Tuesday, January 15th

Santiago, Chile

Stayed at Air BnN with Dad, Josh, and Jason!

Dear Obiwan,

Before I begin, let me say that my parents set up the week my Dad visited me with 4 guided tours! My brother and I told my Dad that we don’t take too many tours and enjoy just wondering around a place and exploring on our own. However, the tours with iLoveChile tours were incredible, I don’t think I needed 4 tours…but, at least we were with Fran and sometimes Sebastian who created this tour company. They both are incredibly kind and warm people and also are both incredibly knowledgeable!

So today was the Andes Gem Tour! On the way to the vineyard we listened to Matanza, which was an electronic band from Chile, they were awesome.

Our first stop was the Santa Rita vineyard. I was such gorgeous vineyard!

One of the many interesting facts that we learned was about the unique Carmenere wine. So, Obi, all of the wine here was shipped from Europe. However, in Europe about 30 years ago, or something, there was a parasite that KILLED ALL OF THE CARMENERE GRAPES in France, all of it Obi!

It was believed there was no more Carmenere IN THE WORLD.

But then, many years later, in 1994, a wine expert was in Chile and was drinking some wine and looking at some grape vines said, “WIAT, HEY, THIS IS NOT MERLOT! These leaves are too small! THIS IS CARMENERE!” And it was THE LAST EVER CARMENERE IN TEH WORLD! The soil is STILL BAD in France today, so it is FOREVER UNIQUE TO CHILE!

Some other interesting facts:

-the oak barrels are from France and USA because they don’t have oak trees here. USA barrels are around $500 while the French barrels are $1000! FOR ONE BARREL. And they use SO MANY. That is expensive Obi!

-when smelling wine- acitone and mud are bad smells to smell with wine.

-30 years is a limit, usually with wine.

After this amazing vineyard tour, we went to San Jose de Maipo again, and ate at a different local restaurant- Ruben Castillo Restaurant and we at a local meal called -Cazuela de Vauno, which is soup with corn, meat, rice, pumpkin. It was pretty good.

And then to the beautiful Andes mountains and saw the El Yeso Dam, it was pretty. To get the best view you had to walk down this path, but there was a guard there telling us to turn around because there were falling rocks!

Once returned from walking to the windy and rock falling view point, Fran had surprised us with a small table set up with wine, cheese, nuts, and salami! We drank and ate and played Empoque again!

Josh was pretty good Obi, I have to say…but hey he is a juggler so HE HAS THESE SKILLS. I’m NOT COMPETITIVE OR ANYTHING.

Oh side note, Obi, there were birds there…you would have hunted them all! But, their name is Baconeater!!!

After this we drove back to Santiago and then the 4 of us headed to dinner. Jason researched and found this amazing restaurant in this really cool, hipster-ish, bohemian neighborhood of Santiago called La Starria.

We had dinner at Casa La Starria, and Obiwan, I had the BEST STEAK OF MY LIFE HERE. The steak came on ON A HOT IRON PAN, it was BOILING HOT and I ordered the steak with rouquefort sauce (BLUE CHEESE, MY NEW LOVE). And it was beyond delicious. I feel like one of my main issues with steak is that I eat it slowly, and it stops being hot. But this place had the solution- serve it on a boiling hot iron pan! AND COVER IT IN ROUQUEFORT SAUCE!

Then for dessert I had the lava cake desert with vanilla ice ream and a cut up strawberries. Also, divine!

What a beautiful day my Jedi,

Love Tú Madre,

Carly

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Sunday, January 13th

Santiago, Chile

Stayed at Air BnN with Dad and Jason!

Dear Obiwan,

We went horse back riding in the mountains of Santiago today, Obi! It was a wonderful day.

Unlike the majority of my trip, which has been unplanned and mostly winging it, this next week in Santiago with my Dad was very organized. My parents had found an incredible tour agency, iloveChile tours, to take us on 3 tours this week. They also booked another tour with a different agency for tomorrow.

So today was our first of four tours!

We got picked up by Fran and Sebastian who created iloveChile tours. And wow, they are so warm, friendly, funny, and know everything about Chile! From the moment you get in their car, you feel like a family.

Here is Fran!

What a day Obiwan!

Goodnight my Jedi,

Love, T Madre,

Carly

Wednesday, January, 9th
Ushuaia
Stayed at Antarctica Hostel

Dear Obiwan,

Wow, today marks the 100th day of my trip! I never thought I would traveling for this long, well I never thought any of this would be happening in the first place.

But it is! And I am SO grateful!

