After our long and tiring hike on Thursday, February 27th, we spent Friday working on upcoming travel plans and I walked to a nearby gym to lift weights. I tried to get to the gym without referring to my offline Google Map, which led to an extra 15 minutes of walking because I turned down the incorrect street (I used the map to get home). For dinner we met our new friend from Switzerland, Vanita, at the brewpub (so bummed we forgot to get a photo of the three of us). We love meeting other travelers, especially full-time nomads like us. We trust we will stay in contact with Vanita, and our paths will cross again. I have many people who inspire me for a variety of reasons. Vanita is my inspiration for being true to herself, following her heart and shifting directions often to do what feels right for her.
Saturday morning, we took an Uber to Kau for chai tea and hot chocolate time. We also enjoyed delicious French toast, bacon and scrambled eggs while enjoying the beautiful view of Patagonia.
We went postcard shopping and took an Uber home. Since it was the first of the month, it was an office day and we completed month end tasks, including the start of filing our 2024 taxes. For dinner we took an Uber to El Asador Patagonico for traditional BBQ lamb, veggies, mashed potatoes, bagel bread with garlic sauce and salsa. Along with delicious Astraul beers. After all that food, we needed to walk home (thankfully the weather cooperated as it has been chilly, windy, and rainy).
I was so frustrated washing laundry on Sunday (why can’t it just be easy? why can’t I deal with it better, rather than losing my mind!). Some of the washing machines take two hours to wash one load of laundry. There is often a “quick wash” setting that will take less than one hour. I thought I had manually programmed it to take 50 minutes total. What I didn’t realize is that I selected the rinse cycle to complete FIVE FREAKING TIMES (why is there a setting to rinse that many times?)! As the machine started the third rinse cycle, I realized what was happening and was able to get the load to finish and select the right options for the next two loads of laundry. The water pressure was low and it took forever for the water to fill the drum, so it would have taken another hour to do two additional rinse cycles. I was grateful that the weather cooperated, so we were able to hang our laundry on the outside clothesline to dry as our apartment didn’t have an inside clothes drying rack. Mike did his best to support me through my anguish and self-inflicted stress while he tried to enjoy watching (it had to have been difficult to hear the TV with my constant bitching in the background) the St. Pete Indy Race which he used to attend every year with our friend Brian.
We completed our four-mile cardio walk in the wind with a few raindrops, as well as made a stop at the post office and grocery store on Monday. For dinner we walked to Restaurant Cormoran De Las Rocus for seafood risotto.
We started our day on Tuesday with a four-mile run along the waterfront. It rained lightly and we saw a beautiful rainbow with the horses roaming the coastline. We stopped at Kau after our run to eat pancakes and took an Uber home. We walked to Puerto Masajes for a 90-minute couples massage. The sushi place we planned to eat dinner at was closed, so we walked in the rain to Mesita Grande and had a repeat of our previous pizza there, garlic & tomato, along with garlic sticks. We walked the 45 minutes home.
Highlights from Wednesday include our four-mile cardio walk and eating dinner at El Taller. We planned to eat sushi at Yume but it was a 20-minute wait so we went next door to eat instead.
Thursday was a longer than planned travel day. We took an Uber to the airport and had an easy check-in process with SKY Airline. Shortly after checking in, we learned there was a five-hour delay. We were unable to go through security until closer to the departure time. The airport in Puerto Natales is tiny…there is a kiosk with snack food and souvenirs prior to security and a tiny café after security. We thought about taking a taxi back into town (a 30-minute ride) but opted to get things done at the airport. The airline had a local restaurant bring all the passengers a bagged lunch (hamburger, apple, trail mix, and a bottle of water), which was very nice and appreciated as we were hungry. I went for a 30-minute cardio walk outside while Mike read his book. We outlined our plans for our next destination and booked our lodging. I was able to complete six postcards for our grandnieces. On the plane we ate the beef sticks that Sarah gave to us when she visited us in Nepal last September. We took a taxi to our apartment in Puerto Montt. It was 9:30 pm and restaurants and the grocery store were already closed. Mike ordered Subway sandwiches from Uber Eats (thank goodness, as we were starving!).
Grocery shopping is one of my least favorite things to do, especially in a foreign country where they don’t have similar products, and I can’t read the labels. On Friday, I was in heaven at the Jumbo grocery store which was only a 6-minute walk from our apartment. This store is incredible…better than the stores I shop in when I’m in Sarasota (I want to pack this store up and take it everywhere with us)! We walked to a couple of local gyms to check them out. It started to rain so we went inside the mall for a while. We walked to the post office, and we were given a different stamp design for each of the six postcards (the stamps here were about .80 each, in Argentina 1 postcard stamp cost us $9 – YIKES!). We walked by the waterfront to the history museum which was closed for renovations so we went to the Casa Pauly Oelckers museum. We checked out the plaza and went to the tourist office to get information for future plans. We walked up the many stairs to Mr. Hern’s Fish n Chips for dinner and beers. We saw a rainbow looking out the windows over the bay. I was so darn full, I am grateful the weather was ok for walking home.
