Chile: Chiloe Island

December 30th, I arrived in Ancud after leaving Egon in Osorno. I followed an american tourist to se if there were free room at the hostel she booked and there was :) Really nice hostel and Ancud is as well a really nice village. I went to walk around the city in the evening and went to a restaurant to try the famous Curacho (a dish with meat, see food and potatoes all together). Super good but Jesus I was full at the end!!!

The next morning I went again around the city (really relaxed atmosphere), ate some fish in a super small "restaurant" and then took a bus to Castro. I found there a hostel which is actually a old couple renting their extra room... I went around Catro a bit (super nice and colorfull church and houses on pillars at the sea side) but then I felt sick and went back to the hostel. I got food poisoning (probably from the salade I took with the fish at lunch... Nt very wise of me considering the hygene of the place...) and spent my 31st in bed drinking tea with local herbs prepared by the grandma of the hostel.

Januray 1st 2015, I spent all the day at the hostel until my bus at 5pm for Cucao. The old couple from the hostel invited me for lunch (they were havin some meat dish really good!!). The grandpa was not so easy to understand because he was pronuncing 1/3 of the words most of the time!!! But it was fun and nice. After Lunch I felt much better already. In the bus I met a group of guys from Santiago with whom I spoke a bit (quite a different accent again!). The road was really nice: hills, lakes, lots of trees and very green like the rest of Chiloe. When I arrived in the tinny village, I found a hostel (same as in castro: a particular rentin one of his room) and then went to walk to the beach before coming back.

The 2nd I went walking in the park of Chiloe (it is just at the end of Cucao). I was plannin to hike all day but the park is crazy small (or at least the hikes are). It was nice, going through thick vegetation sometimes, in the dunes some other and finally to the beach. But I did everything within 2 or 3 hours... So I stayed for quite some time on the beach where I had find a nice isolated spot. On my way back to the hostel I met another french family with 3 kids which were traveling for one year around the world!! Super cool and once again giving hope to be able to travel backpacker style even with a family and several kids :) I took the bus to Chonchi where I stayed in a hostel. Had time in the evening to go around the small village (super nice as well).

January 3rd I took a bus from Chonchi to Quellon (south of Chiloe) where I want to take a boat from. The city is bigger than I expected and I didn't do much there beside waiting for the ticket office to open and go on internet in a bar. I didn't really went around the city cause I didn't like it so much and the atmospher was quite different from the rest of the Island (quite lots of drunk people wonderig around the city). I embarked on the boat at 9pm and we left at 11pm. Great sunset on the harbor! The trip is gonna be 28 hours until Purto Chacabuco from where I want to go to Coyhaique. I went to sleep a bit on the outer deck because it was too hot and too loud (stupid movie) in the passager hall for me to sleep but then came back inside.

January 4th: Spent the day on the boat cruising through Islands. It's a pity I had a bad weather and couldn't see so well but it was still beautiful. The boat was stoppig in villages really in the middle of nowhere; quite impressive to see people living there! I met a cool Spanish couple in the boat (Juan and Aitana) with whom I spent some time and played cards with.

Chile: Punta Arenas

26th: bus to Punta Arenas. The initial plan was to get back there to catch a bus to go more north of Chile (much cheaper to buy the tickets in Chile rather than to go directly from Argentina). I had found a couchsurfer to host me (another Cristian). In the bus I was with Cristian from Ushuaia, a friend of his from Columbia and Egon (from Brasil) another friend that Cristian made in Ushuaia. When arrivin Egon and I went directly to try to find buses to leave toward the norh of Chile but all was closed already (2 hour delay because a stupid French couple brought in some skins of animals from Argentina to Chile and they were not allowed to do so... Had to wait 2 hours at the frontier for them to do all the paper work and pay the fees). As Egon didn't have a place to stay he came with me to Cristian's place to see if he had some suggestion... But instead of suggestions, Cristian propsed to Egon to stay as well at his place. He has a quite big house and we were a total of 7 the first night!!! A spanish couple going from Ushuaia to central america by bike, another Spanish guy (from Barcelona I think for who it might be a difference ;) ), Jose ( a friend of Cristian leaving partly in his house (works on a salmon farm 4 hours from Punta Arenas) Egon, Cristian and I. We all ate together (Jose is a cook :) ) and spent the evening at the house. Ah one thing I didn't mention: the fucking music which was non stop in the bus!!! A shity cumbia all the time and lots of time the same songs... One was singing "se mira, no se toca" and it got stuck in my head for ages!!!

