Greetings from El Chalten, Argentina, home of that incomparable peak Fitz Roy and all that is sparkling and beautiful in the world of glaciated peaks.

For those of you with a good memory, I left you wondering whether we would be able to catch a monster chinook in Torres del Paine. The answer, sadly, is No.  Bernard did catch a 7-lb brown trout, which we shared with friends at the hotel for dinner. It was fresh and delicious, perhaps because it had been nibbling on a dead cow floating along the banks of the Lago Toro before Bernard hooked it?  While at the Rio Serrano, standing in our waders in utterly frigid waters, being pelted by rain, we observed some of the mammoth chinook lumbering out of the icy depths and flumping back in.  These were no ordinary chinook, but rather ones that, so we´re told, escaped from a farm operation some 25 years ago, somehow found the Rio Serrano and now use it as their spawning ground.  Clearly they are genetic anomalies and who knows whether the above is even possible.  We were hopeful of getting into a tussle with one of these behemoths, but they kept to the deep channel in the middle of the river, and we couldn´t get close, even if I had been able to cast more than 10 feet…..

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Hello again! After leaving Chiloe, we boarded ourselves and our little white car onto the ferry Evangelistas, a former gas transport ship now converted to accommodate 240 passengers in more or less comfort, depending on what type of berth one purchased. The ship was gaily painted using all the primary colors, so it was nothing if not cheery!   
 
We treated ourselves to the AAA cabin, which entitled us to a private cabin which contained a set of bunk beds (I claimed the bottom one immediately), a small desk, a locker, a window seat (actually, a porthole seat) and a spacious private bathroom with shower, all in the space of a cell at the Canon City Federal Penitentiary (can’t personally vouch for the comparison….).  Our cabin status entitled us to meal service in the captain´s mess, and that was the ultimate benefit, as the remaining 220 poor sods in ¨steerage¨ had to line up for their meals in a cafeteria.  We shared the captain´s dining room with 5 couples from Brittany, a couple from Holland and a couple from Switzerland.  It was all very cordial and they fed us copious amounts of decent food, including, much to our surprise, fresh fruit and salad at each meal, and truly excellent mashed potatoes (the hands down favorite!).
 
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Hi there! Our trip in Chile is going great. What a wonderful country!  It seems impossible that we have seen and done so much in such a relatively short time. From our start in Santiago to our current southern most point in the town of Castro on the island of Chiloe, this has been one amazing trip so far.  We have stayed in a charming rural guesthouse run by Germans near the town of Talca, to a deluxe hotel on the shores of Lago Villarica in Pucon and now we are in an utterly eccentric lodge called Unicornio Azul (Blue Unicorn), which rises 4 floors up the steep hillside from the bay and is painted, you guessed it……….PINK..  
 
Although we enjoyed Santiago mainly because we were finally in Chile, we were happy to hit the road.  IN true Rally mode, Bernard took the wheel and I took the maps, and everything proceeded smoothly from there. The Panamericana is an easy 4-lane highway with little traffic, so a pleasure to drive.  Our transit days tend to take about 6-8 hours of driving, what with stops for gas, for lunch, etc.  Then we stay for 2-3 days in once place and explore that particular area.  In the vicinity of Talca, we went for our first hike. 

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