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.