Patagonian Vacation: Part I

Howdy and hello to all. As some of you now may have noticed, we've been dodging our blog responsibilities for the better part of two weeks. However, this was not solely to highlight the amoral nature of both Will and David. We've just been on vacation, and still are as a matter of fact. I'll bring you up to date.

Santiago was getting perturbingly hot, and work was getting mind bogglingly slow. My previous vision of working a grand total of two hours a week was a lot more glamorous than it has turned out to be in reality. It turns out that when you don't work, they don't continue to pay you (at least when you're paid by the hour, which we are). Boredom began to set in, and not even the sudden, massive availability of ice cream could fix the heat problem. Chileans love ice cream. The US love for ice cream pales in comparison. As soon as the weather turned hot, we started to see ice cream being sold in places it had previously not been. Everyone had it. Everyone ate it. It was a lot of ice cream peer pressure. I started eating a cone on my way home from work, but as previously mentioned, work being only two hours a week, it still didn't amount to that much ice cream by Chileno standards. So we left, and came south to Patagonia...and here we are.

We started our trip by flying into the port city of Punta Arenas. Punta Arenas used to be a big deal I suppose, and it looks exactly like you would imagine a city that used to be a big deal. Kind of in disrepair and larger in size than it can really support. I suppose its major downfall was the Panama Canal, because up until then ships headed for the Pacific had to make a stop down in the South of Chile. Now, no one stops there, except for tourists. As a result, Punta Arenas is stuck in the unenviable position of trying to milk as much money as possible out of tourists en route between the airport and the bus station. All things considered, they do a pretty good job of it. We stayed overnight, snapped some pictures of the perfectly molded mushroom-shaped, shrub trees which litter the city, and moved on to Puerto Natales.

Puerto Natales is a souped-up version of Punta Arenas. It also exists solely for the purpose of leeching money from tourists, but since it's the gateway city for the Torres del Paine National Park, it does a much better job of it. Every other building is a hostel, and all the others are stores selling over-priced camping gear and unbelievably delicious-looking lamb. I'll take a minute to elaborate. Imagine a full lamb, sans head, fur, and guts, splayed open in a spread-eagle-type position, roasting over an open log fire for most of the day. That's what they call cordero patagonico down here, and it's plentiful and reasonably cheap. And delicious. After another night in a hostel, we finally managed to make the bus transfer into the park, and the real vacation started. It would be difficult to explain exactly how huge and beautiful Torres del Paine actually was, so I'll wait until we can post some pictures. We got into the park the first day and did a quick 4-hour hike to where the real trail started. The route we hiked is called the "W," and it's named for its shape. The section of the park we hiked is made up of one giant range of mountains in the shape of a horse shoe. After we got onto the trail we began by hiking north along the western side of the range until we reached Glacier Grey, one of a couple of giant glaciers that are scattered through the park. All the water in the area comes from glacial melt, and as a result it is this amazing shade of blue and also 100% safe to drink. It's basically the same stuff people pay a dollar a bottle for, but its just everywhere and free. And delicious.

After our hike to the glacier, we spent the third day of hiking mostly back-tracking the way we had come, arriving in the evening at the southern end of the central valley, called Valle del Frances. Despite being French, it's actually quite a pleasant place, and turned out to be one of the most beautiful places in the park. Our fourth day, we hiked north up the river valley into the very center of the horse-shoe formation. The trek ended with an overlook surrounded by the mountains on three sides and a view of the lakes to the south. I tried to convince Erin to climb even higher up the trail and, unfortunately, was successful. After about 45 minutes of steep hiking in gale-force winds, she was completely pissed at me and we still hadn't found anything remotely as cool as what we'd already seen. So, cold and angry, we decided to go back and spent the next lovely hour or so relaxing at the overlook. It even started to snow a little bit, despite the fact that it was probably 70 degrees and sunny. It was calm and perfect, and we managed to do the rest of the return hike without incident or bad feelings, despite the fact that Erin couldn't keep from tripping over her feet even on flat ground.

Our fifth day was planned as a short, 5-hour hike, but didn't go according to plan. Since we were expecting it to be so easy, we started out late after a lazy morning. We didn't even leave the camp site until around noon. All went well to begin with, and after 4 hours of hiking in which Erin hardly complained at all, we arrived at a crossroads. One path would have been a relatively easy hike to a camp site one hour away; however, it would have taken us one hour in the wrong direction, which we would have to add to the next day's hike (already scheduled to be 8 hours of walking). We opted instead to take a 2 hour hike up the side of a mountain. About an hour into this trek, two giant blisters on Erin's heels that had been growing for two days despite her best efforts decided to burst. This put an end to the pleasantness of the day's hiking, and the fact that the entire walk was up hill didn't help her at all. Still, we ended up getting to the camp a half hour earlier than expected. That and a big meal of pasta and potato chips made Erin's feet feel slightly better. What didn't help was that the whole camp smelled like horse poop. The eastern section of the park is owned, apparently by a private company, which uses its monopoly on one of the most beautiful places on earth to charge exorbitant prices for camping, cabins, food, drinks, and smelly horse back rides up the mountain. They also place misleading signs everywhere, leading you to believe that all the free camp sites are much farther away than they really are. In short, nuts to them.

