Cerro Castillo

Stunning, absolutely stunning!

We hitchiked from Coyhaique to Villa Cerro Castillo. Met Laura and Jonas plus little Lukas (whom Rob had met few days earlier) by chance and had lunch with them. They gave us a lift to CONAF office where we registrated for the hike. Office was 7km from the trail on Laguna Chiguay (who puts office so far from the trail?!) but luckily we got a lift back down. First day was pretty boring, just following a 4x4 track, bunch of dead trees and logs all around. We crossed many streams and three rivers so we had to take our shoes off. Water was so freezing! Seriously, the burning and stinging feeling in the toes.. Auts! After 12km walking we came to the first camp and because it had started to rain and there was a french couple staying, we decided to stay also.

Tuesday started nicely and flat, but then started to climb up quite steep for few hours through the pass. It was full of snow, we tried to walk on other people steps because snow was soft already and wasn't carrying our weight. Damn it was hard work! But beautiful, so incredible views for the mountains and glaciers (plural). Coming down wasn't any easier. It was so steep and with scrambling rocks I was so scared of falling. We continued little further from the second camp. Another steep uphill climb and we put our tent below the mountain just before the snowline. It was almost 15km, but we got there early. 4pm, sun was shining and we barely had any wind. We took ice cold showers from the river, slow cooked our curry meal (i start to be very good at making currys, Rob has thought me well) and enjoyed the magnificent view with tiny snowflakes coming down.

Second night was colder. It went below zero, ground was white when I got up and water was frozen in our bottles. Started early and spent half an hour trying to find the path which we lost because we were too busy admiring the frozen lake. Found it eventually and started another climb on rocks and snow. Everything was totally worth it when we got to the top. 360° view for mountains, glaciers, lakes, rivers and town. Once again I was speecless, I actually wanted to cry because I was so happy. I keep forgetting how lucky I am, I am not even 29 (yet :D) and been able to visit 50 different countries, met so many amazing people, done great adventures and seen so much. I have learnt to appreciate every moment of it but also appriciate everyday life with my family.

Coming down wasn't pleasent at all. Too many sharp, moving rocks. My toes were squashed and my legs so shaky. We skipped one extra bit and headed towards the town. Third day was probably 14km, we got it little shorter because nice farmer gave us a lift for the last kilometers. And I don't think I could have done much more. I was so sore. My whole body was aching. I was ready for hot shower. But getting hot water meant chopping our own firewood and making a fire and waiting the water to heat up. Joys of travelling in Patagonia! So I settled with cold shower and punddled up afterward and crawled to my sleeping bag.

Quellon to Chacabuco

Well, not sailing sailing. I took ferry from Quellon, south of Chiloe, to Puerto Chacabuco. Some journey through islands, fjords and mountains, and it was amazing!

We left wednesday evening and we were very lucky, whole thursday was so beautiful, sun was shining, we were able to see the islands and mountains around us. Best part, I even saw two dolphins!! It was incredible :) By the evening there started to be more and more snowpeaked mountains and we saw few glaciers also. Only foreingers were me and Steve from Minnesota. We spent the evening playing yatzy, I won!

Rob was waiting for me at Coyhaique. It was happy reunion after three weeks seperation. We couchsurfed at Andreas and Lalos place. It was great, little cabin just outside of town. Saturday we were also invited for Eduardos birthday party, typical chilean barbeque (asado). All conversations were in spanish but it was so nice and everyone were super friendly, we were part of the group and food was so delicious. It made me miss my friends, our girls nights and eating fiestas :)

Today we went for a hike to Reserva Nacional Coyhaique. Summited Cerro Cinchao, but I think the walk through the forest was much nicer! I don't think I have ever seen so many trees covered in old man beards. I felt like I was in the enchanted forest :) it was really good dayhike. Evening we spent packing our bags, bought more food for hiking, stocked up with money (here won't be ATMs anymore!) and made a fabulous curry!

Ps. 100 days left

Chiloe

Second biggest island of South-America, known from its wooden churches and colorful stilt houses. I took bus straight to Castro, and kept it as my base for the daytrips.

Saturday I took bus to the other side of the island, to Muelle de las Almas, Dock of the souls. Beoynd that point it is only sea. Story says that spirits wonder here to find the next life.. It was few kilometer walk to the shore. Landscape, green fields and amazing cliffs made me wordless once again. It was so beautiful and I felt full of energy so I decided to walk back. All in all it turned out to be little over 20km, but I had all the time I wanted, weather was just perfect, I had plenty of snacks so why not. I got lift back to Castro from local family and I was very happy to notice I manage to speak spanish the whole one hour drive :) well done me!

