The blur at the bottom of this image is the spray thrown skywards from our zodiac ride across Lago Grey. We were doing Mach 7 through herds of icebergs bobbing in the lake. Whhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! 

Lookin' sooooo stylish on Glaciar Grey... Lu and I went for an ice hike, with crampons and ice axes and all that. We spent about three hours meandering around the toe of a glacier which rumbled 4km down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. We had walked beside a good distance of the length of this glacier the previous day and the morning of the ice hike, to get from camp to camp. Standing on this giant was an utter thrill. We even got to try our hands at ice climbing!  

At the top of the pass, the vista of Glaciar Grey and all of the surrounding peaks took away what little breath we had left. We paused for a lunch at the apex of the circut, and marvelled at our good fortune with the weather. Every day, we kept saying "Well, if the rest of the hike gets crappy weather, we've been really lucky until now." It never did turn crappy. 

Another photo by Julie. This was on the way up the pass. Not bad, just a slog up and up and up on rock. Most of it was pretty stable - no nasty scree to slide on. And the weather? PERFECT.  

Photo courtesy of Julie: this is a small portion of the boggy bit on the approach to the pass. In reality, it was about an hour and a half of hopping from one grass tuft or stick to another. See below for the carnage.

ohhhh, the mud... Apparently, we had it pretty good, compared to how the trail could be. The approach to the crux of the circuit hike meanders across an unavoidable and inexplicably boggy hillside. This photo was taken on one of the few oases of dry ground. Legend has it that on a bad day, you can't avoid going in up to your knees in the slime. All in all, we fared really well. The pass was still to come... 

This was the best wildlife sighting on the hike. Sure, we saw some birds, but the cougars were all in hiding (not that I'd want to get too close to one of those!). This Patagonian Fox (el Zorro Patagonico) was rifling through the garbage at Camp Dickson. Hmm. I think the Chilean park managers could take a page from us? One fox, at a different camp, was so habituated that he would steal hikers' boots from the vestibule of their tents! This foxy fox had collected over 40 individual pieces of footwear in one season. Maybe it liked the salt on the sweaty boots. Maybe it just had a twisted sense of humour, and liked to see hikers do the circuit in their flip-flops. Either way, the cache of lost boots has yet to be found...  

Poor Julie! After only two days on the trail, her feet were in pretty bad shape. We patched her up as best we could, knowing that our moleskin was in frighteningly short supply, and there was little chance of getting more on the trail. We tried a plaster of second skin topped with moleskin and secured with duct tape, but the whole thing slid when her feet got damp, and matters got worse. A moment of inspiration sent us diving for the tensor bandages. We wrapped all of the anti-blister dressing (minus the duct tape) into place. This worked well enough that her heels started to heal by the end of the hike! Julie was a real trooper, bless her dear heart.  

There is something to be said for the effects that you can get out of a cheap digital camera and a dirty lens. I particularly like the "superhero" effect we get in this photo. We felt like superheroes for making it through day 2 of Torres del Paine's circuit. Behind us, you can just make out the refugio and campsites at Lago Dickson. It was a really nice camp, situated in a peninsula on the glacial lake. Gee, our packs look a lot lighter than they were! 

If you go back in the archives of this blog (March 4, 2006), this entry tells a story about Nescafe. Here is the dork who seems to think that Nescafe is really damn tasty.

Finally! We get to the hiking bits. This was day 1 on the trail. Check the size of those packs! Actually, every time we'd encounter other trekkers, we would mentally compare their loads with ours. If their packs looked too small, we would glance at each other knowingly, and think smugly how ill-prepared they must be if they were carrying that little gear. (Hey, we had to make ourselves feel better somehow!) 

This tempting fellow stood outside of one of Patagonia's famous Parilla (barbecue) restaurants. The lamb and beef in this part of the world are unsurpassed. Typically, a carcass is staked and spread as you see here, and placed near a hot bank of coals for most of the day. The results? Tender, juicy, abundant, addictive meat. Vege-who? 

Here's the bar of the pub onboard the ferry. Yup, there was a pub. The guy who runs the place is Mr. Pollo (the name translates to "Mr. Chicken") and what a character he was! After the ship had engine problems, and it was determined that we would be sailing for an extra night, the crew put together a free bingo night in the pub. Theory goes that if you are hammered enough, you won't worry about things like getting into port and whether or not we might sink. So. Mr. Pollo was particularly good at mixing the local specialty, Pisco Sour. To describe the ingredients would not entice you to try it, but I swear it's super-tasty! Pisco (grape brandy) sugar, lemon juice and egg white shaken together over ice. These things are killer.  

