Chiloé and then down south to the Chilean Patagonia

Posting photos has kind of gone bust for the moment... frustrating! So I´ll have to give the update in writing only for the time being.

After Villarrica we spent five days on the Island of Chiloé where we stayed with the most charming family who were very happy to put up with our basic Spanish. We quickly became like part of the family, playing soccer with the two year old Bastian and building sand castles on the beach with ten year old Alina. With our elementary vocabulary it is extra easy to relate to kids! We spend a couple of days in Ancud and took a day trip to Castro where there are pretty little houses along the coast on stilts!

We then took a 36 hour bus ride all the way south to Punta Arena...yes I DID say 36 hours! It was painful... I even got car sick as we twisted and turned through the mountains.... not fun. In Santiago we had met a couple from Germany who happened to be on our same bus to Punta Arena. We ran into them again the following day in Punta Arena and decided to go on a trek in the Patagonia Mountains together. We spent one crazy day in Punta Arena preparing for our trek in Torres Del Paine National park. There is a duty free shopping zone here where we bought a sturdy little tent for only $50 CDN (cheaper to buy one than to rent one for the week!). We then set off for the spectacular Chilean Patagonia where we treked through snow capped Mountains, giant glaciers and ice caps, crystal blue lakes, and crazy cliffs with winds up to around 70 km per hr. We camped for 6 nights and hiked between 6 and 9 hrs per day... with our heavy packs full of all our camping gear and food. It was truly wonderful, terrible, exciting and exhausting all at the same time! We arrived back in Punta Arena late last night and are now trying to figure out where to go next... most probably to Argentina in the next couple of days. It is mighty cold here in the South of Chile (not like Canada...) and we´re ready to start heading back closer to the equator. It is reassuring though to know that we brought warm clothes and sleeping bags for a good reason.

I will try again to post photos soon.