Sunday was market day in Dalcahue. First I took bus and ferry to nearby island, Quinchao. Achoa had one of the beautiful wooden churches (UNESCO listed) and great view from the beach. I made my way back hitchiking to check Dalcahues market. So many nice handicrafts, woollen clothes and wooden sculptures, home made pies and cakes, music and dance. Just like the Sunday I wish to have every week. Easy, chill out, no stress, stroll around and not do much. Just perfect!

Tuesday I hiked up to Cole Cole beach, part of Chiloes national park. Rob had given me very good instructions how to get there. It was totally deserted, nobody else around. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I definitely prefer travelling here off season but it has its downsides. Not so many buses or cars passing. I ended up walking on the road more than an hour so my dayhike was almost 30km. My legs were so tired when I got back to Castro. These last few days I think I have walked almost 100km!

I have enjoyed my time here, taking it easy and be one of the family. Alexandro and Irena at hostal Gamboa has been so nice to me that it is sad to leave. Ill take ferry to the mainland where Rob will be waiting for me :)  

Vipassana

Anitsööö Anitsööö Anitsööö

232 hours of silence and 117 hours of meditation is now over! I feel so relaxed and happy, I feel peaceful and balanced. It wasn't easy. So many mixed feelings and a roller coaster of emotions.

Punta Zero in Putaendo was such a beautiful place. I felt the zen immediately when I arrived. And best part was to see how fast the spring had come, apple and peach trees blooming, lady birds and dragon flies flying all around. We had private twin rooms and very nice garden and fish pond to walk around on our breaks. But lets get to the course.

Vipassana meditation, how to control your mind. Dhamma is teaching you how to get rid of missery, sorrow, sadness, cravings, guilt,.. And how to enjoy real peace, real harmony and real happiness. Reminding that you are the one responsible for your own happiness, not others. Reminding that only judge your own actions, not others. Reminding that you can only change yourself, not others. And this is what I needed. For me, it is sometimes so hard to understand how someone can act or say things they do. I try to fit everyone on my own patterns wether it is their style of life or not. I learnt to be compassioned with these thoughts and realiasing it is not away from me if someone else does things that I don't approve.

Every morning we got up at 4am to start our meditations. Followed by breakfast and little break before continuing. My second and last meal was served at 11am and after that I was allowed to have glass of lemon or ginger water at 5pm. Yes, I was hungry! But not that hungry as you could imagine. Body gets used to it quite quickly. But the food wasn't as goor or nutrious as in Nepal. One girl ate only kiwis and mandarins in every single meal. Don't know how she managed :) I found it, that the afternoon lessons were the hardest ones. It was warm outside, sun was shining and light kept coming to the meditation hall. People were turning, moving, changing position, couching, sneezing, farting, coming and going,..

Best part of the day was 7pm discourse. I was the only non spanish speaking white person, so I had private session with N.K. Goenka himself (on video). He talked about the day and gave new instructions for the following day. Almost everyday some questions had come to my mind and every night Goenka explained them without me even asking. If you had problems, after our last meditation at 9pm you could stay and ask questions from the professor. I stayed once but it didn't help, there was a huge language barrior between us.

I really think everyone should take a moment of their day to meditate as it will help you to realize many things much better. And also feel better about yourself. I feel like a new person once again. Last time it lasted 6 months before I was back being an old me judging and feeling bad about myself. This time I will really keep practicing so I won't loose it this time. I met so wonderful, open, good hearted people that I am really going to miss. We only had time to chat with other people few hours before the course started and less than 12 hours after the course, but still manage to make good friends.

Cochamo Valley

Cochamo, right in the fjords with wooden houses and snow peak mountains around us.. I could stay here forever! We had heard about place called La Juna. 20km from town, rocky and muddy path where you can only get by walking (summer time you can hire a horse). Yes, that is place for us!

I could have left half of my stuff somewhere waiting us to come back, but only few small shops were open. What the heck, I can carry three books, three shoes and all my summer clothes which I don't need. We got a ride end of the road where we put our backpacks on (I am not lying when I say it was at least 25kg! with all the stuff and food for the next four days in it) ready to walk. Rob had left our map somewhere so we could only follow the path and hope that there wouldn't be any turns.

It was heavy. I was very tired when we got there, beautiful vast area with few shelter and huge cliff around us. Cochamo Valley is said to be Yosamite of the South (National Park in California). And it was! Many waterfalls and cliff reminding me of a Half Dome. We put the fire going and were thing could we just put our tent inside the shelter.. It was suppose to rain. At that point we didn't know it would rain the next three days. We ate and chilled and eventually set our tent inside because it had started to rain very heavily. Nobody else was around so we got the whole campsite and cabin for ourselves once again.