The next day, Egon and I wanted to buy our tickets. Jose joined us and we then went to the tax free zone. It's a quite big zone just next to the city which is like a dutyfree but not in an airport. It's to make the price not to expensive considering how it cost to bring the merchandise all the way to Punta Arenas. It's huge and you can find every thing! I bought some stuff for hikking there and some shoes later in another place where Cristian brought me. Ah and in the morning we tried Choripans with leche con platanos which is a special breakfast from here. Super good :) In the afternoon we prepared some food because a friend of Cristian was having his birthday at Cristian place in the evening. We were something like 15 people and spent a big part of the evening at the house chatting. At 2:30am we went to "The Club" and stayed until it closed at 5am. The music in the club was a mix of "usual" American music and some hiphop/electro/cumbia stuff. Quite fun and we were dancing like crazy on it (apparently cause I don't remember it so clearly... Due to my encointrance with honey jack daniels). Because it's so south, it was almost sunrise when we left the club and Cristian and I went to 2 spots to watch the sunrise... Super nice! And when we got back to the house, the others were still up. Some of us decided to climb in one of the weird trees in front of the house. It was pretty fun to see the sun rising from the very top of the tree :)

The next day we (Cristian, Jose, Egon and I) went to a small park just behind Pu ta Arenas which gives a great view on the city and the bay. After, we passed by a replica of Magellan's boat and Egon quickly jumped in the ocean (I chickened out...). Then we went to see the cemetery famous for his trees (the same as at Cristian's house) and then came back home. We all ate together (the spanish couple was back) at the house. This all time in Unta Arenas was super cool and we went all really well along. And Cristian and Jose told us abiut the Chilean expression "weon" whih can be used to say anything and somenother stuff.

December 29th, Egon and I took the bus from punta Arenas to Osorno for Egon and to Ancud (on he island of Chiloe) for me. The bus was 35 hours as it had to pass by Argentina because there is no existing road in a big region of south Chile.

Argentina: Ushuaia

Arrived in Ushuaia in the evening and followed a group of travelers from the same bus to the hostel they had booked to see if they still had rooms available. They didn't and neither did several hostels I went to after. Ushuaia is the only place in south america I went to until now where you really have to book the hostels and the buses in avance! Luckily I found a room in a hostel at the end jst before I was about to give up and go to a hotel...

December 22nd was a shitty day actually and not because I was turning 30 years old bt because nothing I was doing was working... I spent half of the day trying to get somemcash from the different ATMs of the city, I couldn't decide myself on what to do in Ushuaia because every thing is really expensive and not necessarly worth it and finaly I didn't like the city much (it's really one super touristic center and not much more. I just went for a beer in a pub at the end of the day but that's pretty much it. Ah and I had a nice sunset as well and lots of super nice messages for my birthday :) The city is really well located between the mountains, the bay, the forest,... Too bad it's too touristic.

The next day I took care again of gettig some cash, bought my bus ticket for Punta Arenas, looked a bit more on what to do (basically you can do a boat tour on some islands, go to the national park or go to Laguna escondida which is a lake with a nice color and next to which you can see castors. In the afternoon I went around the city a bit more and found some nicer places to see the city and started to like it more.

The 24th of December I went to the national park. Once again the time they give to do all the trails s completely wrong and I could do more than what I planned (and it's what saved my day actually). The park is really small and quite frustrating after Torres del Paine... But the hike to the top of cerro Guanaco gives a really nice view over Ushuaia and the surounding. The rest is nothing crazy: just a nice lake (at the end of this track you arrive at the boarder between Argentina and Chile) and a walk along a beautiful bay but quite short again. At the end of the day I met 2 guys in the park: Cristian and Benjamin ( one from Chile and the second from France) both super cool and they invited me to have Christmas dinner with them at their hostel. After a shower back in Ushuaia I joined them and we had a relly cool evening chating, eating, playing cards,...

25th I didn't do much (actually I don't remember what I did beside chatting on the net) and went to bed early cause I had to catch a bus at 5am the next day...