San Fernando (& Chris and Meg visit & Mendoza)

We spent the second half of our Dieciocho week at a lodge near San Fernando (a couple of hours south of Chile). We spent our days sleeping in, going on long afternoon hikes, and eating enormous dinners. Our friends Brett and Nikki (along with their friend Kirk from Seattle) met up with us for the last couple of days. Here is a pic from right outside of the lodge:


Some pics from hikes...


A hidden waterfall (and great swimming hole!)...


Friday was Dieciocho and to honor the 1-year anniversary of Chris and Erin's trip to Elqui Valley with us we took this picture:


On our last hike there I was excited to FINALLY see a tarantual (people supposedly see them all the time around Santiago and they are called pollitos or "little chickens" because this species is harmless and non-venomous):




Our friends Chris and Meg came down to visit a couple of weeks ago! They came into Santiago for the first weekend in September, headed to Buenos Aires from Monday to Friday, and then spent the following weekend with us back in Santiago. It was really, really great seeing them and despite some uncooperative weather (TONS of rain) we had an awesome time. Here are some pics from the two weekends. Some wine tasting on Saturday...


On Friday we drove up to Refugio Los Andes in Cajon de Maipo...


We were planning on doing some hiking on Saturday but when we woke up it was practically a whiteout and snow was falling everywhere. We had a quick breakfast and jumped in the car to get back to Santiago before the roads would be impassible...

Stopping for some roadside empanadas once we were out of the snow...


A week before Chris and Meg came we went to Mendoza (Argentine wine country!) for the weekend with Ian and Lissa. We drank great wine and ate way too much steak - here's a shot from a one of the wineries (Santiago is on the other side of those mountains in the background):


Kind of funny to see a sticker from a Carolina Brewery (on Franklin Street) in Mendoza:


GO BEARS!

The Atacama Desert

Last Friday we flew north to Calama and then rented a truck and drove to San Pedro in the Atacama Desert. We spent the first night at Hostal La Ruca and then camped the following three nights in Valle de la Muerta (Valley of the Dead!). Very cool camping - because there are no plants there are no animals to worry about (not even insects or scorpions) and so by the second night we were camping in our bags without a tent.


We spent our first afternoon exploring some of the hills around town, and that evening we hiked along the ridge of Valle de la Luna park to watch the sunset over the foothills.


We spent the following day hiking in the rest of Valle de la Luna - climbed a ridge called the ampitheatre, walked to an old salt mine, and spent time exploring some of the caves under the cordillera del sal (salt mountains).



Here I am trying to connect Chicago to San Pedro in what we thought looked a lot like an outline of North and South America in a cave entrance:


Most evenings we would head back to San Pedro to grab dinner before making our way back to Valle de la Muerta to camp. Here's the church in the town's plaza de armas and then the sunset from the street:



On Tuesday we woke up around 4:00am to drive about 90 km north through what's called the Altiplano (high plains) to the Tatio geysers. It took about 3 hours because of the dirt/rock roads, but we made it there just after sunrise (the geysers only go from around 6:30am - 8:30am every morning).



On the ride back we noticed that the Altiplano was full of wild llama herds (check out the video at the end for some up-close shots and also some hilariously high-pitched llama calls).


There are a number of salt flats just south of San Pedro that have small salt ponds with enough brine shrimp to sustain populations of chilean flamingos (pretty cool to see in the middle of the desert!). The chilean flamingos are distinct from most other species because of their dark and curved beaks.


The pond with the highest level of salinity - called Laguna Cejas - is open for swimming. After a couple hours of searching dirt roads (the tour companies are known for taking down road signs and other marks to keep tourists dependent on chartered excursions) we finally turned down the right one and took a swim in what was definitely the most buoyant water either of us had ever been in.



Here's a parting shot of us downing the last of our water before we headed to the airport on Wednesday morning. Plus we have a movie at the bottom where we put together some different clips from the trip...