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Chile was a very nice country even though we don't speak any spanish. We started out in Santiago for a couple of days wandering around the town looking at shops and people. If you're like shoe stores, that's the place to be... within 100 m we counted 25 shops with shoes only.... Pretty amazing. The food wasn't that great if
you just ate at a random restaurant. It was very greasy with lots of mayonaise on but we did find some good ones.

We wanted to go to Easter Island right away but we couldn't get a planeticket before 6 days after so in the meantime we went 500 km north from Santiago with a bus to a little town called La Serena.
The beach was not very good but it was a lot of fun just walking around the tiny town and try to speak spanish. One day we took a trip up to Penguin de Humboldt national park that has 3 little islands with some marine life such as sealions, pinguines, pelicans and others. We were supose to see dolphines but didn't, we were just unlucky. We had an hour on a very nice white sand beach with really cold water and off cause we both got a sunburn. It's not a real vacation with out sunburns.! We took a bus back to Santiago the day before we flew to Easter Island and left some of our cloths in a hotel. No reason to take a jacket to the a subtropical island......

Easter Island is one of the most exciting places we have ever been. We weresuppose to stay there only 3 days but could only get back to Chile in 6 days but we were very pleased it happened that way. For a couple of day we drove around the island in a rental car and looked at these big massive stone statues called Moai. Every time you stand in front of one you can't stop thinking what the hell drove the people to make such a big statue. There is around 1000 around the island most of them fallen down or not yet finished and still lying up in the Rano Raraku crater where all the Moai's come from. Some of them is transported 20 km to their final destination and weighs around 40 tons. It's a very spooky place because no body knows exacly why they were build. If you ever get a chance to make a stop there, you should defently go for it.....

After that we flew back to Santiago for a day, went to the airport and flew down to Chile Patagonien
and the town of Punta Arenas. From there we took some busses and ended up in Puerto Natales, the gateway to Torres del Paine national park. We rented a couple of sleeping backs, some camping equipment and a tent. Bought food for the 3 days we wanted to trek in the park.

The next day a bus picked us up and drove us up to the park, well 7 km
from the park that is. First we had to pay to get into the park and if we didn't want to walk we could pay a mini bus to drive us to the main gate, which we did...! They know how to make a business out of nature! By this time we had spent around 100 euro and we had not even seen the vertical towers Torres del Paine yet.

Eventually we got to the starting point and began our 10 km trek to the next camping site. The trail was rough going up and down. A lot of loose gravel didn't make it any easier, but the mountains was very beautiful with green lakes surrounding them. Some places we had to balance on rocks to cross a raging river, it was trekking when trekking is good! besides we carried to much weight in our backpacks. Our shoulders was pretty beat when we finally got to the camping site. We ate diner, canned tuna, canned beans, canned olives and pasta, diner for kings..... and put up the tent. At 'round 10 we passed out in our sleeping back. During the night the wind picked up and almost blew the tent to pieces. I was outside to fix the damn tent 3 times. The almost full moon lit the place so it wasn't even dark.

The next day we packed our gear, ate breakfast and started to walk. The wind blew fiercely and knocked Kristina of the trail twice. After another rough 4 km we got to a primitive camping site. The one we stayed in last night had showers, toilets and a rather large room with a fireplace. This one we were looking at right now had nothing, not even a toilet so we decided to walk the last 7 km to the next camping site. Our feet and shoulders was very beat by now but we managed to get to Pehoe camp at 16.00 o'clock after crossing hills, rivers, and small swamps. The wind was even worse than in the morning so after a brief disguising we both wanted to go back to Puerto Natales. My feet would not have liked the idea of walking the next day, in fact I couldn't have anything but sandals on for the rest of our trip. Kristinas shoulders refused to carry anything anymore, we were beat.

Eventhough it hurt all over it was a nice trip. Whenever you were thirsty you just
put down your drinking you had water better than mineral water from a shop. The lakes were turkis colored in one and deep blue in another. A very nice national park to visit but a bit to expensive. Next time we might visit the that area from the Argentina side which is right next door to the national park of Torres del Paine.

We flew back to Santiago got our things and took a bus out to the sea and a city called Vina del Mar to finish our trip on the beach. Unfortunately it was cloudy 3 out of 5 days we spent there. The last 3 days we rented a car and drove around the town. Only up the coast was nice, driving inland was pretty boring. We had a great trip, learned a few spanish things and got another good experience. A funny thing was, when ever some chilean tryed to speak to me and a tolded them a did not understand they turned to Kristina and started a long sentence or a quistion because she looks a little bit like a chilean. When she also said that she didn't understand a word they started to speak slowly'er so she might understand it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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