And what a perfect way to mark 100 days of traveling with WALKING WITH PENGUINS OBI!

Today’s entry will be best with pictures!

On the road to the boat to penguin island!

This was a sign in the bathroom 😂

In summary, we took the Piratour which is the ONLY tour company that let’s you WALK ON THE ISLAND, while all other tours are only driving by in boats!

So if you want to WALK WITH PENGUINS- take the Piratour and also, get in advance! It was sold out a few days before when we were there, I can’t imagine how disappointed I would have been, but thanks to Kelsey, we booked this months ago!

We had a nice group on our boat and our tour guide David was great, he took my joke seriously…I asked if I could pet the penguins and he said, “no! And you need to be at least 3 steps away because they like to bite a lot!” Also, there are so many it is likely one might be VERY CLOSE TO YOU.

I have never been more excited for something to bite me in my entire LIFE.

Anywho, we had to take a 1.5 hour minivan to Estancia then took a Zodiac boat to Isla Martillo- the PENGUIN ISLAND.

Finally, we were there! Oh also, just a few days ago THERE WERE KING PENGUINS HERE, they are rare, but it might happen! If not there are 2 breeds of penguins here, the Magellanic- which I saw in Punta Arenas (BUT IT NEVER GETS OLD) and Jentoo penguins- WHICH I HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!

Look at the penguins!!!:

Some facts: there are about 8,000 Magellanic Penguins and about less than 1,000 Jentoo penguins.

They are the CUTEST:

THEY ARE THE FUNNIEST:

And there were BABIES EVERYWHERE! But…more like pre-teen penguins. So many nests! And it takes years for the penguins to shed their baby fur…they can’t go swimming and fish on their own until their swim fur comes in!

Also, it was so beautiful here! Look at the background! The mountains, clouds and sea!:

Eventually, we had to leave. It was tough to leave but, it was so amazing on the island. And just as our guide told us, there are so many sometimes they cross your path, look!:

And you could get so close, it was incredible!

After this we boated to another island where you could pay to get some hot chocolate and chocolate cake…I obviously did.

Then we went to a bird and sea museum! Our tour was led by this young and amazing marine biologist! At this location they are constantly finding incredible bones that wash up on the shore and they slowly put them together!

Unfortunately, the smell of the bones…(which I found out later on the tour was actually smell of FLESH STILL DECOMPOSING) was too strong for me and I had to leave the tour of the museum early. But it was very interesting what I saw!

Lastly, we had a van ride back to the center of town in Ushuaia. But before we got back we stopped to see a famous tree? I forget the significance, but it was a cool tree, look!:

After our amazing day we went out to dinner and I HAD THE BEST FOOD I HAVE HAD YET ON THIS TRIP. It was called plow or slow disk cooking? I don’t know but it was a pepper streak in this AMAZING SAUCE. The best steak YET OF MY LIFE!

Oh and we bumped into our roommate from El Chalten!!! THIS IS THE 3RD TIME WE SAW HER POST EL CHALTEN!

Our evening ended with heading to the Hard Rock Cafe to meet up with Maël, Chris, and Thiago! It was funny going out to a Hard Rock in Ushuaia, but it was with good company.

WOW WHAT AN AMAZING DAY OBI!.

Goodnight my lamb,

Love Tú Madre,

Carly

Tuesday, January, 8th
Ushuaia
Stayed at Antarctica Hostel

Dear Obiwan,

Obi, me and Kelsey rode the rain at the end of the world today! The train was an old style train and had mock-prisoners on board. The reason they had these mock-prisoners was because of the history of the train!

So in summary, this prison was for “very bad guys,”…which in reality it was both people who did heinous crimes AND people who were put there for political reasons that actually didn’t do anything wrong, but just disagreed with the leaders of the world at that time. But some of the facts I can poorly remember are: the river is named after a prisoner who tried to escape and then froze to death! One person who was a prisoner there was know as “Midget Ears”…or something, and he murdered his whole family. Another prisoner set of a bomb and killed someone political…somewhere?

And also, the railroad tracks were made by the prisoners! Imagine that, building a railroad track to the prison you are staying at. Also, the prisoners chopped wood for the WHOLE CITY and you could see the tree graveyard while on the train and you could see by the height of the tree-stumps-where the the snow stopped that year.

They had both usual and cruel and unusual punishment for the prisoners. Usual being cutting wages or food portions. But some unusual punishments included only eating water and bread for weeks and one where- you are LEFT OUTSIDE IN A DARK ROOM IN WET CLOTHES! But this was ruled as mal treatment sometime later, and was not allowed to be used anymore.

