Valparaiso ends it all

We took a 1.5 hour bus along Ruta 68 to the port city of Valparasio. The city consists of a beautiful walkway along the water with lots of little boats and ferries cruising through the bay. The main business districts and work offices are at sea level while most of the people live in colorful houses up the hillside. Tons of crooked and creative staircases, along with over 14 working (used to be 35) funiculars, carry the residents to their homes. There are a few roads, but they are small, windy, and don't go to most of the neighborhoods. Walking is the main mode of transit.

Many of the buildings and homes are covered in spray-painted murals of bountiful colors, sizes, and designs. Lots of the murals are designed as messages - political or expressive, while some are just pretty pictures. Some of the artists are commissioned and paid in room and board or barter. Valparaiso used to have a huge problem with tagging, so the citizens came up with the idea of the murals on the outsides of their buildings; most taggers won't tag over another artist's work out of mutual respect. Now the city is 50% or more art. You can turn any corner and see something amazing.

When Robby and I got off the bus, we went in search of the hostel I had booked online. We found it 5 blocks from the bus station, but it was locked and in the auto parts section of town. Robby was adamant that she did not want to spend her last few days of the trip in a sketchy area and in a hostel that wasn't open when you need it to be; so we googled nearby hostels and I was sold on La Nona's Bed and Breakfast. Apart from mentioning an amazing breakfast with frsh fruit and homemade yogurt and granola, they offered real (non Nescafe instant crap) coffee 24/7. Perfecto!

We happened to be the only guests of Renee, his wife, and his 2-year-old twin daughters, in their lovely home practically at the top of the first hill. Our hostel was more like a homestay than a hostel because of the twins running around and shyly peering around the doors to look at us while Renee explained all the things we could do in the city as he cooked toasted bread on the stove and offered us the carafe of percolated coffee he'd just made.

We left our homey hostel and descended the hill to Sotmeyer Square, the main meeting point for tours in the city. The Square is very different than other squares we've been to as it's three square sections divided by streets. There is no grass and there are no curbs separating the traffic from the walk areas. I constantly had to remain Robby that she was walking in the street, not on the square. The only boundary markers are faded white lines outlining the sections.

We meet up with Ines, from Chilean Cuisine, and 5 other people to begin a 6 hour Chilean cooking experience. After we all reviewed our meal options for the evening, we settled on pebre - Chilean salsa, ceviche, chaurquican- mashed potatoes with vegetables mixed in, empanadas (including a vegetarian eggplant version), and Leche Asada- Chilean flan. The first part of the cooking class was a bus trip to the central and fish markets. We arrived to discovered that there was no fish anywhere. A week prior, Valparasio suffered a huge fire that destroyed a bunch of homes and apparently most of the fisherman's homes, so they hadn't had time to fish and bring their catches to the market. We switched the ceviches for hearts of palms stuffed into avocados.

Once all the rest of the food was bought, we hopped back on a bus and then started a steep climb halfway up the hill to the cooking school where we donned aprons and chef's hats. Ines told us that the school teaches traditional Chilean meals one would find in a home, not in a restaurant. A lot of the summer meals consist of soups and warm vegetarian dishes because of the selection of vegetables available during the season. Some families also add minced meat for protein.

Robby and I chopped, peeled, and diced vegetables while chatting with the others that came to partake. We were with 2 couples and a Bostonian traveling by herself. Everyone was super nice and although some of us were better at dicing tomatoes than peeling avocados, everything turned out delicious and very filling. We enjoyed our efforts with freshly made Pisco Sours and wine.

The following day I finally got my biking wine adventure. 15 of us hopped in taxis to drive 30 minutes to the Casablanca Valley. Valparasio's wineries are not as easy to get to as Santiago's. We picked up our bikes at the Kingston Family Vineyard and spent 1.5 dirt biking alongside grapevines. It was semi-relaxing with the rows of vines whipping passed us the farther we rode, but also super exhausting. I'm very much out of shape and the three or so mini hills we biked up, just about killed me. I could also blame the intense sun for my exhaustion, but mostly it's my laziness to exercise that caused my tiredness. Good thing all the exercise was followed up with wine.

