Chile

Location Description

Sub-locations

579 photos

Chile: looks much like Argentina.
A welcome respite from hostel life: our last few nights...
Jay, admiring our new digs for the night.
Best bathroom we've seen on our trip
Every street in Puerto Natales had a giant ground sloth...
Riding the bus to Parque Nacional Torres Del Paine. This...
At the entrance gate to Torres Del Paine, a guanico...
Our bus stopped so we could gawk at the views. All I...
One thing was for certain: we were in a very beautiful...
Tourists marveling at the scenery.
Jay looks out on Cuernos del Paine, or "Horns of Paine"...
Jay and John on our $26 20 minute boat ride. Welcome to...
Torres Del Paine from the boat ride across Lago Pehoe.
Campground for day 1. They put in boardwalks to help the...
John setting out to Glacier Gray, not too far from the...
Beautiful shot of ice encrusted mountains. Looks...
Jay hiking along.
Jay, as we walk past a little glacier-carved lake.
Our first view of Lago Grey with a monstrous iceberg...
Jay and John. I miss my beard.
Jay and Lago Grey. This was one massive lake. We hiked...
Jay hiking along on our first day in the park.
Jay cresting a hill giving us a good view of Glaciar...
Jay and Glaciar and Lago Grey.
The hike was beautiful but you wouldn't believe the...
The glacier is getting closer!
Jay hiking along. The wind was strong enough to move...
Zoomed in shot of the surface of the glacier. Looks like...
Jay hiking through some wildflowers.
Bridges across Patagonia: picture for Catherine.
This is the sort of clouds that form when winds are 150+...
Bridges across Patagonia. Lago Grey edition. For Catherine.
Inviting beach. Too bad it's several hundred feet down...
Self portrait.
Very interesting geological formation that proves this...
Cool shot of very high mountains between the clouds.
Another self portrait.
Glacially carved valley running parallel to the main watercourse.
Beautiful colors of stone and ice.
Yikes! Looks like fun climbing if you like pain.
The common dandelion. Is there anywhere they don't grow?...
Pretty meadow with looming mountains in the background.
I never got tired of watching the clouds whip by these...
Big icebergs that recently broke off Glaciar Grey.
John at the end of the road.
Jay looking at Glaciar Grey.
What a huge iceberg! Hard to tell from the photo but...
Surface of Glaciar Grey... zoomed in.
The Great Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Or, El Campo de...
John and Jay enjoying a break at the endpoint of our hike.
Sunlight + ice = pretty colors.
The way the cloud banks pile up actually remind me of...
Looking back down valley, toward our campsite on the...
Jay during the hike back.
Ice covered mountains.
Jay tiptoeing around a stream in the trail.
It's hard to appreciate the scale of these glaciers. We...
Jay with a classic Patagonia-scape.
Jay hiking back to camp in the afternoon sunlight.
All smiles...
Jay, probably laughing at the wind.
An attempt to do a candid Abbey Road shot.
Toward evening some of the torres started to really...
Zoomed out a bit, to give you an idea how massive these...
Reminds me of those stock market mountain pictures Dad...
As the sun sets we get some alpenglow on the mountains.
With El Cuernos in the background. We will hike pretty...
Amazing how the rock completely changes color and...
Our tent in the very close foreground, to put the last...
One parting shot. Wow, I thought it looked cold in the...
Waking up early in the morning before Mr. Ranger Bear...
Packing everything up. I have to say Jay and I did an...
My pack, ready for the road.
Jay hiking sans jacket. I was way too cold to go this...
Jay hiking along Lago Nordenskjold.
Bridges across Patagonia series for Catherine.
Jay and I were really hoofing it; we had an ambitious...
Hiking through the mist.
At this point, it had actually started to snow. I'm not...
Jay with snow on his head.
Then it really started to snow hard!
Jay was quite a trooper and didn't seem to be...
And then it really, really started to snow.
They say in Patagonia you'll see all four seasons in one...
Jay hiking through the woods. The snow had a very...
The snow sort of changes to rain.
Jay with his snow cap on.
Some fire bush (I think) with snow falling all around.