I miss going to the gym and knowing what to expect, how to use each machine, and being on autopilot during my workout. On the other hand, going to a different gym each week to lift weights is great exercise for my brain…no autopilot happening while working out anymore! We went to SmartFit in the mall for $7 each for a day pass on Saturday. It is a new, modern, and great gym (I want to pack this gym up and take it everywhere with us)! We saw the ship that Vanita used to work on, Oceania Marina, parked in port when we stopped to get lemon, mint, and ginger juices. It was a sunny day with temps in the low 50s. We walked to the Angelmo market. It’s been a while since we’ve been somewhere that every business is asking you to buy something. There are a lot of restaurants competing for business and they each work hard at steering everyone into their establishment. We decided to eat at the last restaurant on the second level as it appeared to have a “proper” kitchen area for preparing the food, including a sink that had running water (unlike other locations). They served us fried bread with salmon salsa and a plain salsa, along with pisco sour shots. We wanted to try several things, and the portions were bigger than we anticipated. We had mixed ceviche, crab empanada, a seafood empanada, and curanto stew.
Thankfully we had more walking to do after all that food! We made our way to the Mercado and walked to one of the lookout areas in town. Back at the apartment we completed more planning and research for upcoming destinations. For dinner we walked to Club De Yates, where we enjoyed watching the sun set over the bay with a bottle of local white wine, salmon & veggies and stuffed salmon with spinach and shrimp (I love being in a place where I get huge pieces of fresh salmon at reasonable prices!).
The next day we walked to the mall for chai tea and hot chocolate time at Dunkin Donuts (we couldn’t resist having a donut too!). Of all the chai teas I’ve had, I like Starbucks best. There are a couple of Starbucks in Puerto Montt, however they were on strike a couple of days ago so that’s why we went to Dunkin Donuts. After we ordered, we found out that one of the Starbucks locations was no longer striking (I should have went and got a chai tea at Starbucks and not drank the Dunkin Donuts one because it wasn’t good). Good thing we were at the mall because I needed to buy new running shoes. I found a decent pair for $25 at one of the local brand stores. On our walk home we stopped at Jumbo to get food for the rest of the day and packed for moving day tomorrow.
Monday, we took an Uber at 10 am to go to the airport to pick up a rental car from Hertz. We are going on a three-week driving tour and can’t wait! It’s a nice change of pace to have a vehicle…we can set our own schedule versus flight, bus, and train schedules. I don’t have to be concerned with how I pack liquids and leftover groceries, etc. We were on the road heading south to the town of Castro on Chiloe Island a little after 11:00 am and arrived at our new home at 4:00 pm. If you look at a map of Chile and see all of the islands and fjords in the far southern part of the country, Chiloe is the large island at the very far north of those islands before you get to the mainland of Chile. It was a beautiful day, and it was a lovely drive. Right after the short ferry ride from the mainland to the island we stopped for lunch and had salmon with rice and bread. For dinner we walked to Restaurant Travesia where Mike had ceviche and I had vegetarian stole stew (local dish) with a salad. We walked to Unimarc to complete our weekly grocery shopping and made our way home.
The Airbnb we are staying in is a cute cottage that doesn’t have central heating. There is a wood stove in the kitchen (which we don’t plan to use), a large propane gas heater in the living room, a medium-sized propane gas heater in the kitchen and an electric portable heater in the bedroom. I tend to be hesitant around anything that’s propane gas and not a fan of electric space heaters (heard too many stories of people dying from carbon monoxide and fires). Although there are plenty of blankets on the bed, we froze our first night (we have since made adjustments and are warm through the night). This is our life…we average sleeping in a different location every five nights. Rarely are the accommodations ideal (somewhere that I could see myself living full time). So, I play mind games with myself. I’m pretending we are staying in a cute cabin in Door County, Wisconsin in the fall and embracing the chilly nights here.
We got in our little Suzuki Swift car to do some exploring. First stop was to get the famous photo of the palafitos (buildings on stilts) at Puente Gamboa Mirador in Castro.
Chiloe once had more than 150 wooden churches and chapels. About 50 remain, 16 of which are recognized as a collective Unesco World Heritage Site. We did a 110-mile round trip to view five of the 16: Iglesia Nuestra Senora de Los Dolores in Dalcahue; Iglesia Santa Maria de Loreto in Achao (the oldest church in Chiloe from 1740); Iglesia de Nuestra Senora del Patocinio in Tenaun; Iglesia San Antonio de Colo located in the country 13 km north of Tenaun; and Iglesia San Francisco de Castro in Castro by the plaza. Apple trees are bursting with ready to pick fruit everywhere. We brought snacks with us to eat in the car for lunch. We had a delicious early dinner at Rucalaf, fresh pineapple, orange and banana juices, Hake fish with a salad and fettucine with veggies. When we arrived home, we did a cardio walk to the Mercado and bought bananas, walked to a couple of gyms to check prices, equipment, and hours; visited the plaza and the final church on our tour, checked out the mall and then made our way home on foot.
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