The next morning we woke up extra early with the intention of making the hike to see the actual torres (towers), for which the park is named. Erin decided not to go, which left me to make the hike on my own. It consisted of an easy 45 minute walk to the base camp, followed by an incredibly steep 45 minute hike up a crumbly rock tallus, during which the wind would frequently pick up pebble-sized rocks and use them to pelt the climbers. At the top, the torres themselves were gigantic and impressive, although not the most amazing thing in the park. They are meant to be most impressive at sunrise, when they change colors slightly. Still, waking up at 4:00 a.m. and hiking an hour and a half in the dark didn't appeal to me and definitely didn't appeal to Erin, so that wasn't in the cards. After my return hike to Camp Poop Smell, I convinced Erin to stop playing solitaire long enough to hike the rest of the way out of the park. We finished off the last of our energy bars, caught the bus back to Puerto Natales, gorged ourselves on as much food and beer as we could respectively handle, and fell asleep by 9:00.

That's all for today. Still to come: eating lamb in Argentina, eating steak in Argentina, and other slightly less interesting travel information.

Paz...

... is 14. Will and David, I hope you feel appropriately ashamed.

Picture Extravaganza!

Since my mother refused to write a guest blog entry, and we were so busy during these past few weeks anyway, it's now up to me to catch you up on everything we did while my parents were here. Before we get started, however, I have a very special story for you. You knew it was coming...

How We (Kind of) Ruined Our Third Camera

It's not easy being Erin and Nate's camera. Our first camera was stolen by hooligans in Valparaiso. Our second camera, which was sent by mail from Erin's parents, was swiped by a dishonest baggage handler at a bus station. When we got our third camera over Christmas, it was understandably worried about its fate. As it should have been. About a week after buying the new camera (it was actually a used camera from Erin's mom's co-worker), Nate and I went caving. You may remember the blog entry: the smelly, dead animal, muddy cave. Anyway, as Erin was ascending out of the cave (which, if you've ever ascended a rope you'll know that it was super hard work), she accidentally slipped and fell against the wall. The camera, unfortunately, was attached to her harness, and it got smashed between her giant butt and the hard wall of the cave. It wasn't until Erin finished ascending that she looked at the camera. The LCD screen had a huge, forking crack through the middle of it. She told Nate about it after he finished ascending. He was already angry that he was the last one left in the cave, and now he got even angrier about the accident with the camera. He refused to talk to Erin for the rest of the afternoon except to warn her that she was not allowed to tell her parents about this because they would kill them. When they got home they figured out that the camera still worked, but they couldn't use the LCD screen to view pictures or to change the settings. The reason they've only just now gotten around to telling you about this is because they finally fessed up to the parents while they were visiting. They did not, as Erin and Nate had expected, kill them. They weren't even really surprised. Although Erin and Nate can't ever take panoramics or set up automatically timed pictures or even change the setting from night time to fast action shutter speed, they are grateful that their camera still functions, and they hope to have no more horror stories involving its breakage, theft, or untimely demise.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled blog entry.

While my parents were here, they attended Spanish classes in the morning every day. Because it's summer here and Nate and I are barely working, we only had classes in the morning too, so that worked out nicely. After class, we would meet for lunch and then some sightseeing. It was odd asking my parents "How was school? And what did you learn today?" I distinctly remember being asked that every day of my elementary school years, and I hated it. But they didn't seem to mind it, and they regaled us with what they learned and spoke in Spanish with us to practice. We took my parents to all the touristy stuff that we did when we first got here (and documented on the blog), and they seemed to like it well enough. On Thursday night we had an asado at their house. We invited a bunch of people, Nick and Fabiola (the people who own the house my parents were staying at) invited a bunch of people, and it was really fun. There was dancing and lots of meat. My parents enjoyed the former, and you can all guess who was happiest about the latter.

Funnily enough, my parents mostly danced with other people and not with each other. Come to think of it, Nate only danced one dance, and it was with another girl too. The theme of the night seemed to be tending towards Light Infidelity.

Over the weekend, Nick graciously invited us to go to the beach in Maitencillo with him and his family. Actually, it was the family of Paz, who is the daughter of Fabiola and her ex-husband. So Nick didn't really know anyone there either. We piled 5 people, 2 dogs, and a ton of bags into Nick's jeep and set off for the 2+ hour drive. The drive, however, soon turned into a 3+ hour drive, mostly because one of the dogs chose to shit all over the back trunk area. We had to stop, clean it out, clean both dogs, and clean the bags. As soon as we got underway again, my mom realized she had dropped her glasses back where we were cleaning up the shit. So they had to go back to look for those. We had to drive with the windows all the way down because of the awful stench. When we got to the beach we realized we didn't know where we were going, so we spent the next hour or so driving around calling various people (virtual strangers, remember) for directions. When we finally arrived at the cabin, we were welcomed by the nicest Chilean family ever. We taught them how to play Spoons, and they taught us that it is cool to eat tomato and avocado for three meals a day. We all got to practice a lot of Spanish, too. Here is the cabin: Here is where Nate and I stayed:
Here is the view from the deck:
This is Paz and her cousins.

