Chile: Part II

We hopped on the 13-hour (about 800 m????) bus ride from Santiago to Puerto Montt on December 26 at 7 AM (it was a little late, true Chilean fashion). We went ahead and took some Dramamine to help with the swaying of the bus, and between that and the lack of sleep from being with relatives the previous days, we slept most of the ride – Mel slept at least 10 hours, while I was probably close to 8 hours. The views in between sleeping consisted of tattered bus stops and towns, open fields, and ultimately to volcanoes, mountains, lakes, and the sea. We arrived in Puerto Montt and stayed at a hostel called Casa Perla that night. It was $20,000 Chilean pesos (about US $40) in total for both of us for the private bedroom (not dorm style). The hostel was an old one, with plenty of local decorations from past years, and although it was small, it was pretty cute. The host was very nice as well, and offered some help on how to catch the morning buses to our next destination.

Comfy bus ride down to Puerto Montt, upper deck style!

Free breakfast!

Leaving Casa Perla

Windy awesome morning waiting for the bus by the water

Scoped out the Puerto Montt skatepark.... looked a little rough, but gets points for that and its cooling setting by the sea

Awesome nativity set in Puerto Montt. Each figure was made from an Alerce root, a local tree. Awesome! Enlarge this one.

After the free breakfast in the morning, which consisted of tea, coffee, bread with homemade jam, and various fruits and yogurt, we headed to the bus station to catch the first one to Ancud, Chiloe. The bus fare from Puerto Montt to Ancud included the ride on the ferry. It was $3,700 pesos ($7.40 US) each for the bus ride, and it was about 80 km to the ferry, then another 30 km to Ancud after the ferry ride. We got to see the beautiful coast on the ferry ride, along with some seals playing around in the water. In Ancud we explored the city throughout that day, checking out an old fort on the northside of the town, waiting for the bus we thought would be running that afternoon at 4 PM. Turns out, the bus we were hoping to catch only runs from Ancud to Chepu on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM. It was Tuesday for us though, so we caught a bus in that direction and had them drop us off at the “cruces de Chepu”. This was the intersection between the main road to Castro and the dirt/gravel road that led to Chepu. Chepu was another 13 km down the gravel road so we started walking and “haciendo dedo” (making finger = hitchhiking). The first guy that picked us up took us all the way to Chepu Adventures in Chepu, where we were camping. Chepu Adventures is an eco facility with four campsites, five or six dorm style rooms, and five or six cabanas to stay at, along with different activities offered. Fernando runs it and he is legit! The facility is powered buy their own wind turbine (which I think he kept calling Hank as if he’d named it), and they have solar heated hot water and showers, and a very unique rainwater collection system! Ask him about it! He tested my Spanish in a sort of stern way, which was intimidating but fun, and we talked at length on the energy efficiency and sustainability of his facility when I told him I am in that field of work.

Riding the ferry over to Chiloe

Got a huge piece of salmon in Ancud. Neither of us could finish this and it was pretty awesome.

Cool view of a cove from a fort up on the hill in Ancud.

Exploring the coastline by Ancud

Made it to Chepu Adventures!

Tent spot at Chepu Adventures

Down by the river, soaking up some sun

Sunset over the river

Mel lookin over river

The next morning we got up at 4:45 AM and up to the main building for instructions on the kayaking at dawn! We were on the water by 5:15 AM (an hour before sunrise) and headed out towards the sunken forest, which was created by a tsunami in the 60s I think. HOLY COW! Coolest sunrise ever, and we saw a river otter! The pictures say it all! Well worth it to check this out. Fernando also told us about the local fishermen who do tours to the penguin colony nearby, where you get to trek to the penguins and be very close to them, without disturbing them obviously. It sounded awesome, but we unfortunately did not have the time to do this. After hitching a few rides back to the main road that day, we headed back up towards Puerto Montt to pick up a car we’d rented through Europcar. They sucked. We had a reservation for three days, but turns out they wouldn’t be open on the third day, so we’d have to only have it for two days, or pay more for a fourth day. So we chose to have it for four days. Then it turned out they didn’t have a car actually there for us, so we had to wait a couple hours for one to arrive. They weren’t overly helpful or sorry it seemed for these discrepancies even though it was though a reservation, but I guess the person at the front desk had nothing to do with these things really. We got the car and headed to Ensenada!
We ended up at a spot called Camping Montana, which was car camping, but right up against Lago LLanquehue, and at the base of Volcan Osorno, so it was pretty awesome! It was $5,000 pesos (US $10) for the site, fires were allowed, and would was already provided too! We ate some empanadas from a local store, which turned out pretty bad (one was beef and onion (ugh), the other was some meat with tomatoes and cheese). There weren’t horseflies here so that was pretty nice. Near the lodge at this site there was also free Wifi, so Mel was able to get her facebook fix here too.

Long before sunrise in Chepu

Paddling out to the sunken forest

View of the sunken forest

Matt, chillin!

SUNRISE!!!!!!!!!

WHOAAAAA

Best sunrise we've ever seen

A good one

Hiking out of Chepu on the dirt road, really hoping for a car to come along and pick us up

Made it to the bus stop!

We camped by a lake and a volcano, enough said

Cool sunset to end the day

Nightfall over Lago Llanquehue

Panorama of Volcan Osorno over the lake

I swear this is real!

