Cerro CristobalDeparting Thailand was a bittersweet moment. While we had enjoyed many magical experiences, amazing meals and downright cheap accommodations; we yearned to be in a place where we could understand the language, see some mountains, and not sweat. Our flight to Chile was the longest and most complicated of the trip. We left Bangkok on a twelve hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany. After a few hours in Germany we boarded another twelve hour flight to Sao Paolo, Brazil. After another layover we were on to Santiago. Total time in transit was over 40 hours.  We were glad to have a few DVD's from Thailand to enjoy along the way. Our only potential hiccup in this particular journey occurred in Brazil. Brazil has immigration/visa policies based on the concept of reciprocity, whatever a country asks of Brazilian citizens; Brazil requests the same of citizens of that country. Unfortunately since 9/11, the US has become ridiculously strict in its visa policies for foreign nationals, forcing visitors to pay expensive visa fees, jump through complicated process hoops, and adhere to complicated guidelines. The end results of these policies include far fewer people wishing to visit the US and US citizens having far more difficulty entering countries like Brazil. Because of the complicated restrictions, we could not get a Brazilian visa while we were traveling through Asia and the Pacific because there were no embassies capable of issuing one to a US citizen. Our lack of a visa while routing through Sao Paolo meant that we could not leave the Transit Area of the airport. Our luggage was out in baggage claim and we couldn't get to it without going through customs. Fortunately we were able to convince an airline employee to grab our luggage and throw it onto our next flight. If we had not been so fortunate, we would have lost our bags (yikes!).  Thank goodness for our continuous contact with the kindness of strangers.

Volcon Villarica Once we arrived in Santiago, things went smoothly. We began to remember more and more of our rusty and deeply buried high school Spanish skills as we spent a few days touring through Santiago. The jagged white peaks of the Andes mountains that surround Santiago were a welcome sight for Brice. While Santiago is a pleasant city, it is still a city and we always seem to be trying to leave big cities as soon as we arrive in them. From Santiago, we hopped on a bus south to the town of Pucon, a trendy little adventure tourism town and home to our language school. The initial dread of a twelve hour bus ride was gone the minute we saw the bus. We had booked tickets on a cama, or sleeper, bus. Cama means bed and our seats had more room than first class on a plane and quite possible more space than some real beds that we've stayed in.  We were able to fully recline the seat completely flat...heavenly. This bus trip was the first of many and an introduction to the importance of buses in South America.  Owning a car is not as common as the US and buses are a primary means of transport for a great deal of South Americans. This has led to an extremely comprehensive, well-appointed bus system that allows for easy, cheap and comfortable transport throughout the region.

Juan and Eliana Arriving in Pucon was a wonderful treat. Pucon is a small tourist town very similar in look and feel to some Western US ski towns. Nestled at the base of the active Volcano Villarrica and surrounded by lakes, every view from this town was breathtaking. We met up with one of the teachers form our language school and over the next few days got situated with our homestay family, Juan and Eliana Esperquel, a generous and friendly retired couple. The next two weeks were spent working on our Spanish during the day and exploring the town and its surrounding parks in the afternoons. We found our time spent in the homestay an incredible experience. Not only were we immersed in Spanish but we also became much more familiar with the Chilean culture and lifestyle. Juan and Eliana were wonderful hosts that fed us far too well with an array of Chilean fare and patiently coached us on our Spanish. Because they spoke no English conversations were often challenging, but ultimately rewarding. At the end of our two week course, we had made massive improvements in our Spanish, but it was time to move on. We had some unfortunate negative financial experiences with the school itself, exposing some of the issues that arise when you deal with a small, poorly managed business; especially one that is communicating financial details in a non-native language. With a bit of this bad taste lingering, we happily boarded another bus south to the coastal port of Puerto Montt.