Casablanca Valley is known for producing white wines, but The Kingston Winery is a very small family owned winery that started out making red wines. They are known for their Syrah's and Pinot Noir's, but they also produce Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, plus they grow grapes for other types of wine to sell to bigger distributors. Their Pinot was great, but their Syrah's - not really my cup of tea and definitely not Robby's.

During the tour, we made friends with Carol, and so we decided to kidnap her for the rest of the day. Our biking guide told us about large sand dunes 25 minutes outside of Valparasio in the city of Con Con where you could pay the equivalent of 1 dollar and 30 cents for an hour of sand-boarding. All we had to do was hop on a city bus and when we saw the dunes, hop off. 

I rented the sit down sled type board while Robby and Carol got the stand-up boards. The dunes were rather steep and since we all had no idea what we were doing, we staked out a mini dune that was about 150 feet high. Robby and Carol definitely needed a few times going down the hill to get the hang out the board while I apparently am a natural and only fell once in about 14 turns. The sit down board was also fun, but I had lots of issues with trying to steer it and ended up in the bushes that bordered our little sand dune. Over all, I'd say sand-boarding is a lot of fun, similar to snowboarding, but instead of being wet at the end of your day, you discover sand in places it should never be.

We dusted off as much as we could before boarding the bus back to our hostels for a shower before dinner. All three of us ended up a quaint cevicheria that made delicious food. It also helped that it was a few blocks away from both our hostels, so we didn't have to walk all the way back down the hill.

We finished the evening with a night photo hike through the hills with Renee. He'd just bought a digital dslr and wanted to figure out how to use it. I wanted to see the lights of the houses and photograph some of the graffiti at night, so it was a win-win.

The last and final day of our Patagonia adventure arrived and we spent the morning learning about the unique history of Valparasio's off-beat areas while walking the hills and riding the Trolley Cars. It's the only city in Chile to have buses attached to overhead cables (like San Francisco). Most of the trolleys are from the 60's and brought over from Germany.

We had a very crappy lunch at a restaurant that promised white meat chicken, but ran out after we'd sat down, munched on bread, and ordered wine. The wine was about 10 days old and tasted like stale fruit juice. Our grilled fish arrived fried, over salted, and with skin. Overall, very unsatisfying for a last meal in Chile.

We left extremely unhappy and slightly queasy. Walking back up the hill to retrieve our backpacks from our hostel also ended up being vastly longer and harder than we anticipated because we decided to hop on the nearby funicular and ended up on the opposite side of a massive gorge from where we were suppose to be. We walked up and around, getting to see some of the more urban parts of the neighbors before finally arriving at Renee's. 

We thanked him for having us in his home and hopped on a roller coaster bus along the cliff's edge and down the hill to the bus station. Since we had a little time before our bus to Santiago, Robby and I took an elevator (was really an elevator that acted like a funicular) up a nearby hill to look at street graffiti that our tour guide had mentioned. Once at the top of the elevator, we walked back down the hill, admiring the art.

We found a cozy cafe that served amazing milkshakes and we were quite happy to quench our thirst while stepping out of the sun for a bit. Before we knew it, 5:00pm rolled around and we boarded our second to last bus in Chile. A little over 2 hours later, we arrived at the Santiago bus terminal, where we boarded our final bus to the airport.

Our Patagonian adventure month has finally come to an end and Robby and I managed to accomplish everything that we set out to do. Yes, we encountered a couple set backs in our plans: an airline strike, a few border crossings to walk through, thievery attempts, lots of bread, and not so great hostels, but we also got to climb a glacier, walk amongst penguins, eat fresh seafood for really cheap, meet amazing people, and learn a little history. Overall, this was a wonderful trip, adding more memories to our constantly growing collection, and two more pins pushed into our "The Places We've Been" board. Thank you to everyone who's been kind enough to read these past few entries and experience Patagonia with me. Now get out there and have your own adventure - you won't regret it!

Santiago: the city of ghosts

Santiago is a massive city with few people. A ghost town of eerie quiet and closed shops. At least it was this way for the first three days since we arrived. Robby and I thought that New Year's in Santiago would be amazing, so we made sure that we arrived in town the morning of the 31st. At 8am we walked the sparse streets to our airbnb - a New York sized apartment with a small kitchen in the corner of the living room/bedroom and a bathroom. It was located in a large apartment complex with a doorman right near the Plaza de Armas - center of town.

