Patagonia region and the W backpack route

Words can't describe the scenery on the 4 day backpack trek known as the W route.  We hiked 6 or 8 or 10 so miles per day...you just go until you see the major sights and get to the next refugio which is like a hostel with rooms for 6 or more people and bunkbeds, common bathroom,  no heat.  Price includes dinner and a simple breakfast.  

Day 1 ....the wind literally blew some of us off our feet and we had a lesson in how to squat down quickly, cover your face with your buff, and wait. while small rocks pelt yo.  crazy!  I got food poisoning on Saturday somehow - when I arrived in Punta Arenas probably.  Woke up Sunday and could hardly function.  met my group, rode to Puerto Natales and slept all day.  We started hiking the next morning and between the hills, the wind, and my backpack, I was hurting.  

Thank you DGz for making me strong and tough.  I made it to the refugio, ate a few bites that stayed down, and hiked all the way to the base of Torres del Paine.   I could not miss it!  rough day.  

Day 2 ... I felt decent and wind was not as strong,.  Made it to base of Los Cuernos!  ate a good dinner and felt so much better.  Happy days.  Scenery was amazing every day. 

Day 3 .... strong and happy to enjoy every bit of the scenery and my tour group friends.  sea kayaking to glacier was cold but worth it! 

Day 4 ...my birthday!  good weather with sun and not too much wind. hike to highest lookout above glacier,  boat ride to glacier and down thru Lake Pehoe to our bus.  Great dinner, wine, hotel and hot shower.  Fabulous W trek.  

Ski areas!

I am amazed at what people will go through to ski.  This ski area is at the top of the Andes outside of Santiago. To get there you drive up a really steep road with over 40 switch backs. The road is paved and narrow and in winter,it is one way - UP until 2 p.m. And then one way down. I saw people riding bikes on this road and just could not quit saying "how the hell are they riding this steep road?" It was tough driving! Amazing!

After switchback 40 you see the buildings for the ski area the top of yet another mountain cut with more switchbacks (above). 20 more steep switch backs and you get to ski. There are no trees on the ski slopes.... with 2 or 3 lifts and a few runs. 

Another ski town above.

ski areas and big city of Santiago

some scenery on the way down the mountain. beautiful.  In winter chains are required and rented from a large station on the road,  if you don't chain up, you don't go on.  Drop off chains as you drive down.

You can hang out on the patio and watch the skiiers in winter. 

Parks, fitness, flowers...

Santiago has parks everywhere!  Parque Forestal is the largest and follows the main highways downtown along the Rio Mapoche for miles and miles.  It is long and narrow with thousands of trees, flowers, benches, and wide paths for walking and riding bicycles.  In one of my first posts I put pictures from Parque Bicentenario, which connects with Parque Forestal and is smaller but really beautiful with swans and exotic birds.

Every neighborhood has a local park with swings and more for kids years agoith workout machines for everyone!  These machines are permanently placed and they use your body weight for resistance so there are no weight stacks.  One I like a lot is a rowing machine.  I sit on the bench and when I row, I lift my own body weight.  It´s hard!  These machines are used often by young and old and I can always walk and find a park with workout equipment nearby.  It is a new campaign within yhe last few years to get fitness machines in every park. 

Also, many fitness classes with trainers are held in the parks. 
They have the same bike share program as Boulder and many places in the world, except their bikes are orange.  

Since I´ve been here I´ve seen so many athletic events.  Last weekend was a 10K on Sunday when we were riding bikes.  That Sunday there was also a hill run (that really steep hill up to the ski area).  It started in Santiago and had 3 distances to run up - the longest was 33K, about 19 or 20 miles.  There are running clubs, riding clubs, and many sports shops.

They also have an obesity problem here.  I´ve seen many overweight people in the city.  Every corner has a vendor selling sweets, nuts, and pastries and pastry shops are everywhere, so I am not surprised.  The news had a report about it one night and I don´t know what they were saying but I got the word - obesa.

My Chilean spanish teacher says Chile has all the same problems as the U.S. because their role model is us.  Kind of sad....

Flowering trees are everywhere!   The most abundant and beautiful are the Jacaranda which are covered in purple flowers for weeks.  No photo but will post one later. 

