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.