Jay's head collecting snow.
Jay collecting snow on his penguin color schemed backpack.
This was taken as we were getting close to our camp. I...
Bridges across Patagonia, for Catherine.
Good thing there is a bridge across this river.
Jay on the bridge across the river. It was actually a...
Jay on the suspension bridge.
Very secure looking stanchions at the end of the bridge.
It was rather rickety. I think there was a sign saying...
Finally, a sign that we have arrived at Campo Italiano....
After some reconnoitering and deliberating about camp...
After warming up in the tent for a few hours, we put on...
A pretty waterfall as we hike northwest up the Valle Del Frances.
Jay and I use timer mode to pose in front of the cascades.
Second attempt... Jay was the one who pushed the shutter...
We had to ford a couple of small streams. We were...
Jay climbing higher up Valle Del Frances, with Lago...
The fog clears a little bit allowing us to see the...
Jay, stop messing up my self portrait. :)
Very neat looking cascade coursing through deep cut...
John and cascade.
Cascading down the mountain.
Getting our first views of some of the tall torres to...
Closeup of the same.
There's a fun off-width crack to climb. Yikes! You could...
The clouds constantly moved around providing new views...
Can you spot all the birds? Actually, neither can I. But...
Jay with Lago Nordenskjold in the background.
Crazy colors from the glacial fed lakes in the distance....
Close up shot of the wild colors reflecting off the...
Bridges across Patagonia series for Catherine.
The glacier to the west comes into sharper focus as the...
John and some glacier-covered mountains to the west.
We had no idea this mountain was towering above us to...
John and Jay doing another Abbey Road album cover pose.
Jay going the other way.
Close up of some epic-looking rock towers.
From a distance. Hard to appreciate the scale of...
Park of the larger range.
With John in the picture.
John sitting on a log.
Balancing on a log.
Jay.
As we climbed higher, the vegetation grew more sparse...
Looks like a storm could be moving in. We should hurry up.
Very pretty stream.
Jay hiking through a sub-alpine meadow.
Jay with the Valle Del Frances behind him.
Strange tree fungus.
Eventually our trail was completely covered by snow,...
Jay hiking up, up, up.
Eventually we get onto dry rock again. I have no idea...
Stopping at the "top" or as far as we planned to go for...
Looking like a bearded Emperor Palpatine.
A family of little clouds wanders into the valley.
John in Patagonia.
Me again.
I guess Jay took a bunch of these.
Springtime still seems a far way off up here.
More self portraits.
I guess I really liked these clouds.
Jay packing up to head back down the hill.
Close up of nearby glacier.
Jay headed back down the hill.
I really, really liked this tree, and this photo of it.
Jay and this fantastic looking tree.
Better shot of mystery fungus.
Haunted forest.
John in the haunted forest.
I miss my beard.
Jay hiking down Valle Del Frances.
More creepy dead trees.
Jay and a glacier.
Waking up the next morning in our tent. I think it was a...
The cold got us out of bed early, and it felt great to...
John hiking with some Cuernos in the background.
At least two seasons in one photograph.
Jay ties his shoe.
Fantastic scenery.
Jay and Lago Nordenskjold.
Still can't believe that color!
We passed many, many hikers on this stretch of the trail.
It's still pretty cold, despite the sunshine.
I absolutely adore this lake and cannot possibly show...
Today was set to be our longest mileage day. I can't...
Close up of the weird pattern of wind buffeting on the...
Looking like a mountain man that has been without a...
What a crazy lake and weather!
Jay had a bottle of sunscreen that had a top that would...
Jay on the shore of Lago Nordenskjold.
Funny how the rock beach had steps from perhaps seasonal...
John on the shore of Lago Nordenskjold.
Jay looking at some weather coming in from the West. We...
Jay and the penguin backpack.
Beautiful contrast between the green forest and the...
After a long morning's hike, we arrived at Albergue Los...
Jay taking a break at Albergue Los Cuernos. I think we...
Los Cuernos (The Horns) with some fire bush in the...
We found this sign on the ground. We weren't really sure...
Jay inspects our trustworthy map. Less of a navigational...
Bridges Across Patagonia series for Catherine.