This park- Tierra del Fuego, is the only national park in Argentina that has forest, mountains, and the sea!

Once off the train, our first stop had a beautiful waterfall and souvenir shop, I bought a penguin snow globe! After this the train stopped at the beginning of the park. I chose to get back on the train and Kelsey chose to explore and hike around.

The train I took back was different, it was smaller but still so beautiful. I was told on the train back that there was a legend about the Calafate berries, if you eat one, you will return back to those lands! I ate one in Torres del Paine…so I guess I will return there one day?

After a sleepy train ride back I realized at our pretty hostel and then Kelsey returned! She said she went to the post office at the end of the world in the park! So cool!

On our way to lunch, LOOK WHO I MET:

We then headed to a bunch of museams in Ushuaia!

Oh, ha, see those penguin mannequin heads? I accidentally knocked one over and it went FLYING across the gift shop, I had to chase after it and put it back on Obi!🙈

And I WANTED EVERY SOUVENIR OBI BUT I COULDN’T because I would break it or it can’t fit in my bag but look!:

Back at the hostel we met Tim, this really awesome guy from Tennessee. He laughed and felt so bad when I discovered it was HIM who snored very loudly last night and woke me up. He apologized and told me he owed me a drink.

Look at our hostel Obi…yes, that is a cat, but he is not as cute as you don’t worry!:

While chatting with Tim, these two chefs (yes both are CHEFS) from Switzerland came to the hostel who Tim had already met. The chefs were Chris and Maël and were friendly and funny. Lastly, another one of our roommates Jerimi, from…France? I think, joined us as well.

A few hours later our new crew were off to go out in Ushuaia!

Some photos on our way to the ice bar!:

Our first stop was the famous Ice Bar. This place is an ACTUAL ICE BAR. I have been to a bar where the bar was made out of ice…but never an actual, like, IGLOO!

How it works is you pay one price and they provide those ponchos with fur hoods and mittens, and then you have 30 minutes to drink as much as you can! So the first thing we did was, take shots! It was so much fun here Obiwan. All these guys were so nice and fun.

Get ready for a bunch of Ice Bar Photos Obi!:

A

After this, on our way to dinner, LOOK AT THIS AMAZING PENGUIN MURAL!:

We then we arrived to our dinner restaurant. It was a nice and comfy restaurant. We had a few bottles of wine for all of us and a lot of food. Tim and I shared our food which was perfect, I got Pasta Alfredo and he got steak and eggs and friends and we shared all of it.

OH AND GET READY OBI. Guess what food I tried tonight, crab…something? Cold Seafood bowl? Lobster bowl? I don’t know…But I liked it! It didn’t look like a crab and that’s so much easier to try!

After our amazing dinner we headed back to the hostel and had more drinks and played some card games. On the way back from the hostel we met Thiago who was from Brazil, who was also at our hostel. He was super friendly, warm, and funny. Our group just kept getting better.

After playing Kings, of all games! We went to bed.

What a wonderful day Obi.

Goodnight my Jedi,

Love, Tú Madre,

Carly

Day 96: Saturday, January, 5th
El Chalten, Argentina
Stayed at Rancho Grande Hostel- night 3/3

Dear Obiwan,

Today was a needed rest day for me and I’m so grateful for it. Kelsey left early in the morning for a hike and I headed to find breakfast a few hours later. I found an adorable restaurant up the street from the hostel. The restaurant was perfect, it was warm and had lovely brown paper placemets with a beautiful map drawn if the town on it. The food was okay but the atmosphere was wonderful.

After this I went to a coffee shop. I had asked our awesome hostel workers, “where can I find good coffee, but more importantly, comfy chairs?” One of the guys took me seriously and told me he hadn’t tried out all the chairs of every coffee shop in town…wait you haven’t?! 😂

After a very cold and windy walk to the coffee shop, I was inside and man, Obi, these seats were comfortable! Also this cafe was also a hotel and an art gallery. Beautiful paintings all around and some hand made sculptures as well.

Oh look at this cool house!:

A little later Kelsey met up and told me the hike was okay, it started off sunny but then turned into windy chilly cloudy time. She said she finallyy felt the Patagonia winds, the wind was so strong they almost knocked her over! I can’t say I’m not grateful I didn’t go 😂.

Before dinner we stopped at ‘La Vinería’ which was a wine place and it was so cool! It was a wine bar but felt like a dive bar back in Philly- felt homey, warm, full of friends, and lots of flannel. I also had some meatballs here that blew my mind! So delicious!

