The Archipelago of Chiloe, Chile

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   Chiloe is filled with quiet little fishing villages, friendly people, and a quiet relaxing charm. We have enjoyed our few days in this place. We begain in Ancud, then made our way to Dalcahue and spent a night in Achao.

This is the oldest church on the islands. The churches are considered a UNESCO World Heritage site. This particular one is the oldest and it was made with ALL wood, including the nails!

See the smoke in the background of this picture? That is a Fumarole from the Volcano that erupted recently in Chaiten. We won´t be staying in that town long. Since the eruption, it has been all but abandoned, people and businesses are leaving, the water is no longer safe to drink. We are not expecting a very upbeat place when we arrive tomorrow morning.

We are currently waiting for a boat in Quellon, at the anticlimatic ending of the Panamericana Highway. In other parts of the country it is magnificent, unfortunately not here in the lonely planets description of a ¨dumpy port¨ town. Anyway our boat was supposed to have left this morning at 8 AM and instead because of bad weather yesterday, it has been pushed back to tonight at 2 AM! yikes... so much for our scenic ride! We are taking advantage of this time and updating our resumes, cover letters, and looking for jobs online. Any suggestions or ideas please send them our way!

Once we arrive to Chaiten, we will head down the Carreterra Austral, the roadway along the skinniest section of Chile in Patagonia. It is supposed to be beautiful!

Chiloe Pictures

Bariloche... The Lakes District of Argentina

Well we made it to Bariloche after 6 days STRAIGHT on busses. 6 bus rides, 5 nights sleeping on the bus, 4 countries, and a week without a shower!

We were sure glad when we got to Argentina to the Lakes District and Bariloche. The town is known for it´s great ice cream and hiking. After a day of doing logistical stuff (and eating ice cream), we decided to do a hike. Tony told me a story about his last trip to Bariloche in which he went on the ¨hardest hike of his life¨. And he decided he wanted to share that experience with me! We were only able to do half of the trip because snow and ice conditions closed part of the trail, but the hardest part was still open (luckily, right? Always looking for a challenge ;) Anyway we packed up and headed out the first day. We hiked 14 km to Refugio Italia at about 6,000 ft. It took about 5 hours and it was mostly uphill, but not too bad. (In Patagonia they have refugios set up throughout the hiking areas to provide people with a place to sleep, food, etc. although they are usually pretty expensive, so we just camp near them.) It was beautiful, sunny, hot and we enjoyed a bottle of wine with the sunset (because we are so far down south the sun doesn´t set until about 9 PM around this time of year). We happily went to bed and woke up the next morning to rain/snow and dismal conditions! We knew that we could complete the rest of the hike in about a day because it was around 14 km, but up and down some difficult terrain. But we decided to play it safe and we spent the day hunkered down in the tent! See the pictures above... day one versus day two!

The third day was absolutely gorgeous! Clear and brisk, but sunny. Perfect hiking conditions. So Tony told me that we would hike up to a pass, then down into a valley and then up to another pass and then a steep downclimb to another Refugio. It was a little slippery with the snow so we carefully picked our way through rocks following the trail markers. Now South Americans are a little nuts in my opinion, because they decide to put trails in places that you would never even think a trail could exist! Take a look at the picture with the big mountain in the background and the rocks on the left, at the very top of the pile of rocks is Tony on the trail that I was following him on! That mountain is called Mount Tronodor and was an amazing surprise to see at the crest of the first pass!

Then we hiked down into a valley and that is when Tony started re-telling tales from his last trip of how the craziest part was up next. Take a look at this picture of the huge skree field.... the first picture shows what we hiked up and the second shows it from about halfway up facing down with Mount Tronodor in the background. If you look very closely you can see people in both pictures.



Man was this section was hard! And we had packs on our backs as well, so we were leaning in and stepping forward and falling back and sending rocks flying behind us while dodging rocks at time from people above us! Absolutely nuts!

But the view from the top was worth it! The lakes appeared on the other side and we saw condors flying, it was amazing!

Then we had to hike down...

Needless to say our knees, thighs, ankles, and feet are still recovering, it was one of the most challenging hikes and most rewarding at the same time. I am grateful that Tony took me there to see it!

We headed out of the lakes district on Monday and officially entered Patagonia... we are on the Island called Chiloe on the West coast of Chile right now. We will be here until Friday and then we are off to the Carretera Austral. More to come... hope all are well! love C & T!

The second half of our Galapagos Experience Yolita II

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Finally we get to finish our Galapagos trip details sorry it has taken so long....

http://www.offexploring.com/scottfree/blog/ecuador/galapagos-islands Check out this link, our friends Eric and Margaret from Scotland have been traveling for 30 months! We met them on this trip and they wrote a great description of our tour so check it out for details of the Guantanamera Trip...

PART II of the Galapagos! The Yolita II...we arrived on this boat at around 11 in the morning at the port right next to the airport. We were able to check out the boat before the other passengers arrived with our friends Cecilie and Morten who had been with us on the Guantanamera. BIG rooms, bathrooms and fancy leather couches in the common area LUXURY!!

Anyways that is enough about the boat. We collected the rest of the people and headed to a secluded beach to snorkel and see see turtles. It was a mellow day. Then we went to our most colorful island the next day and saw land iguanas different from marine iguanas. Large and Yellow. They get eaten by hawks. There were also tons of sea lions.

Then we motored to another island and did some snorkeling and saw sharks and turtles and rays. Walked on land and saw mice and land iguanas and all types of finches darwin examined.

The next day we hit espanola and saw a rare (for this time of year) albatross and the islands hawk. Huge land and marine iguanas and it was great. Snorkeling was awesome 2 times this day and we saw octopus and eels more sharks, rays, turtles tons of fish. We continued to Isla Floreanna for our last day on the boat. We again snorkled 2 times and walked again the same similar stuff but the highlight was snorkeling with the galapogos penguins (waiting for some pics from our friends of that!) and then hanging out with sea turtles for a long time. The whole two hours was a water wonderland. Fantastic. Overall Galapogos was fantastic and amazing and we are glad we splurged.

We are now heading home on the last day of february to start work. The galapogos wiped us out but we are glad we did it and reccommend you all to do the same. We have bussed all the way down to Patagonia (southern Argentina and Chile) - it only took us 6 days by bus! - now we are out for some more backpacking and enjoying the wilderness...we will catch up with you soon!

love C & T

Galapagos Videos

Guantanamera... The First Four Days...

Rabida Island with the red and Baby Sea Lion!

Our beautiful boat Guantanamera!

WOW what a fantastic 10 days we spent on the Galapagos Islands. We booked an 8-day boat tour with a boat called the Guantanamera. When we met with our group we were told that on the fourth day we would be transferring to a sister boat called the Yolita II which was an upgrade to our first boat. FANTASTIC!

But first, we had a blast on the Guantanamera... folks from all over the globe, Russia, Denmark, Scotland, Ireland, and Italy. We enjoyed a comfortable boat with great food and a fantastic guide named Camilo. We toured from Isla Santa Cruz up to Isla Rabida, Isla Bartolome, then all the way past the equator to Genovesa Island (one of our favorites!). Genovesa is actually an island in the shape of a ¨C¨and it is a huge caldera or volcano cone. We anchored in the center of the C and enjoyed snorkeling and bird watching.

When we get to a faster computer I will try to upload videos and part two of our 8 day trip on the Yolita! That´s all for now.... love C & T