More Chile Adventures: Puyuhuapi!

The adventures continue!

Our next stop after our ferry rides and another several hours in our van was one of my very favourite stops: Puyuhuapi! We stayed in Puyuhuapi for 3 nights in Bartolo's aunt's cabana's. Bartolo's aunt treated us all like family and made sure we were welcomed in her cabana... This what part of what made Puyuhuapi my favourite... the other part is the amazing day trips that we did: 2 beautiful hikes to look at (and touch) glaciers. You aint even ready for these amazing pictures... not photoshopped even though they look it!

We arrived in Puyuhuapi very late in the evening (11pm) and were greted with a late night buffet of goodies from Bartolo's aunt. She also told us what the options for day trips are and we made some plans for the few days we would be in Puyuhuapi.

For the first day, we packed our lunches with all our staple foods: cheese sandwiches & fruits. All prepared for our day hike to Queulat trail to check out a glacier!

And so the hike begins with this crazy bridge that had a limited capacity of 6 people. It worried me a little...

The trails of this hike were very drawn out for hikers, and it was a moderate hike. There were definitely some spots that were even on the hard side, but I'm not complaining since our 2 days of hiking in Puyuhuapi (and another glacier hike) are almost all the exercise we got while in Chile! (maybe another reason for those additional 7lbs?).

Group shot! One of our timed photos so that we can get everyone together! It was just after this picture that I realized how silly it is to being a white sweater on a hike... I do stuff like that all the time. Me and Nikki hiking in skirts in Australia is coming to mind right now...

This is the amazing glacier that we were hiking closer nd closer to! Each time we had a good view of it, we took approximately 1 million pictures. Then we would find another view even better and take another million... It's because it was THIS beautiful!

Sometimes the most beautiful things in life are natural!

And after a beautiful hike, we made it to the top! At the top, we stopped for some lunch and of course for some pictures.

Then we began our descent back down... This was my first day hiking the Andes mountains!  Even my ears popped from the altitude change!

After our trek back down the mountain, we noticed that right at the beginning there was a split in the trail, where you can go either the way we went to hike up the mountain... or another way...

we thought we'd explore the other way too...

And we found more beautiful scenery! And the lagoon of the glacier! This picture was taken just before the lagoon!

Puyuhuapi Day 2:

Trail #2!!
It is close to Puyuhuapi, but it is actually about an hour and a half drive from the town...
This one is a newer trail that was only opened about 2 years ago. This makes it more challenging, but way more lush and natural looking! This trail was nicer than the previous days trail! SO green...

We brought along Bartolo's cousin Valentina for this hike too!

There are no pictures that do justice for the hike that we did... it was breathtaking. There was so much green to look at and it was so different than anything I've seen before... every inch of the trees bark was covered in green! We also saw a lot of wild bamboo growing around the trail.

Early on in this hike, we realized that we loved every inch of this trail and stopped every second to take a picture. A photo-intervention was needed in order for us continue along this hike and make progress...

Hiking through a lush rainforest, alongside a glacier and this is still what surrounds us... the views were just amazing from every angle.

After our amazing lush green hike, this is the end of the amazing trail... right at the lagoon! This water was close enough to touch.. and it was FREEZING cold.. don't let the shorts and t-shirt fool you! There were big pieces of the glacier which had fallen into the water and were not melted... Warren did consider swimming among these pieces of snow/ice. I can't even go into a regular swimming pool without complaining of the cold... I did stick my hands in... and eat the glacier ice!

 

We had our lunch here at the lagoon, and what was really cool was occasionally we could hear thunder-like sounds, which was the snow avalanching down. After eating lunch, eating glacier ice/snow, and making our own trail down the rock river creating from the glacier, we headed back to our cabana...

 After we arrived back from our hike, we had planned on cooking supper for Bartolo's aunt and his cousin to show our appreciation for everything that they had done for us. But then she informed us that she had arranged for a BBQ for us...With all THIS meat!!! This was definitely tops when it comes to our dinners in Chile... with lots of traditional Chilean sides with the meat... pebre (tomatoes, cilantro, red peppers, onion... almost like a salsa), and the traditional tomato and onion salad.

For our last supper in Puyuhuapi, we wanted to make something to contribute to the supper that Bartolo's aunt had prepared.. so we made pisco sour... from limes!

Chels and I hand squeezed probably about 15 limes.... so much work...then we used this entire bottle of pisco for our final product... and man was it potent!

This was an awesome final night in Puyuhuapi!











The next day we left Puyuhuapi, heading toward our camping destination, and most Southern point of Chile that we reached, Puerto Rio Tranquil.

Chile: The first few days of Roadtrip: The route to Pucon & beyond

We left on Thursday February 21st to start our descent to the South of Chile in our awesome van! Let me show you the van that we virtually destroyed on the crazy, windy dirt roads of Southern Chile:

We sure did eat, sleep, and live out of this van!

On our way to our first destination City, we stopped by a Mapuche museum along the road. "Mapuche" refers to the Native people of Chile. I learned a little bit about the Maphuche peoples while in Chile, and it sounds like their lifestyle is similar to what I know of the Canadian Native population. The people are very spiritual, use many natural remedies to heal, and have many historical traditions and customs. We also learned that similar to those with Native ancestry in Canada, the Mapuche people continue to fight the government for their land in Chile as well.