Joyful Reunions Our arrival in Puerto Montt was a few days before were to meet Naomi's folks who were flying down for Thanksgiving, so we rented a car and explored for a few days. Our explorations were a bit more rain soaked than we preferred so we changed our plans from backpacking up to volcanic hotsprings and had our first Chilean cabana experience instead. The cabana is very popular in Chile's Lakes District, generally a small two bedroom building with a woodstove nestled in some scenic locale with lots of charm and privacy. After weeks of seeing cabanas along various roadways, we figured that we deserved to get out of the rain for a bit and rent one. For US$30 a day, we got a two story cabana with a great woodstove on the shore of a lake facing several volcanoes. We spent the next few days waiting out the rain and enjoying a bit of homeliness.  (Oh, and there was satellite t.v. which was a big thrill...Naomi was able to watch as many Alias espisodes as she could take)

The weeks of rain finally broke on the day that Naomi's folks arrived. An auspicious bit of timing on an exciting day for us all. After five months on the road, we were definitely looking forward to some family time. After a joyous airport reunion, we headed out for a week of showing Pam and Ernie a bit of Chile and Argentina. Our tour included an array of towns in Chile's Lakes District including Puerto Varas and Frutillar, that have very strong European influences. We then set off on one of the premier tourist activities of the region, the Andean Lakes Crossing, aka Cruce Del Lagos. This crossing is a unique combination of boat and bus rides that connects a series of Andean mountain lakes and allows you to cross from Puerto Varas, Chile to Bariloche, Argentina through a visually stunning route. This route was originally a trade route to connect the two countries until a road was established a bit further north several years ago. This route gives access to some mountain communities that are accessible only by boat and crosses the Chilean/Argentinean border at one of the most unique border crossings that we have seen. This crossing is on a mud road that connects two of the lakes that now exists almost exclusively for the Cruce Del Lagos. After an unfortunately cloudy day of the crossing we ended up in lovely Bariloche, another Andean town nested in between snow capped mountains and a shimmering lake (seeing a trend yet?). Bariloche was our first realization of the drastic difference in the value of the US Dollar between Chile and Argentina. Because of the financial challeges facing Argentina in the past few years, the USD is far stronger there than it is in Chile. The culinary result being incredible cuts of beef for US$5 and wine for a quarter of the cost in Chile.  Pam especially loved Bariloche for its incredible leatherwork and cowgirl-chic styled shopping; if a saddle could have fit in her luggage, it would have been in there.  From Argentina, we hopped a bus back to Chile to wind the visit up with a few days at the Termas de Puyehue, a famous spa resort featuring hot springs. The Termas are situated at the base of yet more volcanoes and are found in the most popular national park in Chile. The thermal pools are yet another variation of how to package up a hot spring for mass consumption. They built massive, but beauiful swimming pools (indoor and outdoor) and pump the thermal water into the pools. After few days of luxurious soaking and walking the grounds, we were back at the airport for a very sad goodbye to Nomi's parents.  We are having an amazing journey, but we sure miss our families and friends immeasurably and it was hard to see them get on the plane and knowing that we wouldn't be together again until June.

Loading up the Navimag  With a few last days to kill in the Puerto Montt area before we headed further south, we opted to rent a car and do a bit of exploring. Unfortunately, Chileans aren't too good about clearly marking street names, one way streets, and no parking areas. We parked the car on a side street in the city for a few minutes to do a bit of grocery shopping and came back to an empty space. Hmmm, there were several cars on this street when we parked here... whats up with that?...is that a no parking sign?.....uh-ohh!

Now it was time for a true test of Spanish skills and creative problem solving - how in the hell do you get a car out of impound in a city that you don’t know with a language that you can barely speak? We found a parking attendant, got the name and direction of the impound, flagged down a cab and managed to get to the correct "Municipalidad" (there is more than one) and spent the next hour trying to get our car back. A few extra dollars in the cabfare got the cab driver to join us in the municipality office and probably kept us from getting the run-around more than we deserved.  An hour later and eighty bucks poorer, we were back in our snazzy Toyota Yaris and heading towards the island of Chiloe.

Chiloe is a cool little island off of the coast of Puerto Montt. It is mainly a fishing community with some great scenery, churches, and parks. Getting there is a fun experience aboard the smallest ferry we have been on to date. We pulled the car on and were so tightly packed that we could not actually get out of the car. The seas were a bit choppy and it kept looking like the semis parked next to us were going to tip over on us. We spent a few days poking around the island, seeing the sights, then headed back to Puerto Montt and down a bit of the Camino Austral. This legendary piece of road begins in Puerto Montt and works its way south partway to Patagonia. It winds its dirty, bumpy way along the Chilean coast while it can, and when the land runs out, there is a ferry that takes you to the next leg of the road. We made it only a short way along the Camino, but it was quite an experience.

