Puerto Varas and Petrohue

This area was one of our favorites in our travels. We camped a night at Playa Petrohue. We were right on a lake shore and the only ones there to enjoy the beautiful sunset over Lago Todos Los Santos. We saw the Saltos (small waterfalls) Petrohue that had the conical shaped Osorno Volcano as a backdrop. Very purdy. To top it all off, we ate fresh fish everynight that the "amazing fisherman Grizzly Adams" caught. He caught several impressive sized salmon including a 10 pound Coho Salmon and several 20 inch trout. Delicioso!

Seno Otway Penguins

While in Puntas Arenas, we took a trip out to see a small penguin colony. The colony of penguins were Maggellanic penguins, which we saw at dusk as they were returning from hunting out at sea. There are approximately 10,000 penguins in the colony. We saw juvenile penguins out on the beach making clumsy attempts of jumping off logs (very cute).

Torres del Paine - part 2

Mas photos. Muy good.

Torres del Paine

We visited Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia for a week in late November. After an hour catamaran ride across lake Pehoe we began five days of hiking across some of the most stunning landscape of our lives. We hiked the 46.5- mile ¨W¨trail whose scenery included glowing glacial lakes, gi-normous snow covered mountains, glaciers and towering granite peaks.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso...a city of colorful contradictions. We spent a couple of days walking around the steep winding streets of this unique and interesting port. Valparaiso has a beautiful setting by the sea, music, art, graffiti, seafood and turn of the century architecture but also a darker side of pickpockets, vagrants and unfavorable smells. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the area.

Iguazu Falls

A 22 hour bus ride one way to Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian/Argentinean border...and worth every minute! Iguazu falls is over run with tourists of all ages but when you catch moments of relative calm near the falls... well words can´t describe it. It is overwhelmingly impressive and humbling. After seeing the falls on land, we took a very wet boat ride into the falls (or as far as we could safely get). While Victoria Falls in Africa is the largest continuous waterfall in the world, Iguazu is wider and is comprised of multiple waterfalls which allows for a more intimate encounter...rawwrrr.

Cafayate

Ahhhh.... Wine country! Spending a couple of days in Cafayate, we did some sightseeing of the surrounding desert and vineyards. The area is renowned for it´s ¨Torrontes¨ dry white wine (which was very refreshing on those tough treks from vineyard to vineyard). In addition to the Torrontes, we sampled some delicious reds as well. Our favorite being the Malbec from the Esteco vineyard (sold under the name Micheal Torrino in the US...highly recommend it). Oh, and the picture above is of a rock (el sapo) shaped like a toad that Elaine fell in love with.