This is the grandfather of the family, who, it turns out, is a very famous painter. Here he is throwing together a painting of the sea and a sailboat as his granddaughters look on. This is my mom and Fabiola doing yoga on the deck in the morning.
The next morning we went to a little hippie-town fish market in Horcon to buy fresh fish and seafood for grilling and to make ceviche (raw fish with lemon and onions. It's delicious, I swear). That night we had razor clams with parmesan cheese, fresh reinata (it's a big white fish... I don't know the name in English), ceviche, pork ribs, and of course hot dogs (for the kids!). It was a feast. We all drank tons of wine, and the grandfather made us all go around the table and say what we were thankful for. It was kind of like Thanksgiving, except it was on the beach and with a bunch of people we had only met a day ago. All in all, we had a fantastic trip. To avoid the overcrowding in the car on the way home (and the possibility of being pooped on), Nate and I took the bus back to Santiago while my mom, dad, Nick and Fabiola rode in the jeep.

Here's the fish market. It was really cloudy in the morning, but it cleared up and got super hot and sunny in the afternoon.

This was the biggest fish at the market.
Here's Nick watching our seafood being gutted.
Nick and my mom discussing how they're going to cook everything.
The second and last week of my parents visit was filled with more sightseeing and eating at better restaurants than the ones we ate at the first week they were here. My parents now know that Chilean food leaves much to be desired; and strangely enough, our best meals were at non-Chilean restaurants: a sushi place, an Argentinian steak house, and a Catalan restaurant where we ate the most delicious paella.

Here are a few random shots from the week that I thought you might like. This is me and my mom in Parque Santa Lucia, where, as you may recall, teenagers go to heavily pet one another. If you look closely, you can see a couple smooching behind us. We took bets on how many couples we'd find making out, and my mom won with a guess of 21.
You can create your own caption for this picture. Spot the Gringo: Part II
And for everyone who has ever referred to Nate as Nifty, this one's for you. The sign is awesome, and it says "because you asked for it, it's back!!! Nifty! Enjoy it now!"

La Pequeño Gigante, su rinoceronte, y El Gringo

Ahem. Yes, well. (Tap, tap on the microphone...)

As Nate and Erin are lounging on the sofa and consuming prodigious amounts of candy and popcorn, I will have to be the one to give you images of La Pequeña Gigante and her Rinoceronte. I trust you can tell the difference. Erin has told the story of this exhibition in the past, so I won´t bore with the details. Note the steam issuing from the nose (of the rhinoceros!)

While we were slightly less than impressed than expected with the doll herself (although she is big), we were quite impressed by the rhinoceros, and astounded by the crowd. According to "the authorities", there were 500,000 Chileans there (I think that comes out to 1000 Americans, if I recall the exchange rate correctly).

We have been studying Spanish and Chilean culture at a whirlwind pace, punctuated by hitherto pathetic attempts to find nice restaurants. The best food we have found has been fast food (empanadas) and street food. Despite Nate's devious but ultimately unsuccessful endeavor to keep it for himself, we were able to enjoy--how does one say, Nate?--delicious Mote con Huesillos: a peach flavored tea containing whole, peeled peaches and whole wheat grains.

We visited the house of Pablo Neruda, a poet who won the Nobel Prize, visited a huge statue of the Virgin Mary which overlooks Santiago, and went to see a cartoon in the cinema (Erin thought it would be simple enough even for us to understand).

We also have been having lots of fun playing scrabble and wandering Santiago, inventing new games, such as our own version of "Where´s Waldo?": "Spot the Gringo!"

Disclaimer: All references to Nate are completely fictional and not meant to indicate any person living or dead, now or in the past or future. This blog should in no way be construed to mean Nate is not actually our Second Favorite Person in Chile.

wrecked micro and missing pics of nifty in underwear

Wrecked micros in the center of town, courtesy of Royal de Luxe, although they tried to blame it on the lost rhino. And a sunset vista from our window for good measure...
By the way, yesterday's original blog entry was much more exciting than the one that got published, because I tried to include a glamour shot of Nifty in his skivvies, just like you requested, Kevin. But Nate found out before I could publish it and threw a fit. Apparently he doesn't want pictures of him in his undewear up on the internet, although I don't see what the big deal is. It turned into a 20 minute mini-fight, during which I said it was funny and he didn't look any different from him in a normal bathing suit. He reasoned that he wouldn't put pictures of me in my underwear up on the internet, but by that point in the argument I had stopped listening.

In conclusion, no one gets to see glamour shots of Nifty in his underwear. But that doesn't mean you don't get to see BLIFTY! in his underwear!!!