We then had dinner at Ahonikenk, at this point I was dying from exhaustion, but I had a nice dinner with Kelsey.

But the bathroom was funny, Obi:

And then…when we returned to our room.

Um, Obi do you remember that yesterday I opened the window in our room because it was so hot at night?…and then found out the next morning that the window was broken?

Well. We got back and unlike last night (when our room was a sauna) tonight it was FREEZING. I tried to sleep but it was WILDLY WINDY and SO cold. As I was lying in my bed, freezing, I looked over at the other bunk bed and saw Kelsey and our other roommate, who was from Hawaii, just sleeping so soundly and pleasantly.

Eventually, I couldn’t handle the cold or wind anymore. I had to confess that I broke the window and ask for help! I first asked house keeping, they were very friendly…but never came back?

I then went downstairs and just confessed to the guys at reception, I told them I opened it last night and didn’t know it was broken.

He immediately said, “well yes, there’s a sign saying not to touch it!” 🤦🏻‍♀️

But he came to help and walked into the room he said, “IT’S FREEZING!” He initially was worried because he couldn’t shut it. He left and returned 5 minutes later with a trash bag and lots of tape.

He then shoved the trashbag into the cracks and then taped it over with duct tape and somehow it worked. He saved the day Obiwan! Legit IS MY HERO. He then turned the heat up full throttle. A few hours later it was an INFERNO. But, at least it wasn’t an icebox!

Here is the sign…I didn’t see it last night in the dark Obi!:

And here, look at his amazing fix!:

Day 97: Sunday, January, 6th
El Calafate, Argentina
Stay at Folk Hostel

Today we hiked to see a waterfall Obiwan! I ate at Panderia and Cafe had the ‘La Nana’ which is this delicious flakesticky sweat croissant with ham and cheese, scrambled eggs, and toast with butter :D.

After breakfast we walked the easy hike to the waterfall, which is suggested to go any day! Because the weather doesn’t effect it’s beauty!

Look how beautiful our hike was too the waterfall Obi!:

Waterfall!:

Views from the hike back:

After this we had dinner at ‘La Cereseria.’ Kelsey got some amazing stew called ‘Locro’ and I had pancetta pizza that was one of the best pizzas I’ve had in all of South America! It had SAUCE and a firm crust and yummy smoked bacon and good cheese! Then for dessert I had a delicious nut brownie with ice cream and Kelsey had wine dipped pear drenched in chocolate and cinnamon.

On our walk back to our hostel the wind was so strong and was pushing us head on! If you turned the wrong angle you could almost fall over!

We said bye to the amazing hostel worker, Ari, and walked to the bus stop, but this direction the wind helped pushed us there!

Then on our bus to El Calafate we had an amazing view of Viedma Lake and it had ice burgs, it was a beautiful bus ride Obiwan!

Well until the next adventure Obiwan,
Miss you terribly,
Love Tú Madre,
Carly

Friday, January 4th

El Chalten, Argentina

Stayed at: Rancho Grande Hostel

Dear Obiwan,

Welp, back to sleeping horribly, lamb chop. I had a top bunk and I am just, a failure at life with top bunks. I have to pee about…11 trillion times?…give or take at night…and I am a natural clumsy DISASTER…so…yeah top bunks are just…a challenge for me. :D. And it didn’t help when my lower bunk mate arrived at 2:00am and fell asleep and then began the 2nd loudest snoring of this trip. 👍

Oh…um…confession Obiwan…I also opened the window in the middle of the night. It was a sauna in our room and we had this big beautiful window in our room…so I opened it…only to find out in the morning, in the day light…that there was sign on the window, in ENGLISH- “PLEASE DO NOT OPEN THE WINDOW” and then discovered that the window (just ours, all other rooms the windows worked) was BROKEN. It had a bunch of stuff on it that showed it was not a functional window…but, hey it was DARK!

After a mediocre and pretty cheap breakfast at our hostel, we checked with our awesome hostel workers again and were told that the weather today was supposed to be…BEAUTIFUL!!! Yay! We’re so lucky Obi!

Also, quick note…similar to Torres del Paine and the Towers (Los Torres) I also did not know about Mt. Fitzroy until this trip. I researched the towns we were going to on google briefly, but didn’t want any spoilers so I didn’t look at pictures of Mt. Fitzroy. So, I was in for another surprise!

In the last 10 days of Patagonia, everyone told us that this hike was steep in the beginning, then is flat, then SUPER steep at the end.

