Eden and Josh

After yet another overnight bus, we arrived in Salta, Argentina. Josh was under-the-weather so we spent most of our time here taking it easy so he could re-coup. We visited some churches, sat in the town squares and enjoyed the warm, sunny weather.

A few days later, we hopped a bus to Chile and the town of San Pedro de Atacama. SP de Atacama is an oasis in the desert. I guess when we picture oases in our heads, we picture them as they are depicted in cartoons -lush areas of palm trees with sparkling pools of blue water. We were surprised to find out that an oasis is still just a desert but with a few scraggly, dusty trees here and there! The town was beautiful none-the-less. All the houses were built in the adobe style out of mud and rocks. The day after we arrived, we started a tour at 4 a.m. (!!!) that drove us into the desert to see a field full of steaming, erupting geyers. It was truely an amazing site! Worth getting up at 4 am for and enduring the minus 12 degree weather of the desert at sunrise. After that, we relaxed in a natural hot spring until we were all thoroughly cooked through and wrinkley. Next, we visited an aboriginal village that raised goats, llamas and alpacas. There, we were treated to llama kebabs. They were very delicious! Our final stop was cactus valley. A beautiful valley lined with 3 hundred year old cacti. Amazing!

The next day, we took an afternoon tour to Death Valley. The views were amazing! We were able to run down the steep, huge sand dunes. Very fun but we were completely covered in sand! Sand in our ears, hair, even underpants!! Not comfy! Then we headed to Moon Valley for the sunset. It really did look like the moon with craters and strange, barren landforms. The colours from the sunset were accentuated by the reddish tones of the earth. It was a great time, however, after this, we had to board another night bus (to Arica, Chile) and endure an uncomfortable night trying to sleep on a bus with your pants full of sand! I guess some people pay for exfoliation like that!!!

more photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/edenandjosh/

After getting a taste of large alerce trees at Pumalin we wanted to see even bigger ones, and the only place to do that is at the national park. Being only 40km from Puerto Montt, the park is relatively easy to get to and we set off the day after returning from Chiloe.

We woke up early to catch the 7:40 bus since the next wouldn´t be till noon. Because of the cold the previous night EVERYTHING was covered in frost (which stayed until about 11:30). The bus dropped us off 13km from the park, so we had some walking to do, but some friendly lumberjacks offered us a ride in the back of their pickup, awesome.

The park receives somewhere around 4000mm of rain a year so everything was wet, muddy, and smelled like that. The foot bridges that were built over the muddy parts had been covered in an algae or something similar and were incredibly slippery (I must have fallen hard at least 6 times). We saw some very large alerce (larch) trees, some around 2500 and 3000 years old and around 3-4m diametre. Similar to the largest one at Pumalin. The only disappointing part of the trek was that the log bridge 10 minutes from Catedral Alerce had collapsed and there was no way to cross the river otherwise. Luckily, these alerce aren´t the largest in the park but are "just" a particularly beautiful stand.

We took the bus down to Castro in the centre of the island of Chiloe to catch a glimpse of this changing and unique culture. Because of it´s relative isolation, Chiloe is somewhat backwards from the rest of Chile. There are brightly painted stilt houses overhanging the bays, pastures that resemble patchwork quilts, and interresting sights like fish and clams being sold on the street from wheelbarrows.

Chiloten folklore is rich, including stories about ghost ships and over a dozen trolls and monsters. The strangest has to be the Trauco, a disfigured troll who gets young girls pregnant if they wander into the forest. It wasn´t the boy down the street, it was Trauco, I swear!

We also decided to visit the national park to do a 3-day beach trek. However, it didn´t seem like the trek was going to enter the forest and we decided to cut it short to 2 days after walking 18-km on the beach the first day. We then turned around when we reached the organized campground and found a somewhat hidden site in the dunes overlooking the mighty Pacific. It was quite a sight to see lone cowboys or whole families on horses travelling along the beach. Not your usual life.

Bus service in the off-season is extremely limited in rural Patagonia so we ended up staying in Coyhaique for three nights. This wasn´t too bad since it was the first place in a month or so which had tons of fresh fruit and vegetables so we ate tons of greens. We also decided not to stop in any small towns along the way to Chaiten out of fear of getting stuck. This turned out to be a good decision, since when we stopped in Puyuhuapi (a small town settled by 4 German pioneers in 1920) there were 3 guys hoping to get onto our full bus. Lucky for them a Swiss couple got off the bus here and one other person. Talking to the two British guys they told me they would´ve been happy spending 15 minutes in town, but got stuck for 4 days, had no luck hitchhiking out and very nearly ran out of money.

Chaiten is a town set in Wonderland. Cloud-covered, fiord-like moutains rise up out of the land amid waterfalls, rivers, bamboo, ferns, moss, trees, everything green, rain, more green, wet, mist and more rain. We had originally hoped to camp in Parque Pumalin (a 3,000 sq km reserve owned by Northface CEO Douglas Thompkins) for three days but being the offseason transportation was an issue. Luckily we were able to arrange day transportation through an eccentric Chilean, Nicolas, who had lived in the townships near Montreal for some years. Between different short hikes Nicolas would play this tiny guitar/ukelele type instrument for us from traditional folk songs, to personal creations and even Nirvanna... who is this guy?!

The main reason for coming to Pumalin is to see the giant alerce tree which are often compared to the California redwood. Most of these trees were logged until recently, and only the most remote stands still remain. Several of the trees that we saw on a short walk were over 1500 years old with a couple 2500 and 3000 years old (and 3-4m wide!).

The following day we went to a hot springs outside of town to relax in the rain and warm water before catching the night ferry to Puerto Montt. This ferry was supposed to depart at 12AM but didn´t arrive until 2AM, then left at 3AM. Due to rough seas the 10-hr crossing was extended to 15...

So we stayed two nights in Cochrane before catching a bus to Villa Cerro Castillo where we did another long 4-day trek. The trek was quite incredible, camping under tall basalt towers and we only saw two other trekkers. Getting into the off season It was also so cold one night that our condensation froze on the tent fly. Just had to take it off and shake the ice off.

Yesterday we planned on taking the bus out of town but a guy in the roadside diner offered to drive us to Coyhaique, so we gladly accepted. Upon arriving in town we headed straight to the campsite, hoping to get our 50th night in a tent under our belts, but they were closed for the season. So we walked around for around 2hrs trying to find a place to stay... our second choice was either bulldozed or had burnt to the ground (or Lonely Planet got their map wrong).

Now in town it looks like it might be two days before we can leave again.

Basic plan from now is to head up to Chaiten to visit Parque Pumalin http://www.parquepumalin.cl/ the brainchild of Northface founder Douglas Tompkins. After that we will go to Chiloe to do a beach trek similar to the West Coast Trail.

Miss you all,
Josh and Eden

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