It rained the whole night!! And morning also. But what was more annoying was mice!! We had to move our food bags zillion different times during the night and still those f@#cking sh§%he%d bas@¡rds manage to get into our food. We got company from the next campsite, had tea and oaid our stay. Afternoon it eased little bit so we went for a walk. Those paths are not very well maintaned or sign posted. Got totally lost at some point and my heart started already racing what if we don't find back.. But we did, completely soaked and exhausted.

Second night those little friends of ours continued their fiesta and I was the biggest grumpy bum what you can imagine. Ready to walk back in the rain. Rob manage to cheer me up and convince us to stay one more night. We went for another walk, crossed the river to see Toboganes waterfall. It was rock formation like a waterslide, with beautiful turqoise water beneath it.

We cooked all our meals on fire. It usually took one hour or little bit more to get it going with wet wood. We had two pans to cook with so we had to prepare everything one by one. But I loved it. Even though it was cold and rainy, fire made it feel so cozy and cooking was it's own event of the day. We didn't have any hurry, we had the time.

Saturday we woke up when it was still dark, it was frosty outside and amazing starish sky! Clouds had finally moved :) Hike back down didn't feel much easier. It was still very muddy, lots of puddles and streams to be crossed. Wooden blanks were really slippary and I think climbing up the rocks was easier than going down. With one backpack infront and back. But we made it, tired but happy!

We took bus to Puerto Montt where I took a night bus back to Santiago and will head straight to Putaende (1200km journey), where I will spend the next 12 days, participating 10-day Vipassana Meditation course. You can read my feelings from my first course in Nepal (2012) from here! Rob stayed down south, he will go Chiloe island and few national parks. We will catch up in Puerto Chacabuco in few weeks time.

Lago Llanquihue

We have arrived to the Lake District! I don't even know how many lakes in total, but I can tell you that it is gorgeous in here :)

First we stayed in Puerto Varas, Mama Hostel was so cozy and warm! I can't remember the last time when I have been able to wear just a t-shirt inside. I could have stayed inside that hostel for days. Town was too pretty for that tho. Here are many towns with German influence, bakeries and hostels, houses and architect. We did a daytrip to Frutillar, which was total old people paradice with German atmosphere. I loved the houses and the view to the Osorno volcano. This county has more than 200 volcanos!

After that we moved little bit further on the lake, to Ensenada. It is still winter in here (oh this is the furthest south either of us has ever been) so nothing is open. No hostels, no restaurants. Luckily one campsite was open so we put our tent up right next to the beach.

Laguna Verde wasn't that amazing, but a cat who followed us like a dog was :) It was really hard to walk in that path, last year Volcano Calbuco errupted covering everything in dark, heavy ash. It was like black sand. We continued walking and thank good got a ride top of Volcano Osorno. There was a skilift taking you even higher but we desided to walk. You could see the very top of the volcano so close to you. But we were told it is a very difficult climb. It felt so weird to be so close.

We found a path which took us through a forest and lava field. Views.. I just can't believe how beautiful it is here every single day!! :D Path took us close to the Lake Petrohue and river with massive waterfalls. Not high, but wide. Enormous volume of water, they should use that power to make some energy.

Pucon

We had a quick stop in Santiago before heading here. Surprised positively. Nice street art also, great parks and exhausting cerros! But not much to tell, we walked around and went totally bananas in the market. So many different fruit, veggie and nut stalls.. We did our first (and last) walking tour, too much history and too little stories. 

Pucòn. Paradise in low season, but I can see this place being totally crammed during Jan/Feb.  Right by the lake Villarica, amazing volcano just half an hour away, three different national park around. You won't be bored here.

First we thought we would climb the volcano. Snowy cone and you can actually see lava from the top. Villarica errupted in March 2015, keeping climbers away for the next nine months. After that the price increased to 130$ which is pretty harsh just for a daytrip. We desided not to do it. Had amazing daytrip to El Cañi park, perfect snowy day in winter wonderland. Hike was steep but it was totally worth it, view from the top was superb! I only wished I would have had snowboard to come down :) We took a tour to Geotermatics ,one of the top 10 thermals in the world! Amazing, such a beautiful place. 16 pools with water around +40°C. Three hours went so quickly watching the stars and lying on the pools.

I feel old, boring and uptight. Really. I don't like backpacker hostels anymore with young people partying, but more than that I really can't stand weed smokers. And here (as in all latin-america) everyone smokes! I needed to escape our room to avoid people from our hostel, which made me really feel lonely when everyone else where laughing for stupid jokes, which weren't that funny unless you were high. Three very ill slept nights and walking all day longs isn't a very good combination.