The aforementioned cabañas that rent out for $140 USD...
Amazing how the rock abruptly changes color (and...
Headed out from Albergue Los Cuernos for our afternoon...
Scenery changes again.
Another self portrait.
A river rushes down a slickrock stream bed toward Lago...
Taking a break.
Jay surveys the road ahead from a small prominence on our path.
This was mostly what this part of the trail was like:...
This part of the hike did seem to go on for a long time,...
Another fire bush.
Where did this boulder come from? It was as big as a small house.
Jay, walking through a boulder field.
Very interesting looking seed pods on the fire bush....
Hiking through some beautiful country.
A man sits at the end of a windy path, writing in his...
Spotting some horses from afar on a different trail....
Jay packing up after a short snack/rest break.
Taking a self portrait on the way across to the third...
Jay and John hiking back uphill into the mountains on...
First people we had seen in several hours. Basically at...
Very steep ground below our trail.
Looking up-canyon along the Rio Ascencio toward our...
Jay and the Rio Ascencio.
The trail here was held up by pink sandbags. It was...
Jay walking along at a brisk pace.
Gripping a rock over fear of tumbling down?
We passed a pay campground that had a wind generator and...
Bridges across Patagonia. This one led to Albergue...
Tourists, horses, and horse poo. Glad we were under our...
Pretty soon we were shrouded in thick stands of trees...
So quite apparently we bombed up the trail without so...
Our campground contained a ranger station that was in an...
Happy to have a place to rest our heavy packs.
The park ranger who lives in this station decorated a...
So, we picked a campsite, dropped packs and immediately...
The trail was brutally steep, with hand lines in many places.
Our very first view of Los Torres as we crested the...
Very first view of these towers. Hard to appreciate the...
Close up shot.
Tried to take a self portrait.
Jay taking some photos of the towers. It was really...
Self portrait with two of the three towers. Almost!
Jay, the towers, and our very last chocolate bar. We ate...
Jay and Los Torres del Paine.
John and the three towers.
Another shot, vertical.
Some dutch tourists showed up and we managed to ask them...
It was cold as there was no sunshine left on this side...
One more shot of the towers as clouds roll in.
Still having fun with self portraits.
Back at camp: our tent is the yellow one in the...
Making dinner. Mac and Cheese if I remember correctly....
On our last morning in Torres del Paine, we woke up...
Dandelions. They grow anywhere.
Hiking back to Campo Chileno.
Taking a break to use the convenient indoor plumbing,...
We timed this well! This is the look up the valley...
Bridge picture for Catherine.
A cold, blustery morning in Patagonia.
A cute sign showing our path down from our camp (near...
A gray, drizzly day.
Back on flat land, more or less.
Bridge picture, for Catherine.
Refugio Las Torres. Or maybe this was the hotel. No idea...
Back to civilization. Taking a break the gift shop at...
Bird flying over some scorched earth. Apparently, about...
Our 5 mile walk back to the bus stop. Maybe we'll see...
Apparently this entire national park was quite recently...
Half way through our walk, we spotted an overland...
Interesting landscape. No guanaco though.
Catherine, he's a rather impressive bridge for you.
And an even more impressive one.
Suspension bridge in middle of nowhere Torres Del Paine...
Jay on the bridge.
In case you were wondering.
Jay crosses the bridge.
Ha! Catherine, what do you think of this sign?
In context. Hope you don't miss it!
Bad condition bridge and good condition bridge. I took...
Finally! At the bus stop. But not our bus.
Hanging out at the (thankfully covered) bus stop with...
Bus ride on the way back to town.
(Out the bus window) Finally, guanaco!
Lots of them in fact!
Back in Puerto Natales. Holga seca. No idea what holga...
Having accomplished 1-3, we head over to the city's very...
Having listened to the safety lecture in both Spanish...
Here is our colorful boat! The rain had not let up one...
The wind was rather intense as well.
On board the Navimag ship Evangelistas: our cafeteria...
Nautical charts of our route.
Pub / lounge.
Another orientation video the first night - basically...
Map of our course for the first day.
Our crew member guide explains our course. I can't...