The Navimag After saying a loveless goodbye to Puerto Montt (all we'll say is that it is a crappy port city and be careful where you park), our attention turned south to Patagonia. This is the southernmost region of South America, straddling Chile and Argentina. Patagonia exists at the very end of the Andes mountains, at the end of the world as they like to say.  It is a place of staggering beauty and harsh climate. With the Andes mountains and glaciers and ice fields of the Campo de Hielo Continental Sur (Southern Continental Ice Field) surrounded by ocean, broad expanses of scrub and farmlands; Patagonia is a truly unique environment. Patagonia is home to the southernmost civilization in the world and truly has the "end of the earth" feel south of Puerto Montt where Chile becomes even narrowing and its width becomes consumed by impassible mountains and coastal fjords. There is no Chilean road route all the way to Patagonia.

To get from Puerto Montt to Puerto Natales, our first Patagonian destination, you can either take a bus over the Andes and travel south through Argentina then cross back to Chile, or you can fly, or you can take a boat. The boat that connects these two regions is called the Navimag. The Navimag has an interesting history. It is a massive ferry, originally used to transport goods, cargo trucks, and other vehicles to these isolated ports. As tourism increased in Patagonia, travelers would pay the truck drivers to sneak them on the boat and allow them to sleep in the boat's bunks while the truck drivers slept in the cabs of their trucks. Once the Navimag folks figured out the tourist potential of this route, they opened it up to tourists directly. The appeals of this route are many. A four day boat trip through the Patagonian fjords exposes the traveler to sights that can only be seen by boat, including the largest glacier in South America, Pious X. It is also an incredibly social trip, attracting a very like minded group of travelers that get to spend 4 days sharing stories and picking each others brains for destinations and travel ideas.

Sunrise Over Puerto Natales We hopped on the boat on a Monday afternoon and dragged our packs and grocery bags full of Gato Negro (our favorite Chilean wine in a box) to our bunks, shared with 18 other people in the nether regions of the ship. Actually it was far more pleasant than it sounds! A few minutes later, we were on our way. The next four days were a treat in many ways. We saw some incredible scenery, more snow capped mountains, glaciers, remote coastal villages, and some very narrow fjords. We also had some wonderful social interactions. The general trend amongst passengers on the boat is that of independent long haul travelers with time to spend, people who were comfortable with being a bit uncomfortable (this was no luxury cruise), and people who appreciated a bit of a unique experience. We spent countless hours hanging out with new friends. Brice had the pleasure of meeting a few photography junkies and having quality geek out time with them and Naomi befriended a group of cool women, getting some quality "girl time." On the morning of the forth day, the Navimag pulled into Puerto Natales and we disembarked. It was quite a sight to see some of the things that were being brought down on the boat, including a fishing boat and lots of semi's.

Puerto Natales is a small coastal town that serves as the gateway to Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine - the most famous park in Patagonia. Brice was here five years ago with Sean for a few weeks of backpacking. The fond memories of the trip were one of the main reasons that we decided to come down here. While the last trip was awesome, the weather was a bit less than friendly and we had our fingers crossed that good weather would greet us. We opted to stay at a great little hostel called Concepto Indigo, a place that Brice and Sean had stumbled upon. It was a weird feeling for Brice after six months of traveling to arrive in a place he already knew, similar to Naomi's experience in Thailand. Needless to say the tourist infrastructure is a bit more established now and we were able to do all of our food shopping, and sort out transport to the park in a few hours. We would be in the park the next day for fifteen days of backpacking and photography.

