Al Sur

During my final time here in Chile, I convinced my very good friends Elias and Pancho to go with me to Bariloche, Argentina. Over time we added Benjamin and Thomas. Well, because of a little misplanning by me, when we showed up in Osorno in the south of Chile to take the connecting bus to Barlioche, it turns out the volcano that had been erupting in Southern Chile for 50 days had kind of closed the road. Instead we quickly changed and headed to Puerto Varas. From Puerto Varas we went and stayed en Lago de Todos Santos and Petrohue at the base of Volcan Osorno.

On the seond day during the rain we wanted to go hiking on the volcano. The boat dropped us off on a beach on the lake shore with no trail up the volcano. We follwed a stream coming of the mountain that formed a natural canyon. For about 4 hours we climeb until we reached the snow on top of the foothills of the volcano.

After 2 days of being soaking wet, we thought that the only rational thing to do was to go to an island that recieves 340 days of rain per year. As it turns out, instead we had a rare 3 days of sun in Chiloé.

We took advantage of the sun and went to the Parque Nacional de Chiloé. Hiking through the dense cold rain forest one can hear the pacific coast crashing against the deserted beach. The day was fantastic: the water was deep blue, the vultures soared in the breeze, and the the sand was warm against the feet. We used the day to film videos of us trying to sound like Wookies and rock throwing contests.

The vacation turned out well. The rain was a nice contrast to the sun and the Chilotes were welcoming and warming during the cold casi-Patagonian winter.