After a quick shower, we rushed to meet up with the free walking tour, where we spent the next four hours transversing across the city and learning where all the museums, bohemian neighborhoods, parks, and good places to eat were. We passed by Santa Lucia hill, the small mountain that Pedro de Valdivia, the founder of Santiago, slammed a Chilean flag into in 1540.        

Once the tour ended we found out that nothing, including restaurants, would be open passed 5pm or on New Year's day, so we walked some more to find a supermarket and attempted to get edible food to cook for the next 2 days. Along the way, we found the fashion district; vendors selling clothing and shoes, urging people to come into their stores. It was chaotic and heavily populated, but fun to be around.

Our cooking attempt didn't seem too bad given that we only had salt as a spice. It might have been the bottle of wine I drank while Robby cooked, but we at least had real food and it didn't cost and arm and a leg (we found out fancy hotel restaurants were actually open). At 10pm we ventured outside. Everyone told us to watch the Santiago New Year's fireworks from Entel Tower. It was about 1 km from our airbnb, so we didn't think we'd have an issue getting there, but apparently many of the streets were cordoned off, separating us from the tower, or even managing to cross the large intersection to get to the tower's side of the street. After walking a mile out of our way to see if there was a cut through, and not finding one, we just walked back towards our place and ended up near this tall spiral tower that many people were all starring at. 

The tower displayed a video screen with a live band singing on it while music blasted through the night. We found a small spot in a crowd of 100's and waited for midnight. More and more people arrived, trapping us in a sea of silly string spraying, glitter bombing locals. It was claustrophobic, but exciting. Everyone's joyous energy radiated throughout the crowd and inspired happiness. At midnight, we found out why all the streets were cordoned off, the spiral tower was the epicenter of the fireworks with baby fireworks firing from the surrounding buildings. We'd somehow stumbled upon one of the best locations to bring in the New Year's in Santiago.

The morning of the 1st, the zombie apocalypse hit. We were up and out by 10am (nothing in this town is open before 10, so no use getting up early) and we steeped into emptiness. The 1000's of people that we'd encountered the night before were all nursing their hangovers in their homes. Metal gates locked the shops as we walked to the fish market. It's said that the day after New Year's, everyone that is still awake, goes to the fish market for a fish stew to nurse their hangovers. Hence, we knew that the market would be open. It was, but by the time we got there, we actually weren't hungry enough for the stew. We just wandered through the fish stalls (there weren't many), and avoided the numerous restaurants asking us to sit down. 

20 minutes later we were back outside, wondering what to do. Robby had read that people go to the Parque Forestal on New Year's day to sit and relax, so we headed there. Along the way we found women selling a ceviche and spaghetti mix out of shopping carts along the street. Naturally we had to buy some and it was tasty. We also happened upon a man selling a desert bar that tasted like bread pudding mixed with mochi. Street food really is the best.

We didn't last too long sitting in the park; it was beautiful, but we were restless. We came to Santiago to explore, so that's what we were going to do. We noticed a giant mountain with a very large statue of the Virgin Mary on it. As we walked the empty streets towards the Statue of Immaculate Conception on San Cristobal Hill, we admired the vast amounts of street art. Santiago has some of the best graffiti I've seen; similar to the Wynward Walls in Miami - stylized art pieces sprayed onto any building's exterior. In the sub-city of Bellavista, where we were, it seemed to be common place.

The entrance to the Statue was inside the Santiago Metropolitan Park. We arrived at the entrance to the funicular - a little train car that is pulled up a practically vertical hill by a large metal cable. We had to wait in the hot sun for over an hour to get to the ticket window because apparently numerous other people had the same idea for the day. If no museums or shops are open, why not see a statue on a hill in a large park?

The funicular was a little creepy, if the cable snapped, bye bye Robby and Em. It was old and made in a 2nd world country. Going up was enough for me- we were definitely walking back down the hill. The cool thing was that this park had the zoo in it, something that we always like to visit in other countries, so we now had our next journey planned out. The funicular ended at the base of the Mary Statue, next to a closed church and a lookout ledge that showed the vast city. Santiago stretched for miles in all directions, much larger than I had thought it to be. Luckily everything that we really wanted to see - mostly the museums, seemed to be centered around our airbnb and the three neighborhoods we kept wandering through. 