Generally what the ship looked like inside.
Our bunks! We got upgraded to a private room with 4...
My bed (top) and Jay's bed (bottom).
Bar menu on board.
Pascal and I get a few rounds of pisco sours as well as...
Be carefull - Strong wind blows!
The next morning we woke up early (some of us, anyway)...
Life "raft". I think at some points the water was as...
Headed for Canal Wide or Angostura White, as it is...
Pascal photographs the narrow strait ahead.
Getting closer...
Getting closer to land (off the starboard side).
Self portrait.
Another one.
About to enter the strait.
Current flowing through the strait.
Turbulence near shore where it is relatively shallow. I...
Passing an island shortly after the strait.
Leaving the strait behind...
I went back to my cabin to have a short nap before...
I decided I was too excited to sleep, so I went back up...
Here you can see small waterfalls cascading down into...
Snow-covered peaks looming in the distance. I was...
Unbelievable granite towers. Even more unbelievable they...
Jay, surveying the landscape before breakfast.
Breakfast on board. Yogurt, "bread", some sugar cereal....
Jay, assuming his resting pose in the pub / lounge. We...
Jay, in the lounge.
Jay, looking at a map of the ship.
List of activities for the day (in English).
Helicopter landing pad and sun deck. Great for snapping...
Emergency assembly point icon.
More beautiful azure waters and green mountains capped...
We had a GPS system on board hooked up to a PC and...
Pascal and Jay chat in the dining room over some coffee.
Jay, back in the lounge. It was pretty nice having so...
Oversized chess game. Sadly no one wanted to play chess.
Icebergs floating by us.
No cargo on our ship: apparently the cargo door fell off...
Food for the day.
Jay, surveying the horizons.
Weather gets a bit rainy as we make a short detour into...
Closer to the glacier the icebergs get bigger.
I think every passenger on the ship crowded onto one...
John, self-portrait.
More and more icebergs.
Getting thicker.
Then we just started sailing into the icebergs.
Definitely very iceberg-y now.
The captain's bridge. I hope they know what they are doing.
Looking back behind us.
Jay with Glaciar something or other behind us.
Sailing through lots of icebergs.
Neat how you can see the dark shadows of the bulk of...
And then the going really got interesting.
This really didn't seem so advisable.
These icebergs had more-or-less frozen together. The...
Anothher self portrait.
John and the glacier.
Icebergs pirouetting past the side of our boat.
Surface of the glacier.
People watching the glacier from the top deck.
Going back to the fjords.
Beautiful patterns of icebergs.
Jay, possibly taking a video of icebergs scraping our hull.
Watching the receding glacier in the rain (in early spring). Sad.
Big diesel smokestacks at the back of our boat.
John.
Heat distortion from the smokestacks.
Rainbow!
Spaghetti dinner on board. I think some French guy told...
Waterfalls on some remote unnamed island at least a...
Jay, having an afternoon cup of coffee.
Self portrait with mountains and sunset.
More waterfalls spilling out of remote alpine lakes fed...
Watching the (late) sunset from the deck.
Amazing color this time of day.
Watching the sunset.
Self portrait.
Jay, out to snap a few pics.
Two bearded mountain men on a boat.
Can't see waterfalls anymore.
Pretty much the end of the light. Probably the most...
The next morning I got up and went out on deck to see...
Here's the town, which I believe is called Puerto Eden...
A slightly different view of the town.
This town is actually located within Bernardo O'Higgins...
Meal plan for the day.
And entertainment plan for the day.
There were a number of dolphins in the bay. Catching one...
Beautiful cloudy morning. I can't imagine living here....
More waterfalls! But you can already tell the climate is...
Zoomed in view of the forest, revealing it is starting...
On our third day (second full day) aboard the...
The Capitan Leonidas ran aground on a semi-sunken islet...
The captain of the ship then filed a rather large...
The wreck was left in situ, and later the Chilean army...
Note the large holes that were not created by rust or...
Someone ought to go hang some jolly rogers from this...
Beautiful setting.
More close ups.
I can't believe all those cable stays are still taught...
Jay and the ghost ship Capitan Leonidas.
