Arenas. Since we had a few days before our bus we decided to spend that time in Chiloé, a nearby pacific island scattered with small family farms, unique coastal environments, and incredibly warm people.



We made our way south on Chiloé to the small, central town of Chochi where we found camping in Juan Carlos´ backyard. Juan Carlos is a very nice Chiloé native who offers his backyard and his home to backpackers such as ourselves. At times he houses up to 80 campers but aside from two other campers, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It rained the majority of the two days we were there so Juan Carlos invited us into his home to cook meals and dry out. He has a cozy little house where he lives with his 101 year old nana, who Katie became oddly attached to (see photos). On one occasion, Abuelita accidently put her hand in the dinner, and the joke was made that it was seasoned with el sabor de abuela (the flavor of grandma).



On our second day on Chiloé we took a bus into the national park along the western coast. Despite occasional downpours, we hiked the network of trails through the diverse forest habitat that was a unique mixture of Alaskan muskeg and Humboldt fern understory. We then made our way through the dunes and towards the beach, and after cresting the last dune, Rowan, Katie and Camacho simultaniously realized that they were staring at the mirror image of the Manila dunes outside of Arcata. Super eerie.

After departing from Chiloé, we headed back to Puerto Montt and stayed one more night in a great hospedaje run by a very kind woman named Nancy who let us stash a few items while we were in the island of Chiloé.

Then came the bus ride from hell.....Imagine this, 33 hours, no meals(just cookies and a juice box), no beverages provided, and the 6 of the worst movies fathomable. Four words: Keanue Reeves, Action Movie. Four border crossings. A questionable mother who was bent on either posioning her children by constantly spraying them and herself with massive amounts of perfume, or giving the baby boy brain damage by "accidentaly" lifting him up too high and banging (smashing?) his head on the ceiling of the bus. And finally, perhaps the craziest of all, one extremely scary moment when we lost Leslie for an hour in Rio Gallegos. Yes, thats right, the bus left without her and it took Rowan trying to point out some native birds to her only to turn around and find that her seat was empty.

"Where´s your seat partner", Rowan asked to the boy who had been sitting next to her.

"I don´t know", he replied.

"Well, did she get back on the bus?"

"I didn´t see her", says boy.

"Did you see her at the stop?"

"Yeah, she was buying a liter of cola"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! Katie, wake up!!!! Stop the bus!!!! We´ve lost Leslie!"

Fortunately, the experienced traveler that she is, Leslie had a great head on her shoulders and was no worse for the ware by the time the bus had returned to the site of dissappearance. She had smartly contacted local authorities and even if we hadn´t realized that she wasn´t on the bus, we would have been turned around at the frontera and sent back for her.

Some great highlights, however, about the bus ride is that upon our arrival to Punta Arenas we were able to catch a glimpse of the island of Tierra del Fuego and the straights of Magellan, confirming that we truly had arrived at the end of the world. Yesssss. Also, we saw some amazing local wildlife as we passed through the pampas, including guanacos (a southern relative of the llama) and the Ñandu, an ostrich-like flightless bird, and flamingos.

We will be in Punta until Saturday when we embark upon the next epic part of our journey, a 5 day hike in the most visited national park in South America, Torres del Paine. So if you dont hear from us for a week, know that we will be on a mountain somewhere, doing something amazing. Pictures to follow.

Thanks for reading and talk to you soon.

Team Ustedes