Mapuche Museum: I would write the Name of the town here if I remembered it! 

This is a Maphuche house that was in the back of the Maphuche museum. We went here for a little lunch before continuing along on to a little Italian inspired town and many more hours of van travelling (we arrived at our final destination at 1am).

Also in the Mapuche hut, we purchased many bags of homemade mierken.. a seasoning very popular in Chile made of dried hot red peppers. This seasoning has made our suppers extra delicious (and spicy!) since arriving back home! I put that sh*t on everything.

In the mapuche hut, we had several traditional Chilean dishes... empanada's (AMAZING chicken ones!!), and the traditional Chilean drink with a dried peach, juice, and grains "Mote con huesillo".

Capitan Pastene: Small Italian settlement town

After leaving the Mapuche museum, we headed closer to our destination of Pucon, stopping at this little Italian inspired town where they sold dried ham legs: for prosciutto!

Also in this little Italian town: Capitan Pastene we stopped for some supper in an amazing restaurant. Here Aleksy and I had delicious ravioli: salmon and pistachio.

Pucon: The touristy, Volcano Town

We arrived in a big tourist city Pucon at around 1am and searched for about 2 hours until finding a place to stay the night. This is the next morning after we woke up, realized there was a volcano right outside of our hotel room window! This is one of out many stops for fresh bread at a panaderia. Perfect for breakfast with marmalada (jam) and quesada (cheese) and for lunch sandwiches!

Thank you delicious Panaderia's for the extra 7 lbs.

And THIS is the amazing Volcano that we did not see the night we arrievd but we could see from our hotel window the night we arrived. We only stayed in that hotel for 1 night because you know... $70 a night was super expensive and we moved to one of our many rented Cabana's (cottages) that cost us an amazing $40/night per couple!

This is the beach in Pucon... the "sand" on the beach was dark ash (like coal from the volcano) and was not your typical soft beachy sand! You can see the colour difference in this picture.

After exploring the town for the day and some helado chocolate (ice cream!), we decided to head to the volcano to hike up it! Unfortunately, right from the time we decided to head to the volcano (about 10 km from the town) it became cloudy. The volcano is right behind us in this picture but you can only see the base...

During the winter, there are many fully functional ski trails where you can ski the volcano. There was a trail that you can walk up the volcano right underneath the ski lifts, but because the rain was coming in, we took an alternative route.This picture shows the hike that we took at the base of the volcano! We took a piece of this coal-based  ground home with us...

The day that we spent in Pucon (the touristy town 10km from the volcano) was amazingly sunny and beautiful. We left in our awesome van to hike the volcano around 3pm and it immediately became cloudy, which gave us cloudy volcano pictures which otherwise would have been super amazing. Like this one ^... try to envision it without cloudiness... pretty sweet!

After our exploration in the town centre of Pucon and the nearby volcano, we continued our trek South. This is us preparing to board our second Ferry from Hornopiren with some chocolate caliente (hot chocolate) for me and espresso for Aleksy. The Ferry in the background is the one we took... it was a long one (about 5 hours). The first Ferry that we took was late at night the previous night to the day of this picture... it was a quick one.

The scenery while on the Ferry was breathtaking. Actually, the scenery in all of Chile that we saw was amazing, We just don't have anything comparable in Southwestern Ontario: the amazing Andes Mountains allowed for constant stops along the way for pictures.

This was one of the stops along the route to the South of Chile. The route was called the "Austral"... it was a windy, mostly dirt road that takes you to the Southernmost town of Chile... for most Southern towns, it is the only road to access the towns.

Here we stopped to take a picture with an area of dead trees. Areas like this are pretty common along the Austral because of the number of volcanoes in Chile. An erupted volcano with the hot ashes reaching significant distances cause these trees to die, You can also see the ash on the ground around the dead trees.

Chaiten: The City of Ashes

Along our route, we stopped to see the progress that the town of Chaiten has made in rebuilding their town. The Chaiten volcano erupted in 2008, causing the town to evacuate and houses such as this one ^ to fill with ashes, becoming non-livable. For the town, this caused devastation: much of their cattle (their means of living) died in the eruption and they were left without electricity for 2 years (our friends were in Chaiten in 210 and they had their electricity back not long after). Our friends who had been to Chaiten 3 years ago did see a huge improvement on the clean-up of the ash in the town, but unfortunately houses like this are still one in every few houses (right beside this home there was a rebuilt home with a family living in it).

A stop at the Terma (natural hot spring!!) along the Austral:

Along our route, we stopped to cook some supper over a fire and check out a natural hot spring! The pictures above were taken in a little gazebo that we cooked some supper on (veggies, sandwiches  LOTS of avocado! always lots of avocado!)

And this is the hot spring. It was actually quite cold out on this day (do you see my winter coat?) so putting a bikini on was not on the to-do list for me, and we also were there right at the end of the day (the terma closed at 8pm and we arrived around 6:30pm). It was really cool that the water was naturally hot (like a hot tub), but the owners of this hot spring had man-made pools that contained the water, which made it feel less natural.