Another self portrait. After this, we were headed out to...
Our ship was so cute!
Strange table-top looking mountain off in the distance.
Look closely and you may spot an albatross.
Jay hanging out on the observation deck while we were out at sea.
Jay and Pascal.
Albatross! Quite a wingspan.
I think this is a Petrel, a type of large sea bird with...
One of our staff members watching the ocean.
No pictures from the rest of that day... we went out to...
The weather was getting more temperate, and also wetter.
Morning photo, wearing the hoodie that was stolen from...
Zoomed out shot.
Jay reading a book. It was misty and rainy most of the...
Misty, rainy. Not too much to see.
Food for the day.
Some pretty islands going by in the mist and fog.
More self portraits.
Weird looking islands, that sort of look like a pod of...
Finally a little sunshine. And a rainbow!
Another view of the rainbow.
Finally the weather clears a bit, and it turned into a...
Me again.
More rainbows.
Our friend and bunkmate Pascal photographing the rainbow.
Celebrating the good weather by spending a little time...
Note the horizon versus the declination of the ship. We...
More pretty scenery.
Corpuscular rays!
We played some sort of modified bingo game on the last...
Another completely amazing sunset, with my head in the way. D'oh!
Sunset again without my head in the way.
Jay, watching the sunset.
After bingo one of the crew members played the keyboard and sang.
Then after that there was a party.
And after that I went to bed.
When we woke up in the morning, we had to eat a very...
Putting down the gangplank so we can disembark. These...
A beautiful morning in Puerto Montt.
A little fishing village on an island in the harbor in...
The door our boat was missing (why we didn't have cargo).
See! No cargo.
Passengers disembarking.
Adios, Navimag!
Valparaiso is a big port city near Santiago. It sort of...
Neat looking tires with moss. I wonder what they go on...
Why are there always lines for ATMs in foreign countries?
Lovers staring at the sea.
Very large volcano. The landscape was littered with these.
A ridiculous sandwich. First meal on dry land in four days.
Jay looking eagerly at my lunch.
Pretty boat on Lago Llanquihue.
Curious kitty. Jay and I found out that a day was too...
View of Puerto Varas from the Mirador.
Handsome guy. Campaign poster around town. I think he...
Back in Puerto Montt, we took a 5 minute boat ride to an...
Our captain.
Me!
Our captain romantically enough used oars to ply the...
Fishing boats on an island in the harbor of Puerto Montt.
A fishing dingy resting in the low tide waters.
Very green moss! I like this color a lot.
Green moss and Puerto Montt in the distance.
Jay and I took a short hike to the top of the hill in...
There they go!
Beautiful view south, from where we arrived on our ship.
Puerto Montt. At this point, it started to rain, as...
It also got very windy!
Banana Numero Dos.
Jay and I wait at the water taxi stand to go back to the...
The tide is even lower since we came.
A lone fisherman in the harbor. Seems like a peaceful,...
Never until this moment could I quite put my finger on...
Various seafood for sale at the Santiago Fish Market.
John at the fish market.
Fish, with very sharp looking teeth, buried under a pile...
Fish heads for sale!
Fish mongers filleting fish. I think the sign said...
Knife goes in, guts come out.
Corvina chica for sale. $4/kilo, or $2/pound.
The designer of this shirt was clearly never very good...
Jay in some large cathedral downtown.
It was beautiful to see Santiago in the spring. The...
Lunch at a neighborhood sandwich counter. Jay with his...
I actually thought this was vegetarian, and ended up...
Jay gets a gelato after lunch. Mmm... dulce de leche and...
John, roaming around central Santiago.
Mounted police, near the main government complex.
John with some Chilean leader's statue in the background.
Statue of Salvador Allende, the populist leader who was...
This was the weird and unique Santiago taste sensation:...
Central Chile.... the southern hemisphere's California....
Jay checking out the skyline from the top of a strange...
Jay surveying the yonder.
Two cool kids in Santiago.
Jay stands in line for a drink. I don't think he got the...
A statue of some guy, with a castle in the back.
Our home in Santiago for three nights (or was it just...
Botero! Everyone's favorite Colombian artist.
