First Impressions

I made it! After 50+ hours of travel, I arrived earlier today at la conservaciòn patagonica. A bit about the trip itself, first.

I flew from Chicago to Mexico City to Santiago, and then after discussing options for flights out of Santiago with Sky and LAN decided to fly out that day at noon to Coyhaique. I arrived in Balmaceda (the airport near Coyhaique) and took a van crammed with about 15 other people to the town. The surrounding area was absolutely stunning. Huge grassy, windswept valleys filled with cattle, sheep, and horses that seem utterly content with their lives. And then there are snow capped mountain peaks that seem to rise out of nowhere. The geological events that must have occurred here are crazy. I have a couple pictures, but probably won´t post them until tomorrow at the soonest.

Coyhaique as a town is nice, mostly because it´s not too touristy (yet). The spanish that I remember have proven to be invaluable. I honestly have little to no idea as to how Mack and Justin even made it to the park without knowing the language. I was dropped off at a hospedaje, a house where people rent out rooms for travelers (don´t worry mom, they´re safe). The lady that I stayed with was really nice, had a son and daughter and was just incredibly hospitable. I went into town for a bit, made a bus reservation, and had dinner (beef empanadas and a beer). Sadly, I was absolutely exhausted from all the travel, so passed out in my bed at the hospedaje at around 10 and slept til 8.

The bus left at 9:30 from Coyhaique headed to Cochrane. I have never seem such beautiful sights. It´s honestly worth just coming down here to rent a car and go drive for a couple days. My sense of scale is just completely shattered at this point. The valleys here are so grand, and the mountains are like out of a fairy tale. The one time I took out my camera, I got a lot of looks, so I quickly put it away. At about 5, I arrived at the conservación and have met a bunch of nice people, Christian from Santiago, Jerry from East Troy, WI (small world), and Colin from Berkeley, as well as a few more Chileans whose names I´m forgetting (it´s much more difficult to have a substantive conversation with them). Anyways, it´s just incredibly pretty and the people are great. Mack and Justin are getting back tomorrow from some fence work in the southern forest, so I´ll get to see them hopefully around lunch since they´re 40 km away.

That´s all for now, hopefully I´ll have time to put up some pictures tomorrow.

Bucks

Apparently, the backyard is full of life these days. The weather in Wisconsin has been abysmal, at best, the past week or two. For two days, the high didn't even reach 0 degrees. During the nights, lows with the wind chill got down to 40 below. It was cold.

I had been hoping to snowshoe around some golf courses with my pack to get ready for the trip so that (1) I had worn in my shoes and (2) I was semi-used to carrying a pack. Since I hadn't bought a pair of hiking shoes since 10th grade (and because they just didn't fit anymore), the new ones were a godsend. However, they've taken a bit of time to break in, and I'm not even sure I've completely gotten used to them. I also took the time to actually pack my bag the other day. With a few things excluded, and without stuff that I'll put in a daypack as a carry-on, it's only about 35-40 pounds, which is way better than I had imagined. Anyways, after discussing the trip with Mack and how he'd been preparing, I've been on the treadmill every other day for an average of an hour and a half walking with the boots and pack. On the plus side, I get to watch an entire movie each time (so far, Wanted, Hellboy 2, Clockwork Orange, and We Were Soldiers, none of which I would recommend).

Other than this, I've been doing a lot of reading, a little cooking, getting small items together for the trip, doing stuff around the house for the rents, some photography now and again, ... not really sure how I spend all of my time. Oh, and I sleep a lot. I also have two more interviews to get to this week, so those will be small but time consuming trips.

There's been a lot of activity lately in the backyard, not entirely sure why. We've seen a bunch of coyotes, deer, rabbits, etc. And it's been really, really cold. But, more to the point, here are two bucks that were outside, the shots were taken from inside so they're not spectacular. A 7 and a 10 point buck, respectively (if I counted correctly):

Mack just arrived in Santiago two days ago and seems to be having a blast. Justin leaves today. Yikes.