More pictures and stories to come from further South in Chile, and Argentina!

Chile: Before the Road trip: Concepcion & area

This is the first post of our Chile trip! It feels like weeks and weeks ago that we were in Chile, but I am excited to blog all about our fantastic experiences.

We arrived in Conception, Chile on Valentines Day. We stayed in a cottage where our favorite Chilean friends were married until the following Tuesday and headed out on the road trip 2 days later on the Thursday.
Valentine's day was the day of Alejandra and Bartolo's civil wedding. Lucky for me, I packed a dress for the civil wedding in my carry-on because my luggage did not make it to Conception with me :( But I did have it delivered to Alejandra and Bartolo's flat the next day.

 This is the first day we arrived and the day of the civil wedding. It took place at a cottage that we stayed in for the wedding day as well. We were there about 5 nights. This is the view from the yard of the cottage... the bay of the ocean!

Alejandra and Bartolo's civil wedding day. It was a beautiful ceremony on a beautiful evening on Valentines Day and it was followed by lots of wine and dancing (and wigs and scarves).

From the cottage, we were walking distance from the ocean and there was a trail all the way to the ocean. Along the shore, it was common to find these dead washed up crabs (on the right) and on the left is a claw we found (maybe from a lobster?).

By the ocean in the same place we found the crabs and the lobster claw.

There was one challenge in the trail to the beach... and it was this tunnel. The reason the tunnel is there is because it was an old railway track. This was a very long, cold, dark, and curved tunnel and it was very scary to get to the other side... and it was the only way to the beach! This is one of our day trips to the beach with Aleksy and I, Chels and Warren and some of Alejandra and Bartolo's family members!

This is what was on the other side of the tunnel! An amazing beach (but with lots of washed up dead crabs).

This is one of the dead crabs... lunch?

This is Saturday February 16th, the day of the wedding! Alejandra and Bartolo and for us to stand up with them as bridesmaids and groomsmen. It was a rainy morning, but ended up being a beautiful day. Bartolo was really counting on the weather to cooperate so that he was able to cook his animals over the fire: he had lamb, and goat cooked over the fire.

 This picture is from right after Ale and Bartolo arrived back to the cottage after the ceremony which was at a little church in a little town close by. Ale and Bartolo had a choreographed dance prepared for the wedding... so much fun!

 This is the set up (and view!) for the wedding! So beautiful!

After all of the wedding festivities were over, we began some sightseeing around Concepcion. This was a stop in a nearby fish town where we had some lunch and were introduced to some common Chilean food and drink. This day in particular was the "Pisco sour" day! Pisco is a Chilean liquor, like a wine-based whisky that is not found in Canada but is EVERYWHERE in Chile! On this day, we also had some empanada's (which are everywhere!) of mariscos (seafood) and fish.

This picture was taken at the University of Concepcion, this is where Ale and Bartolo go to school and you can actually see the University from the balcony of their flat! This exploring was the night before we left for our road trip... we stayed in their flat for a couple nights before heading out in our rented van!

Our "Green" (St. Patty's) Weekend

We made it back from Chile and Argentina safe and sound last weekend. Although we have only been back for one week, it feels more like one month! We arrived back to 2 days of birthday celebrating for my now 5-year old niece Rachel, and now 17-year old brother! And it was back to work on Monday!

This weekend is usually the weekend that we spend celebrating "Green" day in Mississauga with Jon Jon and Nikki Nikki but this year there was a change in plans because the annual St. Patty's day was cancelled (due to saving for weddings... something I can totally relate to!). We also missed out on going to Hamilton to celebrate Natalia's 2nd birthday, which was the original plan. What I did do:
Friday:
Sam's Arbonne birthday party!
Another amazing Arbonne party where I was reminded about how important it is to be mindful of the chemicals that we put in our bodies (whether it be beauty products or even food). After an amazing facial which left my face feeling super soft and looking clear, I began rethinking all the products that I use and how I would like to continue to replace these items with products free of chemicals. To check out what I have learned through Arbonne parties and my thoughts, check out my previous blog:
http://kat-todaysanewday.blogspot.ca/2011/11/why-heck-do-we-pollute-our-bodies-so.html

Saturday:
Yesterday Aleksy and I took the day to buy some things for the house: we finally got our house number ordered and some shelving for our shower. Following this we decided to have our own St. Patty's celebrations at home... It looked a little something like this:

That would be Irish cream shots, beer in mason jars, wine (because just beer is not enough...) and some fantastic nachos... so tasty and without the St. Patty's day crowds at bars!

Today we took Travis and Trevor out for Travis's 17th birthday. We gave him the options on where he wanted to go, and he chose his fav.. Crabby's. This was our first time at Crabbys in FOREVER... We were sure to wear our green today, but Travis and Trevor were not so festive so we made them wear this headwear: the hat and headband!

And of course, a "on the house" dessert for the birthday boy! Happy Birthday to Travis!

Tonight, time for volleyball... this season has not been the hottest for wins, but last week we won our first game! 

Stay tuned for posts from our amazing 3 week Chile & Argentina trip :D