After seeing the massive statue, we attempted to hike down the mountain to the zoo, but were given confusing directions from the locals on how to get there. Instead of finding the zoo, we got to discovered that this park is bigger than Griffith Park in LA or 2-3x bigger than Central Park in NY (or at least it felt that way). We ended up walking down the the switchbacks, that many people seemed to be hiking or biking up (ugh, exhausting), for about 3 miles in the blazing sun. We ended up next to a couple gardens and on the complete opposite side of the zoo. Good thing there were maps everywhere because we found that we were only another 1.7 kms from a subway station. Yep, I was done walking. No zoo for us.

On the way to the subway, we ended up walking through the fancy part of Santiago - large houses with trimmed hedges, long driveways, and clean streets. Still not many people about and definitely a lot of closed storefronts, but a cute area. We found a large street with numerous buses zipping by, so after asking, one said it went near the Plaza de Armas (only 6 blocks from our airbnb), so we got on, and held on. Santiago bus drivers might all have been demolition derby drivers in a past life. They speed through the streets and then slam on the brakes 2 feet from the bus stop. We saw a double-extension bus race through a yellow light going at least 45mph into the 90 degree turn it was making. Like being on a very cheap roller coaster.

Luckily the bus we were on drove passed the main street near our airbnb, putting us within 3 blocks of it. A shower, more home cooked food, and a Netflix movie finished out our New Year's Day.

The 31st was Saturday, the 1st was a Sunday, and now it was Monday. The one thing about every country in the world, but America, is that museums are not open on Mondays. So began another day of nothing being open. At the Presidential Palace, we did get to watch the changing of the guards - a ridiculously long show of military people marching up the street and into the courtyard to yell at each other while their band played pretty music. Robby and I were hoping for some gun twirling or a marching routine, but it was kind of a snore-fest. We lasted 20 minutes, after waiting over an hour for the thing to start because they changed the times on us.

Under the Palace was a compilation space that housed little shops and an exhibition on Picasso. With nothing better to do, we went to admire the famous artist, who surprisingly, does have pieces that aren't all swiggles that normal people can't interpret. 

The previous day I had googled things to do and had booked a Wine tour where we got to bike through a pretty vineyard. They spouted that the vineyard was very easy to get to on public transit and it turned out to be true. But it was over an hour on the subway with a "20 minute walk from the station". That 20 minute walk was really a 40 minutes walk on a dirt path, 3 inches from speeding cars in 95 degree heat. I really, really wanted wine by the time the vineyard came within view.

We entered the front gates, seeing a tree-lined path leading to a lush fields of grapes. I was so excited, then the biking guide stepped out from behind the little guard shack and crushed my happiness. Since the vineyard was usually closed on Sundays, but it being New Year's Day on Sunday and the vineyard being closed for that, the vineyard decided to give it's employees an extra day off - Monday, the current day. Our guide was very apologetic, but there was nothing he could do. My wine was within and at the same time, out of reach. We'd just wasted 2 hours getting there and now were going to waste more time going back to town. I guess since nothing else in town was open, we didn't miss out on much, but it still sucked.

Back on the bus and train we went. We figured that since nothing was open we might as well visit the dead - they're always receptive to visitors. Santiago has one of the biggest and oldest cemeteries in the Country. It's divided into two sections - the rich and the poor. The rich section is for famous, rich, or political people and has large mausoleums erected in their honor housing the person and their family's remains. The poor section consists of rows upon rows of "dead people apartment complexes" (what Robby and I were calling them); multi-story blocks with rows of little squares big enough to house a single coffin, stacked on top of each other and to the sides of each other. Both areas were well maintained by various workers inside, so the cemetery held a peaceful quiet with in a garden like setting.

