Category: South America 2012

We wake up to a great breakfast! Tamara has made fresh biscuits and we have butter, local honey, and rose hips jelly from the rose bushes that have taken over the area (the roses are considered a nasty weed here). We also have home-made yogurt and fruit from the garden. There are several cereals and… Continue reading 17 April 2012

The view from the lodge in the morning is beautiful! The sunrise is particularly nice. Scott and I are the only photographers out. Does that make me as nutty as him?? The common room has a nice view of the river and hills. It’s a cold and rainy day. We are off to the Cerro… Continue reading 16 April 2012

Today we learn two things: how to spot condors and how to dress for Patagonia. The saying is that there is no bad weather in Patagonia, only bad clothes. For the rest of the trip we are never without our long underwear, 2 layers of shirts, down sweater, raincoat for a windbreaker, a neck scarf,… Continue reading 15 April 2012

The plane ride to Balmaceda is about 2 hours. We know that other tour members are on the plane so we look around to see if we can guess who they are. There is one man with a huge tripod that won’t stop talking to the people around him. That is a bad omen… After… Continue reading 14 April 2012

Today we sip some Chilean wine. So we travel with Gonzalo to the wine country. Our first stop is Matetic Vineyards in the San Antonio Valley. We had a very nice private tour. Matetic is an organic and biodynamic winery. So you ask “what is a biodynamic winery”?? Let’s see if I understand it correctly…… Continue reading 13 April 2012

Today we spend the day with Gonzalo, our tour guide, in the coastal town of Valparaiso about an hour and half drive from Santiago. The landscape we pass is very much like our California coastal hills–chaparral and sagebrush. We see a Condor in the distance; we will see many more in Patagonia. We pass through… Continue reading 12 April 2012

We woke up to an e-mail telling us that Howard’s 91 year old dad, Len, had broken his hip. Now, that wasn’t good. We received e-mail updates from his geriatric case manager, Nancy (who has been helping Len with his medical needs), and Dorothy (who helps Len with household needs and has been a wonderful… Continue reading 11 April 2012

The traffic is buzzing 16 floors below me on the downtown Santiago, Chile street. I have just awakened from a 4 hour nap and it’s nearly 7PM. I can just barely make out the outline of the Andes Mountains through the pollution haze. Howard was hoping for a clear day so that he could frame… Continue reading 10 April 2012