It looks like we're going to Chiloe after all. We were going, then we weren't and now it appears that the wind is blowing westward so we will follow it over on a ferry once we get to Chaiten. It's supposed to be a beautiful part of the country. Given our fuel situation and the ferry schedules, it seems a feasible option now. We went and booked our tickets right after breakfast today.
We opted for the 'divide and conquer' method of tackling our pre-departure to-do list. Zach dealt with Babe and I went to go play in the recently vandalized and looted grocery store. Check out their work:
I love poking around supermarkets in foreign countries and provisioning for four days of cooking and camping gave me the perfect excuse. Despite the previous night's break-in, from inside you couldn't tell anything had happened. What surprised me the most was how much it was like a Walmart in the Unimarc. They had everything there.
My arms were about an inch longer by the time I walked all the way back to the hotel with the bags of groceries. Zach was making progress with Babe but needed a bit more time. I took advantage of this time to prepare dinner.
The book is called 'Manifold Destiny'. When Zach first told me about this book, I was instantly intrigued. A cookbook on how to cook on your engine? Cool!
So...today we did a little experiment. I prepared a chicken concoction and rolled it in 7.5m of extra-strong tin foil. We then wired it on to the engine!
After a delicious lunch at Mamma Gaucho's, understandably the #1 Trip Advisor restaurant in Coyhaique, and a few last errands, we were on the road...with a full tank of fuel.
At least these road blocks weren't on fire and fully closed!
The road was paved for a greater part of the journey than we expected but just when the pavement ended, the sun went down and it got interesting. Look at this tangled string of bubblegum the Garmin plotted for us! It was crazy!
We found a beautiful campsite in an empty campground right at the base of the hanging glacier, Ventisquero Colgante, in Parque Nacional Queulat. We can hear the waterfall and even heard a few bergs of the glacier break off. Awesome! It's also one day off of a new moon and with a cloudy sky it is DARK!
The chicken needed a bit (!) longer to cook so we got out the stove and cooked it up and had a very tasty dinner. As we were cleaning up I mentioned that as a result of camping in the Rockies, I felt conditioned to move the garbage away from the campsite but I figured there was no need to here. No sooner were those words out of my mouth than I looked up and was startled to see a bold fox advancing on the campsite.
We scared him off but we put everything away and made a 'garbage piñata'. As we brushed our teeth with our headlamps on, we looked into the forest across the way and could see the reflection of his eyes looking right at us. I wonder what the little zorro, Spanish for fox, will get up to tonight!
Here's his picture (he came back a few days later too!):
Learning of the day: Wasps can eat through tin foil and apparently I sound like I have Turret's when I swear!
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