January 2nd, our final day in Santiago, was spent rushing from museum to museum. All the public museums in the city are free and as it was a Tuesday, and apparently the end of the long holiday weekend, things were open. We learned a bit on the history of the city at the National Museum before our moods turned somber after walking all three stories of the Museum of Human Rights. This museum tells about the atrocities that Chile committed against its citizens - mainly during the 70's when the military tried to make the country a Dictatorship. Over 40,000 people were detained, tortured, disappeared, and/or killed. To this day, a lot of family's still don't know what happened to their loved ones and probably never will. The museum was erected to remind people that human rights were violated and to not forget the tragedy that befell the nation.

Next, we rushed through the Natural History Museum because everything was written in Spanish and a stuffed tiger is a stuffed tiger. The Bella Arts Museum showed us that Chile is definitely not America as most of the exhibits were of naked men painted in compromising positions. They were created by an artist that was making a point on how society is altered by tv and commercialism. Pretty oils, but very racy. It was funny to see a mom walk in with her two young kids, look around, and quickly push them out.

We ended the night eating terrible veggie burgers and walking 2 kms home. A long, tiring, but eventful day.

Small towns, lakes, and morons.

Puerto Varas is in the Lakes region of Chile. It, and the numerous surrounding towns, all border Llanguihue Lake (Sunken Place) and have a huge German influence. The Germans came here in the mid 1800's because the Chilean President of the time wanted people of medium social class and high influence to colonize the lower regions of Chile. Chile is now number 2 in the world for Salmon production, behind Norway, and produces a bunch of milk and potatoes as well. The Germans built large, 7-12 bedroom houses and birthed numerous children for a labor force to work the farms they created. Most of the houses still exist, even though a lot look like they're dilapidated and shoulde be condemned; yet people are still living in them.

Two days before we arrived in Puerto Varas, Chiloe (Chill-o-way) Island - 100 kms away, suffered a 7.6 earthquake. One of the roads between Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas upended and 2 houses fell down. We asked people why it seemed like no one cared - they all were just living their lives - and we were told that Chile is a special place and always changing. The volcano nearby exploded in 2014, they live on numerous earthquake faults, and during the winters there are avalanches. So a "tiny" earthquake that didn't kill anyone, it just keeps the Chileans on their toes. And if the earthquake didn't knock down the decrepided houses, then I guess they might still be safe to live in.  

Our first tour of the region took us to the edge of All Saints Lake, a.k.a. Emerald Lake (because of the color of the water), where everyone on our tour decided to go on a boat ride, except Robby and I. We randomly found Elmer, our wheelchair friend from the Chile Chico border crossing, and decided to spend our half hour off the bus talking with him. He had managed to go kayaking twice and semi scale a mini glacier in his wheelchair. He's pretty amazing. 

Our tour people came back to land as Elmer set off on his boat excursion around the lake. We wished him well on the rest of his adventures as we headed to our next stop at the Petrohue Waterfalls. Lots of rushing water flowed over old volcano magma with the Osorno Volcano towering in the distance. The water had a pretty green color to it, adding beauty to the flowing water. After our allotted 25 minutes at the falls (the only sucky thing about tours is you have to rush from place to place and never have enough time to truly explore the place you are in it's entirety because the tours are meant to just show you the highlights and are mostly for older people that don't like walking so much), we hopped back on the bus and drove a very windy road 80kms to the base of the Osorno Volcano. 

During the winter, the active volcano is a ski resort, but during the summer, the lower ski lift takes visitors to the red crater at the point where the volcanic dirt meets the snow on the mountain. The ski lift's view didn't seem that impressive going up the mountain, but after we got off, walked 5 minutes to see a unimpresive hole in the ground (a.k.a shitty crater), the ride down the mountain was relaxing and gave Robby and I a great view of Llanguihue Lake, the towns peppered along its shores, and the four volcanos that surround the Lake; including Calbuco Volcano - the volcano that exploded two years ago and covered the area in grey ash for 4 months.

Once we were back in Puerto Varas, we had an hour to find lunch before leaving for our next tour. In that hour we discovered a little bit of heaven - a food truck street with an espresso cart that made real, and delicious, coffee. It was heaven. We also bought fresh cherries off a street cart. Puerto Varas is an adorable lake front town with the town square a block from the beach. Chileans come here during the summer to swim in the 50 degree water. They think it's warm. Lots of cute tourist cafes, bars, and clothing shops jet out from the square and spread up the hill to the residential/local part of the city.