I have enjoyed the big city very much and have found it easy to get around.  I´m leaving on Saturday for Patagonia trek!  - a big change from Santiago and it´s heat.  Looking forward to it although my trip mates will all speak English and I need to continue practicing Spanish.  But I´ll manage.  :-)

Claudia's house

Some pics from Claudia's house....

I am so lucky to have found this living situation.   There are 4 renters at the house and I have so many opportunities to speak Spanish at home.  Plus my room is big enough with lots of light. .it is perfect.  

I like the two little dogs who are puppies.   They are great fun. 
The male, Zombie, is wild and crazy and the female, Emma, is just sweet.  I rescue her from Zombie attacks sometimes.in the picture of Claudia and her Patricio, he is holding 2 of the old dogs, including the one on the right with Tina Turner hair. 

There are neighborhoods in Santiago, but also many apartments and condos in tall buildings.  All living areas are behind walls and with locked gates. Our house has many floor to ceiling windows and metal grates that roll up and down.  Mine is partway down in the photos.  One picture shows the second floor of the house and the vines growing on the fence around the house.  Violence is rare here but theft is very common.  Everyone I've met has had their locked bicycle stolen.  Every store has an employee who hangs out by the door and watches for theft.

I'm including a few pics of Santiago.   Sunsets are often red and amazing.  The mountains on 3 sides of the city are spectacular.  

Santiago Entertainment, Arts, and some History

I suppose Santiago is like any big city- there is always someone playing music in the subway with their case sitting out for tips, but one day a 4-man band got on the subway and played music for a few stops.  They were great and people gave tips.  How you stay standing on the buses or the subway without holding on to anything is a mystery to me.  Most drivers hit the gas, then hit the break, repeat... nothing smooth about public transportation.

The other evening,  a guy got on the bus with his electric guitar and an amplifier.  I thought he was taking the bus to his gig, but he played a canned music track and then played electric guitar.  He was so into it for the 15 minutes I was on that bus and I don´t know how he could stay upright while making good music.

It is common for entertainers to stand in front of lanes of traffic at a red light and do something entertaining until the cars get the green light - so they do their thing and walk the first cars in the lanes for tips.  I saw two young ladies taking turns twirling flags, a guy juggling, a guy juggling on a unicycle, but the most amazing was the guy who attached a rope from light to light (in front of the stopped traffic!) and walked the tightrope while juggling.  I am always amazed at what people do for coins!  There are regular beggars who don´t entertain but are physically disabled, and I have seen some street people sleeping it off, but not many.

The Carabineros are the police in all of Chile - they don´t have local police, only the military police or Carabineros.  They are standing and walking around everywhere.  You can´t go very far without seeing one or a pair of them.  I have never seen them be aggressive and it is nice to know they are around.  I have seen them regularly in every place I´ve visited.

I´ve seen and heard quite a few demonstrations in the streets, which is also interesting because the people are taking action against some things they are concerned about.  One big one was because the government wants to consolidate their version of social security as a government program.

Chile had a coup and the U.S. backed dictator Pinochet took over the country in 1973 by killing the popular Socialist president, Allende.  He imposed curfews and took drastic measures to quiet those who disagreed.  He was a dictator so you can imagine the atrocities.  He was ousted in 1990 and later arrested for crimes against people.  My friends say the nature of Chilean people is to go along quietly, but since Pinochet, many are speaking out.  So these peaceful demonstrations seem to be a good thing.

Dogs!   Street dogs are everywhere I've been and are accepted as part of Chile.  They sleep wherever they want and everyone walks around them.  In parks they sometimes sleep on the benches.  I've seen several instances in busy Santiago where the dog will stand on the corner with the people and cross the 8 lanes when the people cross.   They are big and docile.  They get food from trash or restaurant owners leave the scraps outside for them after closing time.  It is odd to see dogs sleeping anywhere and everywhere.  

Also including 2 pics of my Spanish school and the coffee spot for our daily break.  I am sitting with Yuko from Japan. 

Food!

This is an old post that I wrote but never published so I'm posting it now for myself.  Great food photos below bring back nice memories!