Torres Del Paine Torres Del Paine is an experience like none other. For the backpacker it is a mecca, a wilderness junkie's pilgrimage. The mountains that the form the core of the park are iconic images in the outdoor community, and the first time your eyes fall upon them as you approach the park, your heart can't help but flutter. The park is a unique outdoor experience in many ways. While the park itself is good sized, the focal point of the park is a massive set of peaks and towers that seem to rise directly out of the ground. It has one of the most famous trekking routes in the world, a route whose accessibility increases with each year as more and more people visit it. The route was original a circumnavigation of these peaks that included a few side trips into two of the valleys that lead into the heart of the peaks. As the years have gone by, this route has been simplified into a "W" that follows the southern perimeter of the massifs. The simple campsites and huts that once were scattered along it have been replaced with increasingly modern and well equipped refugios. The concept of a refugio is foreign to us as US-based backpackers. These refugios are self contained huts that serve three meals a day, have hot showers, and have stores that sell everything including beer (truly a saving grace, justifying their existence in our book). The presence of these refugios allows for people that have minimal backcountry experience and no equipment to undertake a multiday trek. This factor opens the park up to hordes of people that would not normally undertake a true backcountry expedition and is one of the factors that makes the park so incredibly popular. In some ways this is good and many ways it is bad. For us, we started our trek with this knowledge, accepting that we would see far more people than we have ever seen on a backpacking trip and we would encounter people far less concerned or aware of the ethics and principles of backcountry travel. Far too many visitors to the park have no idea what "Leave no Trace" means, don't know how to be properly prepared for inclement weather, and don't have much backcountry experience.  For those of you out there unsure of what we are talking about here, basically we believe very strongly that when we are hiking we should have a minimal impact on the environment and leave it in better condition than when we found it.  Unfortunately, that means constantly thinking about garbage and poo and often shivering in the cold without a raging bonfire to warm our weary bones.

The Towers We planned on taking a unique approach to our time in the park. While most visitors follow a standard four night route along the "W", we were going to be there for 14 nights. We took a more leisurely approach that covered more terrain but with no fixed schedule. Having been here before, Brice knew what particular areas were the most photogenic and our intention was to wait for good weather in these spots to really try and get some great photographs. For the next two weeks we were blessed with incredibly good weather - only one real day of rain (the last trip was at least half rain-soaked) and stunning scenery. Our approach paid off in that we saw far fewer people that we expected, enjoyed many amazing moments of solitude. We also took periodic advantage of the hot showers and alcoholic generosity of the refugios. We also ended up seeing a lot of the folks that we met on the Navimag, which added a pleasant social aspect to the trip.

The absolute highlight of the trip was our day at the base of the Torres Del Paine. The actual "Torres" or towers are a set of magnificent stone spires that tower above a glacial lake. One of the most famous aspects of the park and a sight that is blessed with an eastern orientation that makes it an ideal scene for sunrise. On a perfectly clear morning at 5 am, we packed up a bag with all of the camera gear, sleeping bags, stove, food, and other goodies for the day; and slogged up the steep trail to the "Mirador de Los Torres Del Paine". From the overlook, we scrambled down the moraine to the base of the lake that the Torres preside over. We set up shop in a spot that we had scouted out the day before, in the shelter of a massive boulder, we had a perfect view and we completely hidden from all of the people that were at the overlook. We set up a temporary camp, made coffee and watched one of the most beautiful sunrises of our life. We ended up spending the entire day there, watching the light and clouds change around the Torres; taking in one of the most staggeringly beautiful displays of the power of nature that either of us has ever seen. We were even treated to a pair of guanacos (a Patagonian species of llama) meander right past us. It was one of those days where we really realized how fortunate that we are to be able to do this trip and have the time and flexibility to sit in one spot and immerse ourselves for a day while most people only have a few minutes to see it.  Naomi was also able to come up with a new joke, one that she is more impressed with than is probably worthy:  If a guanaco fell in love with a llama, their babies would be llamacas!  (pronounced: yah-mah-kah...get it?  maybe Jewish friends will chuckle softly to themselves)

After 15 days, we were ready for a bed and clean clothes, so we hopped on a bus out and headed back to Puerto Natales. With Christmas Eve the next day, we decided to return to Concepto Indigo and spend the Christmas/Chanukah holiday there chilling out, eating good food, planning for our adventures ahead and getting this website update ready.

In the spirit of the holidays, we want to wish you all a sweet season of family and friends, remembering good times past and dreaming of all the those yet to come.  Whatever you celebrate, may the holiday lights glimmer brightly and bring you cheer.  Wishing you a happy and healthy 2006!