Our 2nd tour of the day/region lead us along the back roads to small towns that definitely still had the German houses standing. We drove through what looked like Vermont with the green field and mountains, but had massive farm houses in the old fashion country style. We 1st stopped in Frutillar -which means Strawberry, but only in this region of the country. Every other Spanish speaking place calls strawberries, "fresa". Since the area gets rained on 200+ days out of the year, most fruits couldn't grow except strawberries. The area was covered in strawberry fields during the 1800 and 1900's. 

Today, the town is a small beachside community that welcomes swimmers and sunbathers and has a German Colonial Museum. Robby and I explored the museum, which was an old German family's 3 acre farm including their home, an old blacksmith shop, a rose garden, and 2 other buildings. There were replicas of the furniture, blacksmith equipment, a wheel well, and other things used to work the farm and complete the home. 

Next stop was Puerto Octay. It's name is funny for Chileans because it's the only one of its kind. There used to be just one general store in the region, owned by Christo Ochs, and he sold everything. When settlers would arrive in the port (any town with "puerto" in front was a port town as puerto means port), they would ask the locals where to get something and everyone would always say, "donde Ochs hay" which means "you'll get it at Ochs". So Ochs and Hay became "Octay".

It's now a sleepy town of 3000 people with some of the oldest, 130+ years old, still standing German houses. Many have been turned into stores and a very large mansion one is a college. Robby and I had fun taking pictures and buying local cheese and dried salmon from the market. 

We ended our backcountry tour at our airbnb, where we walked into the chicken restaurant next door and somehow walked out with a roasted half chicken they took off a spit in the back. We ate like heathens in the apartment, with no plates, and washed it down with beer we bought after walking in and out of five mini marts. 

The next morning we headed to Chiloe Island. We got to ride on another car ferry, but since it was extremely foggy, we couldn't see any birds or seals. The island is 1.5 hours from Puerto Varas and most know for wooden churches built by the Jesuits in the 1700 and 1800's as well as multicolored houses on stilts. We came for the iconic stilt houses of Castor, the main town on the island. The houses were originally built by the poor because the government wouldn't give them land, so the waterfront was free territory and up went their community. But, like most gentrifications, poor areas become nice areas and the stilt houses were no exception. In the last few years contractors have been scooping them up and turning them into adorable boutique hotels and mini shops. Some of the original owners still live in their homes, so the community is a mix bag.

We happened upon the houses at low tide, so we mostly saw the stilts lodged in the mud. But the colors were pretty and once we convinced a hotel to let us onto their back patio, we realized that the houses were fairly sturdy and offered a great view of the water. 

We continued on to Dalcahue, a very small town that had a cute artist market and was right on the water. We went in search of some purple corn bread our guide told us about, but all the vendors didn't understand what we were asking for and kept trying to sell us fried bread with meat inside. I guess only the people in the know can find the purple bread.

Our last stop of the tour was in Ancud, where the tour ticket seller forgot to mention that the tour would be stopping at a very fancy tourist restaurant for lunch, leaving us very little option but to eat there or starve. Luckily, most tourist restaurants take forever to serve people and since Robby and I don't mind walking, we headed into the nearby town center for cheaper eats. We found delicious seafood empanadas and a shrimp and cheese one that was like fondu in a warm bread casing.

Two other people from our tour had the same idea and we caught up with them on the walk back to the fancy restaurant. Since we figured the rest of the tour people would still be eating, we decided to visit the old San Antonio Fort on the hill. All that remained of the once mighty fort (because all forts were mighty) was a red brick perimeter wall and a bunch of canons - most likely replicas of the real ones. The fort sat on the cliff and looked out onto the South Pacific.

Our last half day in Puerto Varas was spent meandering the town. We stopped in Museo Pablo Fierro - a house with added on sections, including a car through the side of the building and numerous floors covered in thank you letters from children as well as the artist's sketches of the buildings in town. An eclectic mix of junk and interesting architectural decisions.

