Adventure through the Southern Chile

Even though I went to Chile before, I wasn't really planned to go visit the Patagonia region (southern Chile) any time soon. But that changed as soon as my friend from Caltech asked me whether I want to join them during Christmas. Of course, I would like to go to Patagonia and visit Torres Del Plain. Plus, I have my second observing run in Northern Chile at the beginning of the year, meaning that my flight will be covered from works. Before the trip, I barely know anything about this region, including what are the highlights and why is it a popular tourist destination.

However, because of my last final exam is pretty late this year, I will not have time to visit Bolivia with my friends. Instead, I arrived Santiago, a capital of Chile, two-three days before we meet up to go down to Puerto Natales (a town that we will be staying during my trip in Patagonia). First thing I did was going back to the same empanadas shop (Empanadas Zunino) and getting the same empanada that I had during my first visit. I ate it so fast that I didn't have time to take a photo. Below is a photo from my first trip. 

Original Empanadas at Mercado Central's restaurant (Photo from my summer trip)

I also had a chance to show my new friends around Santiago as I had some experience around the city. After chilling and waiting, we took a flight from Santiago to Puerto Arenas early morning of Dec 24th. Then, we took a 3-hour bus ride from Puerto Arenas to Puerto Natales, where we will be staying for the next 4 nights. On the flight to Puerto Arenas, we also met with another Thai student who is traveling to the park alone. Since I didn't really involve with a planning process for this part of the trip, I have absolutely no idea where we are going and what we are doing next. People also said that it rains often there as well, but I didn't know so I didn't bring any rain jacket (well, I don't really have one). Fortunately, the weather was great almost every day, except the day that we arrived in Puerto Natales. It turns out that the first thing we do at Torres del Plain National Park is hiking 4.5 hours into the mountain to see the actual Torres del Plain. It was a long hike for my standard (actually too long). I did make it to the site eventually, after almost 5 hours of hiking. Weirdly enough, I also met with another friend of mine from MIT at the Torres. He was there for five-full days with camping experiencing the whole national park. I definitely would not do that after what happened today. 

After 4.5 hours of hiking to see Torres del Plain

The next two day at the national park is a lot better. For the second day, we hiked for about 4 hours (in and out) to see Grey Glacier from a viewpoint. We don't have enough time to go see it up-close (well, I don't want to do it too). Probably because of the pain that I gained during my first day, it was a difficult second day. For our last day, we only visit a viewpoint to look over the park from the other side. It was a quick 1-1.30 hour walk, which is much better compared to the first two days. The view was, of course, gorgeous. After the hike, we decided to take it easy and wait at a coffee shop. Unfortunately, the next bus that will take us back to Puerto Natales is in four hours. So, we spent that 4 hours simply relaxing at the coffee shop and wait for the bus. There was a brief rain while we were inside. Lucky for us again!

Torres del Plain National Park on my third day (Sendero Mirador Cuernos)

After three days and four nights in the national park, we left Puerto Natales and took a flight to Puerto Montt for our second destination, "the Lake District". After the hike, we were ready to be back to a bigger city with a car and no more hiking. Puerto Varas is a tourist hub for the region. We spent two nights at a really nice-looking house in the city. Since it got dark pretty late during this time of the year (the sun sets around 9:30pm-9:45pm), we drove to Frutillar to visit a small German town of the region. The weather was nice with a cloudless sky. We can clearly see the top of the Osorno Volcano, which we will visit in the latter day.

Osorno Volcano from Frutillar

For the other two days in the lake district, we visited Chole Island and Osorno Volcano region. To go to Chole Island, we took our car onto a ferry in order to cross the sea. Chole Island is not a small island as I thought before. We drove about 2-3 hours to go to the capital of the island, which is at the center. I went down to a small boat to see some penguins. Our guide tour can only speak Spanish, so we don't really understand what is going on. The best well-known things about Chole Island was the churches. According to wikipedia, the Churches of Chiloé were designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2000. For Osorno Volcano, we took a ski lift to go to the top of the mountain. We didn't go up all the way to the peak, but it was still a nice view. We can see all the lake from there.

After the trip, we were all exhausted. All of my friends headed back to the US while I caught another flight to Atacama desert for my observing run at Las Campanas Observatory. Spending New Year Eve on the mountain was fun. Even though there was some weather issue from high wind, we got some good data using PISCO. It was a great way to end my eventful winter break.

Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory

PS If you want to visit Torres Del Plain, Adventure Alan website has a great resource about the planning and steps you need to take to visit the region. (Credit to Pon)