Another Jaunt in Valpo

I cannot believe it's almost February... where has the time gone?!? I feel like I just got to Chile but I've now been here for 7 months! How?!? 

I thought today I'd share a few last pics from my trip over the holidays. After we got back from Patagonia we went straight to Valpo. If you've read some of my earlier posts, you'll know that I've been to Valpo a few times, but I've never seen Valpo through the eyes of a person who can afford to eat well and stay in a nice place (I'm usually staying in hostels and eating whatever is cheapest)... So it was a pretty different experience to go with my parents who (generously) paid for food, hotel, transportation etc. etc. etc. I already love Valpo, but seeing Valpo this whole new way made it even better. 

We stayed at a hotel called Alto Mirrador. It was GREAT! The main problem was its location, which wasn't bad, but wasn't as close to Cerro Alegre as I would have liked. That said, the very nice rooms, beautiful views and outrageously accommodating staff outweighed any location qualms I may have had. The hotel is in a beautiful old house on top of a hill. It had crazy views of the entire port (Valparaiso is a port town), a really cute restaurant that had a delicious breakfast buffet, and a pool (not that we used it... but still!). 

I don't have a ton of pictures to share with you (at that point in the trip I kept forgetting to bring my camera with me... so I really just have a few random pictures of the hotel). Take a look, I think you'll get what I mean by just how beautiful this place was!

That back of the hotel... hot tubs, cute blue trim, sun... need more be said?

The pool! And you can see a snippet of the view in the background (this picture was taken with my back to the water, the view you see is just more of the city).

A really bad picture of the view of the city at night (but in my opinion it's kind of an interesting picture... maybe?).

So that's all for now! I have some exciting developments that I will divulge soonish so look out for that! And before any life development announcements I will be going camping in La Serena (SO EXCITED!!!) so hopefully I'll have some cool stuff to show you.

Excuse the scattered nature of my writing in this post... I suppose it's just one of those days!

Happy Thursday!

A

More from the End of the Earth

We spent our last day in the park checking out glaciers, animals, and more mountains... just your usual day in Patagonia I guess! It was seriously beautiful and the weather was pretty nice. We went further into the park than we had on other days and it was definitely worth it. I'll let the pics doing the talking (yikes... my laziness has possibly become a problem!). 

To be honest, I'm not sure where I took this picture... but it's pretty beautiful, dontcha think?

Guanacos!

We were driving down a road in the park and a herd of guanacos was hanging out in the street. We took the opportunity to take some close up pics... isn't this baby so sweet?

Another guanaco baby!

Glacier time.

Some of us were unable to walk... ahem.

Ice that floated off of the glacier... it's really old ice!

More ice!

The actual Torres del Paine... the tower-looking rocks in the center.

Another pic of my sis taking a pic.

A ñandu family! 

That's all for today! Happy Friday!

XX

A

I See Youuuuu

Torre del Paine is absolutely beautiful and if you're EVER in Chile you really should make your way down. It was definitely worth the plane and the drive. We spent a few days hiking and driving around the park. Day 1 was pretty great... take a look!

Guanacos... sort of like Llamas, but not quite. 

Dead Guanaco :(

Our trusty steed! (AKA the little Hyundai van we rented).

Ñandu... kind of like an emu/ostrich type of bird.

Picturesque... if I may say so myself. 

Trusty steed in all his glory!

Mountains mountains mountains.

I started taking pictures of my little sister taking pictures... this is the first of many!

BONE!

#2.

The pool above the waterfall!

#3.

Cuernos del Paine.

Crazy colors EVERYWHERE.

Hike hike hike.

More colors.

The mountains in the background in this pictures are the actual Torres of Torres del Paine. The sky changed every few minutes... it would go from sunny to rainy to foggy in the course of an hour.

It's really an awesome and magical place... as if the pictures weren't enough evidence.

Happy Saturday, people!

XX

A

To The End Of The World

The day after we saw the penguins, we set off in a rickety rented van for Puerto Natales--the closest town to the Torre del Paine national park. It was a beautiful (and surprisingly flat) ride that lasted about two hours.  When we finally got to Puerto Natales we settled into our really cool hotel and went to dinner. Puerto Natales is a very cute town and the surroundings blow you away. When we arrived it was super cloudy so we didn't realize we were surrounded by mountains until one came out while we were at dinner (photo evidence below). I'll let the pictures do most of the talking today... And stay tuned because I'm going to put up some pictures of the park soon!

The drive.

The drive again... seriously it was so flat and empty. 

Rain! The weather down there changes every five minutes.

This is a terrible picture... but the road we were on was literally called Ruta del Fin del Mundo (Route of the End of the World).

Our hotel room... It was so nice and comfortable and it had a loft!

Any dinner with free ceviche is good in my book.

The evidence! The mountains came out from behind the clouds and we were totally shocked! 

The hotel was three stories. It had an elevator but it also had this really long staircase that went along the length of the hotel. It had a waterfall running along it (on the left). It was really cool.

Little sister hanging on the bed (taken from the loft).

The view from the hotel the next morning.

The hotel pool was basically a gigantic hot tub... it was so relaxing (plus the view was the same as the picture above--not bad!)

A boat in the "port"

That's all for now, folks! As I said, pictures of Torre del Paine are coming soon!

XX

A

Penguins!!

I have SO many things to share with you, lovely reader. First and foremost, I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas and New Year. I know mine was pretty great. My family and our family friends (who might as well be family) came down to Chile for the holidays and it was the best gift I could've asked for! We spent Christmas in Santiago (not exactly cozy, but fine) before heading south to Patagonia where we rang in the new year. After a week down south we headed to Valpo for a few days in the sun before everyone headed off to various locations (except for my little sister who is staying here for a while--I'd be inconsolably sad if she had left too). Between two families of four (so 8 people) we are spread across the U.S. in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, Boston, Ohio, and Philadelphia... so it's pretty great we were all able to be in Chile together.

While down South we stayed in Punta Arrenas for two days so we could go to Isla Magdalena to see the PENGUINS! It was so cool! It's a relatively small island with an estimated 200,000 penguins nesting on it. We took a ferry to the island where we walked around in the cold (don't let the pictures fool you... it may have been sunny but it was possibly one of the windiest places I've ever been) for an hour to look at Penguins. It was definitely worth it... probably a highlight of the trip for me!

So without further ado, I present the penguins:

The first sighting from the boat!

Dapper fellow.

Hanging in the nest.

Mama and baby (the babies are furry!)

Me and my new best friend (he's not looking at the camera... he was itchy).

The unibomber in a field of penguins! Just kidding... that's my dad.

Cheeky.

This guys was making crazy squawking sounds... I'm not sure why but you can tell he's sort of screaming at the sky.

"I'm important."

Parent + 2 children... awww.

"We are late for the opening night of the opera!"

Grooming.

Seagull chick!

"Whatchu lookin at?"

Clearly he had important things going on...

So those are the penguins... they were seriously awesome! They aren't afraid of humans and you can get really close. They also walk across the paths that us humans are supposed to stay on so you can get some pretty up close pics. 

Don't go away... tomorrow I'll show you Puerto Natales!

XX

A