We happened upon a lake boat cruise that was leaving 5 mins after we showed up and offered an included Pisco sour- the sort of official drink of the country (but it is also Peru's drink of choice, so there is some debate as to which country is the founder of the semi sour liquor. A Chilean that we met said most Chilean's prefer sweet stuff and since Pisco Sours are not sweet, maybe it is the drink of Peru. Useless stuff to ponder). Robby and I sat at the bow of the boat, leaning against the cantina's front window and admiring the calm of the lake while the sun turned us into lobsters. It was a very relaxing hour journey, even though we got quite sunburnt. 

We said goodbye to Puerto Varas and hopped on the local bus to Puerto Montt. There are official bus stops, but the drivers mainly lurch to a stop if they see anyone put their hands out for a ride. We weren't sure if the 20 minute ride was going to take us an hour because our driver slammed on the brakes every 100 yards. But 30 minutes later we ended up at the main bus terminal in Puerto Montt. We were catching a 12 hour night bus to Santiago three hours later and wanted to make sure we were at the right station. The bus company said yes, and that are bus left at 7pm, leaving us 3 hours to explore the local fish market.

The fish market was very small, but offered fresh ceviche consisting of white fish and salmon. There were other kinds including octopus and some mucus type sea creature that grossed Robby and I out. We ate some normal ceviche while watching gigantic sea lions fight each other for the fish remains the shop owners tossed into the bay. If it wasn't for the viciousness in which they hit each other trying to get the food, the sea lions looked like cute little sea puppies - even going so far as to have "puppy eyes" when looking up at us. I tossed them the remains of my ceviche, but it did not appease them.

At 6:45pm, Robby and I stood in the packed bus station asking every bus that came in if it was our bus. At 6:55pm, we got slightly worried we were at the wrong station, but numerous bus drivers told us the Santiago bus would be arriving in one of the far stalls. 7:10pm panic set in. All the other buses seemed to have been leaving on time and yet our bus was late? Robby finally asked a station attendant what was up and he just told us to follow him, shaking his head. He lead us to the bus counter where they said the bus was at the main terminal for the company, not there. Um, 3 hours previous we had confirmed we were at the right place, but apparently the lady we talked to was a moron. 

The station agent shoved us into a cab and said good luck. We had no idea where the driver was taking us - we were thinking Puerto Varas, and as it was 7:16pm at rush hour, there was no way we were making the 7:30pm bus, if that was the case. The taxi driver started asking us why we're at the wrong station, did we call the bus terminal at the right station to hold the bus, etc. We just says, "No Se".

Apparently we were not headed back to Puerto Varas as 10 minutes up the hill we arrived at Cruz de Sur's main bus terminal in Puerto Montt. The taxi driver leapt out of his cab, thrusts our backpacks into our hands, and sprinted for the entrance. We did a mini remake of Home Alone, racing through the terminal to a bus with 3 attendants all standing out front smiling at us. The previous station agent had called ahead and told the bus to wait for us.

By the skin of our teeth we were tucked into the semi private lower level of the double decker bus with seats that mostly reclined, blankets, and a cold soda. The best part was at 9:45pm the driver felt it was bedtime, so he dimmed all the lights and the bus attendant came through, leaning over us to shut the curtains and tucked the blankets around us. Apparently it was nighty-night time.

Taking the long way round

In Coyhaique, we picked up two hitchhikers at Hostal Salamandras. Jon (from Colorado) and Makarena (from Santiago) really wanted to go to Puerto Rio Tranquilo and we just happen to have rented a large SUV and were headed there ourselves. Along the 5.5 hour drive to the small seaside town, we stopped in Villa Cerro Castillo, the only city on our drive of the la Carretera Austral, or Route 7. It was super small, but had a roadside cafe inside two soldered school buses, where we stopped and grabbed cheese sandwiches.

About 4 kms from Villa Cerro Castillo, we stopped briefly at Alero de las Manos Rupestres - caves dwellings with red handprints painted along the cliff face. The caves belonged to the Tehuelches people and their handprints are similar to handprints found throughout the world. No one knows quite what they mean, but they are interesting to see and since we couldn't stop at Cave of the Hands in Argentina (a cave with 1000's of handprints), this was the next best thing.