Sunken forest

Chile: Part One

Our journey began with a flight from LAX to Dallas, then Dallas to Santiago. The flights took approximately five and ten hours, respectively. During our layover in Dallas, we were fortunate enough to meet up with Sean Waeiss, a much overdue gathering. The flight to Chile was an overnight flight and with the morning can beautiful sites from below. The flight went flawlessly and the airplane was surprisingly good. The first day in Santiago consisted of hanging out with family and eating a great deal. We never got too far from the table. Matt’s Spanish was put to the test, and he did fairly well through meeting a lot of family in a foreign language can be exhausting and intimating. Seeing family after eight years was amazing to say the least.

The following day German, Gaby, and Silvana took us sightseeing to Vina del Mar and Valparaiso. The road there was pretty and reminded us much of northern California. Vina del Mar is a nice beach town with plenty of restaurants, shops, and high rise apartments. Once there we went to their apartment, that had a gorgeous view of the coastline. From there were drove through Renaca and Concon, also beach towns but much more modest.

Viña del Mar

Next stop was Valparaiso where ate lunch at Bote Salvavidas, a restaurant in the shape of a boat that sits next to the port. We all order seafood and fish and the food was delicious. After lunch we went on a boat tour of the port. Valparaiso may not be Chile’s biggest port it is definitely is most well known. The city itself spreads across the hills and has many “ascensores” to climb the hills. The town is home to a spurting bohemian scene with art galleries, cafes, and shops selling handmade goods. This is all found in between worn down homes and home that once belong to the well to do, which have been restored and converted into nice hotels. Murals and graffiti are found at every turn and it is truly a city I recommend visiting and getting lost in. After getting back to Santiago we spent the evening with Pita (my grandmother).

German, Silvana, Matt, Me, and Gaby

Valparaiso ascensore

Valparaiso Rooftops

Valparaiso streets

Our third day in Santiago was Christmas Eve which is more celebrated than Christmas day itself. In the morning German and Silvana picked us and took us on a tour of downtown Santiago. The walking tour took four hours and we saw La Moneda (Chile’s “White House”) and many other important and historical buildings surrounding it. My uncle was a fantastic guide and we were extraordinarily grateful for the time taken to show us around. Once we were back at Pita’s we took a nap in order to prepare for the evening festivities, being that Matt and I are “gringos” and like to go to bed fairly early. The evening was spent at Gaby and German’s where we ate amazing food. Little empanadas as appetizers, filled with mushrooms, cheese and spinach, and “pino”, a mixture of beef, onion, and spices. This is the most traditional filling for a Chilean empanada. Matt ventured out and had the beef and even ate the pork served for dinner. I on the other hand didn’t quite feel like eating meat, and stuck with my vegetarian ways. Chileans are carnivores but my family was very courteous and prepare many delicious vegetarian meals for us. Also this evening my family taught Matt Chilean words, his favorites being huevon (a dirty word used as a noun, verb, and adjective, has both good and bad connotations) , poto pelado(butt naked), pata pelada(barefoot), te pelado(tea with no sugar), and bakan(cool). We finally called it a night a one in the morning, Matt and I were struggling to keep our eyes open despite of our nap earlier in the day.

Downtown Santiago

Silvana (my cousin) , Me, and Matt on Christmas Eve.

Above is Silvana's amazing painting!

My beautiful grandmother, Pita.

Christmas day was spent with lots of family and it was wonderful. I hope to never let eight years go by again without seeing my kin. That evening we got our packs ready for part two of our adventure.

Family

Ivana, showing off her new threads.

Juanjo, this little one is real cute.

Prepping

Next stop: Puerto Montt.

Waldo!

Week with Waldo video up now!!!!!!!!





youtube version is better quality, but not sure if they will remove the sound from it, so the blogger vid is up too!

Hodgepodge

wow, long time no post. been busy with friends in town, busy at work, busy at home, etc. here's some pics to catch up...

Got out to surf on 11-11-11 with Mike and our mom who was in town! overcast day, but pretty fun

my mom surfed too! here she is smiling probably after taking a beating underwater

about to stand! unfortunately I didn't get any photos of her standing, but she did stand up a couple of times! she was pumped obviously, as were we

again, my photo skills took the photo just before standing

mike catching a small one on the handplane. we all three ended up bodysurfing in the end and all caught the same wave right at 11:11 AM on 11-11-11. yea, it was awesome!

Here's some recent progress (slow progress) on my wooden board I'm making. Maybe you'll have to enlarge the picture to see it but here's the full drawn out spine and rib cross sections. I tried learning one new computer program to do this, but couldn't quite get it down to be able to do a 3-d model of this. It'll take some more time to learn that one, or another one, and the next board will be modeled that way first, which will make it much easier to draw out and redraw any modifications of it in pencil and paper. Oh and a computer program is much more accurate than me measuring out certain points, connecting dots, using French curves, and just standing back and saying "yea that looks good!" in my head. Oh and having an actual 3D model would show that it's smooth from cross section to cross section too, which would again be nice. But whatever!

Here's the spine and cross sections of the ribs (half) cut out and about to be traced onto the wood that I'll cut them out of. More to come on this obviously.



It was my birthday on Sunday. Very Sweet. This is no ordinary cake....


It's a brownie cheesecake! Holy s*** it was good!


Mike and I went out to surf in the morning, and despite the windy conditions, overcast-about-to-rain skies, and minimal waves, it was so much fun! We only stayed out about an hour due to the wind really picking up, but it was pretty awesome to be out and catch a few on my birthday with my brother. Very awesome.


SkiesThe old man (Mike) and the sea

Since it started raining right after surfing, we hung out most of the day and cooked and Mel made us black bean and sweet potato enchiladas for lunch! so flippin good!

Right before sunset we decided to go over to a park nearby to hike around some in the rain. It was pretty enjoyable and an awesome way to end the day.

Us.