And, well, everyone was accurate! Unlike all the liars and under-exaggerators about the W-Trek, this trek was exactly what people said! It was teeny bit steep at first, but then it levels out and is FLAT. ACTUALLY FLAT OBIWAN. Not fake ‘in-shape’ hikers flat that actually is steep and hill-y, but no…it was ACTUALLY FLAT! It was lovely.

Here are some pictures of our walk to the path, including a little hut serving food called Primos, like in Philly!:

We walked over some rivers and you go through some forests, it was beautiful!

We saw a wood peker!!! You would have hunted him and battled him Obi Jedi!

And Obiwan, look at the views just from the hike there, truly breathtaking!

But, Obiwan, there was a new elemental challenge in this hike…HORSE FLIES. SO MANY HORSE FLIES OBI. Unlike other flies or bugs that are just annoying…horse flies BITE and their bite HURTS. And it’s weird, they some how land on you without you knowing a lot of the time…so your just hiking along, singing a ‘Sound Of Music’ song in your head…then you look down and THERE’S A HUGE BUG ON YOU, GEARING UP TO CHOMP. Then you SWAT it but usually the moment you notice it is the MOMENT IT BITES YOU.

I don’t understand where they came from?! It felt like a horror film at times! And I felt like I was losing my mind…they were so loud so you just hear them flying by your ear hundreds of times, ‘…bzzzz…bzz…bzzz…BZZZ…BZZZZZ!’ And then I’m just swatting the air around my head like a windmill and MISSING THE BUGS or every now and then you swat them in the air! Like a ninja!

Oh look, we saw a condor!!!:

Finally, after many horse fly bites later and a few screams of anger by me at the universe for creating horse flies (I NEED TO RESEARCH THEIR EXISTENCE IN THE FOOD CHAIN, WHY ARE THEY HERE?!), we were at the final part. It took us about 3 hours to get there. As always, me and Kelsey part at hills, we said our goodbyes. And then…it began.

It was only an hour long, but it was all in the sun, unlike the rest of the hike that was covered mostly. I thought this was easier than the Towers hike in Torres del Paine! But it was definitely longer? I think it was easier to me since, compared to the W-Trek, I wasn’t hiking the last 4 days with my bag.

But after an hour of a very steep incline…you make it to a sort of top? But it slightly levels out and you have to walk another 7 minutes.

And then you actually reach the top, and it was MAGNIFICENT! There was a lake at the bottom too! Just like at Los Torres! The sun was shining and it was glorious. It was crazy windy at the top as well.

It felt so good to reach the top Obiwan. I’m starting to understand why people do these things. What an incredible reward it is to push through physical and some mental pain and then reach beauty like this!

The first thing that happened when I was taking and savoring the moment was couple went, ‘could you take our picture?!’ It was the first time in my life I wanted to say, “NO.” But, I felt rude, so I said yes, in between my wheezing. They THEN noticed that I just got there and said, “oh no, did you just get here?! Sorry!” But. It was fine. I took their picture then took a few minutes to gather my breath.

After this I found Kelsey! Together we searched for a rock to have lunch together, she waited to eat for me! Hilariously, she accidentally bought a VEGGIE sandwich. The sandwich was in the wrong section at the store!

We only stayed at the top for about 45 minutes due to it being cold and windy. But we got some incredible photos!

We then hiked down…and we both agreed that we want to take our TIME and not rush down. I was surprised by how hard it was to go down. It took us 1.5 hours to get down from the steep part, it took LONGER to go down?!

It was additionally hard due to the huge amount of loose gravel. It was very easy to slip!

Once at the bottom Kelsey wanted to go an additional 30 minutes to see another viewpoint. Unlike the Condors hike, this hike had no signs, and oddly enough there was no sign when you reached the viewpoint, so we accidentally went further than the viewpoint.

We eventually turned around as we were walking through this seemingly endless forest. The forest also had soooo many caterpillars and Kelsey then spotted thousands caterpillars in nests that were on the plants lining our path! Very cute, but also, AH, hopefully I won’t brush into one of the plants and get a million tiny caterpillars on me! It only happened once Obi…when I felt and FOUND a tiny caterpillar crawling up my NECK. BLECH. Ew!

After this pretty, but not as gorgeous as the top of the mountain, viewpoint, we headed back. It took us 3 hours to get back. I felt pretty strong throughout this 8.5 hour hike, but the end just was tough. I was hurting real badly on my feet and legs. We both were!

Our day ended with a nice dinner at a beautiful restaurant in town called ‘El Maro’ or The Wall. We had wine and steak :D. Not the best steak of my life, but it was my first Argentinian steak and it was good.

Off to bed my dear Jedi,

Love you,

Tú Madre,

Carly