Once back on the road, we got our monies worth out of the 4-wheel drive as the pavement ended and a very dusty, rocky, and narrow road twisted its way through a forest, along the coastline of a blue-green lake, and passed hermit occupied houses.  We knew ahead of time that the road was supposed to be crappy, but it turned out to be quite beautiful as well, and, for the most part, the drivers coming from the other direction stayed on their side of the small road. I only hit one issue driving and that was for the last hour, I was stuck behind a collectivo van that kicked up so much dust I couldn't see unless I was driving 1/2 km behind him. It kind of sucked, but he drove like a maniac, so I didn't want to pass him.

We reached Puerto Rio Tranquilo (PRT) at about 4 pm. Not bad considering our late start in the morning trying to figure out how to get the rental car and then grab money since this was our first real day in Chile. We came to this 4 square block town with about three restaurants and a ton of cabin/hostels because they offer boat rides to Carpillas de Marmol -or Marble Caves. If you google "Marble Caves and Chile", beautiful pictures of blue/purple swirling cave walls hovering over a green sea will pop up. These images influenced our decision to rent a car and drive 6 hours one way on a shitty ass road to visit them. We had also heard that the caves were best viewed at sunrise, so we had pre-booked a 2 bedroom cabin with its own kitchen for the night, months earlier. It worked out well because Jon and Makarena ended up needing somewhere to stay and we had the room.

The town is also a jumping off place for glacier hiking where you actually get to crawl inside the ice. If we had know ahead of time, we would have changed our plans to go on another glacier, but we had only the next morning to see the caves and then drive to the airport, 5 hours away. Jon and Makarena didn't have a time constraint and book themselves a glacier tour. They said they'd have fun for us.

It turned out to be Jon's birthday, so we wandered PRT looking for a cake in all the bakeries. He was obvious to our numerous stops in and out of bread shops. I think he thought we were looking for the perfect bread. Eventually we found one store that sold a fruit tart. Better than nothing, plus it ended up tasting rather delicious. We had local beer in a small cafe and tried the Chilean version of nachos - french fries topped with cheese, onions, meat or vegetables. It was amazing, greasy and heart clogging, but finger-licking good.

Our boat to the caves was at 7am the following morning, so at 6:15am, Jon cooked us all eggs and veggies. He also let me use up the last of his instant coffee, so I guess it was a good thing we let him stay in the cabin. Once we all packed up, we headed the 3 blocks to the beach. During the 20 minute boat ride to the caves, I came to realize that the drivers just open the throttle and turn the wheel back and forth while racing headlong into waves. We hit 3 foot swells going about 30mph (or it felt that way). Our boat was luckily loaded up with 10 people, which made me feel safer, maybe the weight would kept it from capsizing. But we made it to the calm turquoise waters of the marble caves.

Most of the caves are attached to the cliffs surrounding the lake, but "the Cathedral" and another cave were independent of land and rose out of the water to stand 100+ feet high. Our driver took the boat inside two of the caves, giving us an up close view of the swirling walls. The pictures online look blue and purple, but in person, the cave walls are yellow, white, and some have a slight green tint to them. Robby and I were a little disappointed that we weren't seeing what Google toted, but our cameras ended up capturing some blues and purples. Maybe a little Photoshop work and we'll have the google pictures.

We left Jon and Makarena in PRT and headed to the Balmaceda Airport. We tried to find more hitchhikers to help out by bringing them most of the way to Coyhaique, but no one was around, so we had a nice drive with just the two of us. Balmaceda is a shit-hole town of 1 scary restaurant, 2 mini-marts, and the airport. Good thing we only needed to hop on a plane and not actually stay there. 3 hours later we touched down in Puerto Montt. A representative of Say Hueque, our tour company, picked us up and drove us 30 minutes to our airbnb in Puerto Varas. 

The airbnb turned out to be a 2-bedroom upstairs apartment with full kitchen, living room, and dining room. All ours, so of course within 10 minutes our backpacking bags exploded all over the living room and we had wet laundry hanging from the doors and over the backs of chairs; we really know how to make ourselves at home. Sergio, the proprietor, lived downstairs and also operated a small Knicks-knack shop out of the front. We used Google translate to talk, while he told us a little about the town and how we were lucky because it had been raining the previous days and was sunny now.