This started with me, laying on a rocky beach, hungover and being attacked by very large alien bugs.
Regretting many of my choices from the night before, such as gabi and I returning home at 4am when we had to wake up at 6:30 and especially regretting not asking more questions about what we were about to spend our weekend doing. After the three hour car ride we were almost an hour early for the ferry to take us "somewhere" that I had yet to figure out. Gabi, Antonia (her neighbor and my friend from CPV), Gabi's father, her little sister Isabel and her older sisters boyfriend were now hanging out on a beach waiting to send Gabi, Antonia and I off. The beach was beautiful and right on the lake except the terrifying creatures were everywhere. I also found out that they feed on blood which was really encouraging, and that they were attracted to the color blue. I was wearing a bright blue jacket, with blue shorts, a blue tank top and a blue sports bra I had zero hope of removing the blue from my body. Luckily they don't drink the blood of dead animals, so as long as I pretended to be dead, didn't move or talk they would eventually go away.....
However, while this camping trip started off on an "interesting" note, it ended up being one of the most amazing experiences of my life and easily is one my favorite places in the whole world. After the first ferry I thought we would start the hike, but instead actually boarded another very small boat. After crashing through the waves (which I loved and reminded me of dingy rides in the the summer) the boat drivers showed us a huge waterfall and then stopped in front of a large rock and Boulder wall. At first I thought they were joking with the Austrailians tourists who didn't speak any Spanish and were on our boat, because they told them to get out. Then they started unloading backpacks and equipment onto the rocky cliff and then in Spanish told us to get off as well. Here I was wearing a massive and heavy backpack, with trecking poles in one hand and a cellphone and water bottle in the other. I watched as the first two found a small rope between the crevices of the rocks and began to scale the cliff while pulling them selfs up with the rope, next thing I knew I was being looked at to go, well it wasn't graceful and my pack was very top heavy so every time I bent forward I kind of face planted into the ground. After one of the staff members from Tagua Tagua parked helped me stand up and ask if I was ok, I realized that we weren't even at the start of the hike yet, and I had picked the worst day to be hungover.
The hike was incredible, it was my first time hiking with my backpack which was a whole new experience but the treck to our Refugio for the night was about 6.5km and was long but beautiful. We coursed over beaches, under waterfalls, through fields of flowers and into depts of the forests. The entire trip was steep and hard but so worth it because the view from our cabin as well was breathtaking. In our Refugio was 4 members from the park, one photographer and the rest that I believe help maintain it. Also was Gabi's aunt, cousin and her cousins girlfriend, along with 10 other Chileans. The Australian tourists had made the brave choice to hike to the second Refugio 10km from the start. And the last 2km were basically just ladder/stairs up the streepest part of the mountain.
That night we cooked dinner early and had wanted to watch the stars but went to bed too early as we were exhausted from the long day. The next morning we woke up to explore the rest of the park, finish the end of the hike up to the second Refugio and a long the way take the smaller side hikes to waterfalls.
The information center view... Had no idea what I was in for at this point
Us before the Ferry
View from our Refugio
Gabi and I <3
The top of the hike, last Refuigo
Tagua Tagua is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been, all of the water is perfectly crystal clear and as we hiked we just continually dipped our bottles in the river to refill them. We had lunch at the second Refuigo and talked with the austrialians a bit as well before heading back down to our camp. That night we made an excellent dinner, a pasta with a creamy tuna sauce, and then our entire group watched the stars together, a couple people played guitar, a few people sang it was wonderful. (PS in Chile/ South America you can't see the North Star.... Duhhhh because we are not in the North Hemisphere but it through me off so much when looking for stars in the sky). Each day had been sunny and gorgeous if not too hot, we even went swimming in the very very cold waterfall on day two. On day three we needed to hike back down to the start to catch the 11:30 little boat so that we could make the bigger ferry, so that we could make the bus back to Puerto Varas.The third day it also decided to rain most of the night and our entire walk back. Now walking downhill is one thing with bad knees, but walking down hill in the rain is hard for everyone especially when the trail is mainly mud. I spent the majority of it sliding down the mountain trying to keep all of my things together, the best part was my pack felt as if had been emptied because almost all of the weight that had been in it had now been eaten.
Eventually we made it down the treck and were absolute drowned rats by the end of it, I somehow forgot that my Patagonia was rainproof and that I had brought it with me and so I hiked the entire thing in shorts and a fleece which I spent the entire ferry ride wringing out, luckily in the small informational building at the start I was able to put my raincoat on for the rest of the day.
Before we became drowned rats, start of the hike down
Which came into handy even on the bus, because during our 3 1/2 hour bus ride back to PV, my seatdecided to start leaking from the heavy rain. But possibly the very best part of all of it was the empanadas lady selling hot empanadas de queso y carne right before the bus (aka lunch) as well the hot shower once I got back to Gabi's house.