There were elections coming up (don't there always seem...
This viaduct was one of the most foul waterways I have...
Riding the funicular to the top of Cerro San Cristobal....
View of commercial downtown Santiago from the funicular...
Cerro San Cristobal.
View from the top of Cerro San Cristobal.
Zoomed in view of our hostel neighborhood. I guess I was...
Sports complex of some type?
San Cristobal I presume?
Tourist mall at the top of Cerro San Cristobal.
Virgin Mary, according to Wikipedia.
View to the east I believe.
I finally broke down and ordered a mote con huesillos...
In case you were wondering, mote is boiled wheat berries...
Portrait on Cerro San Cristobal. I decided instead of...
Another shot of eastern Santiago. I think there is snow...
Hats for sale. The Chilean flag and Texan flag are very...
The other El Trebol, looking far more respectable than...
Santiago graffiti in the Bellavista neighborhood.
There are actually a lot of Japanese people living in...
Jay, waiting for the train at the Metro stop Bellas...
Chileans riding the subway.
On Sunday, Jay and I boarded a bus for Valparaiso, about...
Old electric bus near the bus terminal in Valparaiso,...
The first order of business was to ride one of...
Some of these funiculars were basically elevators.
Bustling port of Valparaiso.
Unloading a cargo ship.
View north along the Chilean coast.
Truck that can load containers onto other trucks.
Naval ships moored in the harbor.
These were very large cranes. They basically had an...
Closeup of the building.
People enjoying brunch or whatever on the deck of a cruise ship.
And old car in Valparaiso. Jay is at the left.
This kitty may have seen better days. Or then again, maybe not.
John and Jay having wandered off the tourist path,...
Some interesting street art.
Jay walking around residential Valparaiso.
One thing I wanted to do was to see the house of Pablo...
Today it's a very mixed neighborhood but still affords...
View from Pablo's living room. The reason why the only...
Pablo's bathroom. I bent the rules here to show the...
Pablo's house from the ground-level deck, which now...
John, at Casa de Pablo Neruda, Valparaiso.
John, with Pablo's house La Sebastiana in the background.
Colorful houses along Calle Miguel Angel, I think.
John with a colorful house. I really liked the way all...
Like a box of crayons...
Funky corrugated metal house with a blue car.
Another interesting looking home.
Alleyway with trompe l'oeil mural.
Jay and a hotel with an interesting exterior.
Another view of the hotel, I think also along Calle Miguel Angel.
Bougainvillea. Spring in Valparaiso is beautiful!
Old house with graffiti and crumbling foundation.
Downtown Valparaiso on a Sunday afternoon.
Riding another funicular.
Jay photographing the view from the tiny funicular (had...
A floating dry dock.
Closeup. I wonder what happened to the Valparaiso I.
Beautifully painted houes in one of the more touristy...
More painted houses. In many ways, Valparaiso was a...
Even the fire hydrants are painted in pretty colors.
A church.
More colorful houses.
Jay has his photo taken in front of a building with some...
This is the way the native Patagonian people used to...
Jay walking the streets of Valparaiso.
Valparaiso afternoon sky.
Stopping for a snack at a bakery/cafe.
Taking many many steps down out of the hills.
New government center in Valparaiso. Check out that the...
Back in Santiago on Monday, I drag Jay to a farmer's market.
This market was vast and represented the bounty of...
Sleepy time! He looks delicious!
Mote and huesillos! So you can make your own mote con...
Lunch at a stall in the market. Simple food, but pretty...
Ensalada. For some reason I ordered this as a side, and...
About the best I could do.
Trying a mysterious fruit with waxy bulbous seeds....
A thousand peso store! Which is unfortunately more like...
Piles of knock-off Chuck Taylors, including some...
John goes on a walk through Parque Quinta Normal, while...
Chilean drum circle.
I decided to walk the entire way from Parque Quinta...
Facade of a 19th century looking building, held in place...
Government building.
View through the window of a liquor store. Do they have...
At long last, even this trip must come to an end. While...
The sun sets on a fantastic one month trip at Comodoro...
Good bye sun, good bye South America! Next stop, Miami...