patagonia

so i'm a little belated with this post, but better late than never. i kept some notes during our trip, but i figure it's better to have everything chile in one place so i'm going to put parts or highlights or something of them here. in december my mom and jan arrived in chile ready for adventure. we spent a couple days on either end in jay's and my homestays (with unparalleled hospitality in both places i might add) getting to know santiago and viña/valpo, but the main chunk of the moms' trip we spent in patagonia. neither words nor photos can succeed in capturing the pure beauty we were privileged to see there, but it's got to at least be tried.


the trip was gorgeous right from the plane ride down- along la cordillera the whole way with great views out of the blues of the lakes and white snowy peaks popping out of the clouds.


the seven days we spent hiking in the park (torres del paine) were wonderful- we got super lucky with weather and barely needed to pull out our rain gear the whole trip. we did have a couple spots of extreme wind, but that was more fun than bothersome :) every day along the trail and every evening at the refugios we met fellow trekkers from all around the world who were inevitably very kind and also very interesting, spoke like five languages and were just seeing the world for any number of months- we were continuously impressed/jealous. simply incredible scenery- definitely in 'big' country, in the sense of the big tall mountains and rock faces towering next to us, and in the big neverending nature in every direction as far as you can see- everything seems to come in a single magnificent size. hiking along i would keep turning 360's or pausing to really look around me, and the views were never disappointing. the torres and the cuernos were unique and impresionante, glacier grey and its icebergs were pretty and stately with its jagged ice blue expanses, and the lakes came in every single shade of blue- sometimes more like green/grey like the glacial one jay got us to swim in- literally ice but exhilarating and worth it :), but no matter what shade they were the color was rich and pure.





the enormous hanging glaciers in valle francés were crazy- we kept hearing and seeing the thunder of mini-avalanches as gravity fought to bring them down from their ridges.


we came across wildflowers of purple, white, yellow, orange, or fiery red that seemed to be everywhere.


jay and i kept wishing we had danny (or any geologist) along with us to explain how or why the rock hills had so many colors to them- mostly a grey granite, but often crowned with black that looked like someone just painted a line of it across the top, and then sometimes infused with red-orange streaks brought out by the sun. a couple of nights we saw some really cool clouds- sort of a cross between beehives and thick whipped mashed potatos.


we never had to worry about water supply because you can drink straight from the streams and the water tastes bright cold and fresh. after great hikes every day we enjoyed the luxury of showers, dinner, and vino at the refugios, along with our week-long hearts tournament in which jay kicked us all, even mom :) we ended the week of trekking down by lake pehoe and got to look back on the W and see where we'd been and where our own two feet had taken us in only a few short days- i could have spent months there and been so happy.


but, christmas was coming and we had places to be so we headed for home, with a stop on the way to see some pingüinos (and pingüinitos!) in their natural habitat at the southern tip of the world.