On the second day of the ferry ride, we disembarked at Puerto Eden, a tiny community on Wellington Island. The whole town waits for the bi-weekly visit of the ferry for supplies, news and commerce. Many of the locals had set up handcraft stalls near their homes, and they would display their wares for that hour and a half, twice a week, when somebody just might buy. I can't say that I was overly tempted by anything for sale. Thing 1: I would have to carry it around the Torres del Paine circuit (a trinket had not much chance of surviving being crushed in a backpack and hauled over mountains). Thing 2: what they were selling was crap. Not made in China crap, but made in Chile crap. Seriously. If you got a grade 1 class together, you could come up with better "handicrafts" than that! Honestly... 

Lu and I caught up on a bit of reading on the ferry. The bunks were soooo comfortable, and each had a curtain so that you could shut out the rest of the world & nap. We soon became accustomed to the gentle roll of the ocean in the fjords. So much so, that when we got to dry land in Puerto Natales, we felt seasick from not being at sea. 

The next big adventure, in a litany of adventures, was the Navimag ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales. If you EVER have the chance to do this - DO IT!!! It was a blast: the trekker's cruise. The small mountain of backpacks at the ferry terminal spoke volumes about the kind of company we were to keep on the boat. Almost the entire passenger list (about 250 people) were heading south to hike in Torres de Paine. It was three days of enforced relaxation. If you've been following all winter, you'll know that Lu and I are not good at relaxing, but the boat was different. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. 

loookitthesizeofthesemussels!!!! The smallest was bigger than my palm. They were part of a local specialty called Curanto in Puerto Montt. In curanto, you find a mix of seafood in a savoury broth, topped with a healthy heapin' of grilled chicken, pork, and sausage. If the protien overload might do you in, don't worry - it's all balanced by three types of potato dumplings... Wow.  

A few posts back, you'll find a photo of the interior of a grand wooden church. This is an example of the wooden shingles typical of homes on the island of Chiloe. And if you look really close, there's a cat in the window (I was missing my cat!) 

In the town of Castro, people living along the bay had built "palafitos" - houses on stilts. When the tide was out, you could see a small army of residents out on the mud flats in front of these houses, collecting shellfish.  

owie owie owie. My legs got crisped to a bright fuschia hue on Chiloe. For the full story, see the archives from February 2006 - "Strollin' on the beach" 

Our second hike on the island of Chiloe was a little more "structured". The bus dropped us off at the gate of a national park where we were able to obtain a map (of sorts) and we started along a sandy beach. One of the curiosities of this beach were the cattle lounging on the sand. "What are they doing there?" we wondered. There was nothing for them to eat except seaweed! It's still a mystery to me... 

On the island of Chiloe, they have distinctive architecture involving wooden shingles as siding for the majority of the houses. This skill with woodworking translated into the building of over a dozen wooden churches on the island, which are now recognized and protected as a UNESCO world heritage site. This is a view of the interior of the largest, the church of San Francisco, in Castro. These churches are an amazing contrast to the cold, ornate, gilded stone cathedrals in Europe. The feel inside is like a warm hug because of the wood surrounding you. Ornamentation is minimal, and the simple elegance of the structure speaks for itself: the divine manifested through the work of human hands. 

One of the best treats in South America is "milk jam," or dulce de leche. We bought a pouch of this caramel-like substance and took it on our hikes. It lasted a total of 18 hiking days, and that's not for lack of eating the stuff! It was great on apples, bananas, crackers, or just licked off your finger. It improved crappy chocolate and our moods. This stuff is GOLD. Good thing the Italian Centre in Edmonton stocks it!  

THIS was the reward for taking a chance on the boat ride. Our first hike in Chile was spectacular, the whole way along. Weather was perfect - a bit of a breeze, pleasant sunshine, the roar of the surf always nearby.  

Lu, with the backpacks, on the boat that we took from the village of Chepu to a remote trailhead on the island of Chiloe. We were gobsmacked when we got dropped off in Chepu at the "tourist information," which was the size and approximate look of an outhouse in a field of horses.

The helpful gent at said information booth gave us a vague wave in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, when we described the trail we wished to hike. "Take a boat," he said, "and you'll find the trail over there." (or something like that, in Spanish). There was an assortment of watercraft moored at the delta nearby, so we negotiated a ride on a rickety motor boat with a group of locals who happened to be sitting around, looking like they were eventually going to go somewhere on the water. We tried to make them understand, with the help of the phrasebook, that we needed to be picked up the next day at three, wherever they dropped us off.

They seemed to get it, and were not at all bothered by our worried brows, so we just decided to go with it. They dropped us off at a dock, led us through a farmer's field, and waved onward, so that's the way we went. How hard could it be? Just keep the Pacific Ocean on your right on the way in, and on your left on the way out. Simple. We had extra food, in case we got stranded & they didn't show up, so off we went. We took the fact that they didn't accept our money for the ride as a bit of a guarantee that they would, in fact, pick us up.