I'm enjoying trying new foods here and have had some outstanding meals and some familiar meals just like I would have at home.  I'm surprised that they eat so much wheat here.  There are bakeries with fresh breads and pastries everywhere!  Lots of empanadas and hot dogs too.   

 

We ate so much fresh seafood last weekend on the coast! We saw much of the fish and shellfish fresh on the docks and in the mercados.  It was my first time to eat Machas a la Parmesana.  These are pink clams native to Chile that sit in half their shell and are covered with parmesan and baked.  They are delicious!  I also tried locos, which are a Chilean abalone (or so a website says).  It´s a huge shellfish that tastes a lot like scallops and I´ve never seen anything like it.  You cover them with salt, lemon, and onion salsa and eat. Yum!  Que rico! See picture below with 3 on the plate.

Salmon and many types of fish are common and delicious.  It is difficult to order from a menu because we don't know their names for meats and fish.  Potato puree' is mashed potatoes and papa myo is potato salad.  They usually have mayonnaise,  lemons, and some type of salsa with every meal - and Chilean wine.  Another typical food I ate is pastel de choclo (corn).  It's baked in a round pottery bowl and  has an egg,  a hidden green olive, and a piece of chicken inside and is topped with a sweet cornmeal cake.  Love it!

I also ate a soup and a platter of a variety of shellfish including shrimp, crab claws, scallops, calimari, and other things that I didn´t recognize but it´s all good!  And it was my first time to try Chorillana, which is common and traditional.  It´s meant to be shared and is a big platter of french fries and on top is meat (chorizo and beef), fried onions, and some fried egg.  It´s greasy but good and everyone just digs in with a fork.

Other popular foods - salads of tomato, onion, fresh corn, lettuce, carrots.  Canned sardines come in a variety of flavors and are good.  We drove back to Santiago through a town known for olives and tuna (not the fish).  It´s very dry there so there are miles of olive trees and you buy big scoops of black and green olives at roadside stands.  And tuna is a fruit from a huge cactus.  The fruit is round, about the size of a pear and you peel and eat.  It´s green and very sweet.  A favorite fruit in Chile is Chirimoya, which is only available for about 3 months  and it´s now!  The fruit is large, green, and hard and inside with big seeds but a sweet creamy fruit.  

Another first was Manja - which is very sweet creamy goo made from boiling milk and sugar into a paste.  It is pictured below as darker layers in a layered pastry and a cortado (espresso cut with milk).  

Other faves here - everyone drinks Chilean wine often and they believe it is the best.  I´m becoming a fan of wine.  The pisco sour is a drink made with pisco (which is something made from grapes grown here), lemon juice, sugar, and some frothy egg white.  It´s my favorite.  

Another common drink is a Terremoto (earthquake) that I tried this weekend at a bar called El Piojero - filled with young people.   It is a form of early white wine  poured over pineapple ice cream and a splash of grenadine. Everyone says to stop at one or your head will feel the terrremoto, so I had less than one.  They go down very easy.  A coffee in a little cafe is good but they are small.  People drink Nescafe instant a lot and the nearby OK market (just like 7-11) has a machine with Nescafe unsweetened latte that I enjoy every morning.

Grocery stores are large and have everything we have and things we don't have.  I've enjoyed shopping and have cooked a few times too.  you can also find everything in big outdoor markets. Restaurants usually offer ceviche on the menu and there's always lots of outdoor seating.   Chinese restaurants and sushi are common but friends say it's not like what we know.  The sushi often has cream cheese in it!  There are many food vendors on the streets too but the only thing I've tried is nuts.  I think there will be more interesting food in my future here in Chile. 

Enjoy some photos I took! 

Saturday bike ride to Parque Bicentenario

This is an old post that I wrote but never published so I'm posting it now for myself.  

Claudia has a bicycle and she lets me ride it!  See it by the palm tree below with pink-wall tires.  

Beautiful day for a ride with views of the Andes (a little snow still on top) and a lively and beautiful park full of people. In the first photo you see hills, not the Andes peaks.  I saw many people and families jogging, biking, walking, picnicking,  and enjoying the outdoors. 

Santiago seems very much like any US city.  So far, no culture shock at all.  I saw a Starbucks and a McDonald's today on my walk and a couple historical things we wouldn't see at home.  It's clean, green, and people are friendly.