Coming Home
I have so many posts I want to write about some beautiful places we’ve been and people we’ve met. But first I want to write about coming home. I write these blogposts just as much for myself as I do for the thought of someone else reading it. It’s fun to reflect on the places we’ve been and the people we’ve met. Plus it’ll remind me of the good times when I’m old(er!) and gray(er!) 😂! And who knows? Maybe my great grandbabies will get a kick out of reading it one day!
By mid-March we had been traveling through Patagonia for about a month and had seen some of the most beautiful places ever! We had read some information about the Covid-19 virus in the news, but hadn’t seen much television (at least not in English!) lately and so we were only marginally aware of it. My friend Steve had come to visit in early March and we were focused on having fun and showing him around, not watching the news, so we still hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the whole virus thing.
While Steve was there we went to the Torres del Paine park and to see some caves, we kayaked by a beautiful glacier in Calafate, Argentina. After Steve left to head back to the States, Ivan and I got on a ferry in Puerto Natales bound for Puerto Montt. We were excited for the trip because we had recently taken another ferry from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas and had met some lovely people and seen some beautiful landscapes, so we knew this one would be fun too.
We got on the ferry at about 9:00 at night, but the ferry didn’t actually leave until the next morning at 6:00. I guess they do that so that they can get all the passengers settled in and don’t have any latecomers holding up the departure in the morning. One of those “laggers” (haha, Joanna, I know you’ll laugh when I tell this story!) was a lady who came onto the boat around 11:00. She had just finished the “W”. That’s a 5 day/night trek through the Torres del Paine national park that people from all over the world come to do. It’s really a tough trek, and we later found out that Joanna had done it all by herself, which is super impressive. Anyway, poor Joanna was exhausted and our first time meeting her was when she was going from bunk to bunk on the ferry trying to remember which one was hers. She had dropped her things there and immediately gone to the cafeteria for an introductory meeting with the staff of the ferry, but couldn’t remember where her backpack was! The ferry had some small private rooms, but lots of people (like us) had chosen the much cheaper option of staying in the bunks that were in several hallways that look exactly the same. I got lost a time or two as well!
I ended up getting a bad cold (one of the downsides for me about traveling — I seem to pick up every cold germ that passes my way!) and stayed and slept in my bunk for a good bit of the 4 night ferry ride. I was glad that I had been healthy and awake for the first ferry we had taken a few weeks earlier, so it wasn’t as disappointing that I was sick on this one. But still, I did get to see some cool things and meet a few awesome people – like Joanna. She’s a teacher from Chicago and has traveled all over the world since she was a young girl. We also met a nice man named Michel who lives in Santiago. He’s an architect and has designed several buildings for Coca-Cola in Chile!
One of the pretty sights we got to see was when we went through a passage that was just barely big enough for the ship to go through. The current was really strong, which evidently makes it difficult for the captain to steer through, but he didn’t hit anything!
Here are some other pictures from the ferry trip.
We arrived in Puerto Montt early in the morning and had to be ready to disembark at 7:30am. That was a little early for me, but it made for a beautiful sunrise!
When we arrived in Puerto Montt, we didn’t really have any information about what was happening with the Covid-19 in the U.S. because we didn’t have any wifi or cell service for the whole time we were on the ferry. But as we had pulled into the port, people were saying they’d heard that the U.S. was starting to close its borders to people traveling from China and a few other places. But still, we didn’t think it seemed like a problem since we were in South America and nowhere near China. So we decided that we would take a bus (and a ferry) to the island of Chiloe so that we could travel around and see some of the UNESCO World Heritage sites that were there. When we got to Chiloe we ran into Joanna and decided that we would all three travel to a town called Dalcahue the next day. When we got to the bus station the next day, we started to realize that things were getting serious with the virus. The CDC was saying that it wasn’t a question of “if”, but a matter of “when” the virus was going to spread across the U.S. I had read on one of the news sites that some epidemiologists were predicting that 50-70% of the world population could get the virus and that 1.5-3% of the people who get it could die. It was at that point that I started getting scared. Being a “numbers girl”, I could calculate that 50% of 7 billion people was 3.5 billion and that 1.5% of 3.5 billion comes to 52,500.000 potential deaths worldwide! I had also read something about the fact that ventilators were going to be in short supply, and that really scared me as well because I’m a lifelong asthmatic and have had the H1N1 flu and pneumonia and I realize that I could end up needing a ventilator. And, of course, it IS all about me, you know (just kidding, but it did really klnda hit home for me!). So I was actually almost near tears as Ivan, Joanna and I were talking about getting a bus to Dalcahue. I secretly just wanted to go home then! But I didn’t want to be a crazy panic-er so I went along with the plan. We hopped on a bus to the small town of Dalcahue and booked a little 2 bedroom cabin on airbnb.
Once we found our cabin and settled in, it turned out to be yet another opportunity to meet some awesome people! The host for our airbnb cabin, Diego, was a really sweet young man. We had bought some vegetables to make potato soup/stew, but couldn’t find any hot sauce in the little tienda (store) so asked Diego where we could get some. A few minutes later, he brought us some homemade salsa picante from his home! We ended up meeting his wife, Angelica, as well and they stayed and talked with us for a few hours! They were so adorable! Angelica is a medic at a clinic in the town and Diego is a speech therapist and works at the local school. It’s so awesome that they both went off to college but came back to their home town to take care of their own. What beautiful people they are! Angelica showed us videos of her dancing group. She dances in their ancestral style to indigenous music and it is just beautiful! They wear traditional costumes of long flowing skirts and wave a pretty handkerchief in the air. Diego played his guitar and sang for us (he and his father have a band that plays around the island). They’re awesome!! They are called “de Otro Lugar” (from another place) – here’s a link to their Soundcloud account:
Here is a link to one of Angelica’s dances. I don’t know whether it will work since it’s to her facebook page, but give it a try!
So even though I originally didn’t really want to go to Dalcahue, I was really glad I did! But after we got there, we started to realize that the locals were a little bit Leary of us, because news of the virus was getting worse. We asked Diego and Angelica if they thought that the island might close its borders and they thought it could be a possibility since the schools and other public places were already closed. So we decided that we would catch a bus back up to the town of Ancud, which was where the ferry runs to the mainland. We packed up our backpacks and when we went to catch the bus, we were on the wrong side of the street. The bus would have intentionally left us except that we crossed the street and were in their way so they had to stop. I’m not sure whether they would have let us on if it hadn’t been for that! Once we got on the bus we learned that it was going all the way across the channel on the ferry to Puerto Montt, so we decided we should get across to the mainland while we had the opportunity.
Once we got to Puerto Montt, we found a little airbnb to stay for one night and made plans to go to the LATAM Airlines office the next day to try to get a flight to Santiago, where we could hopefully catch flights back to the States. Joanna had debated about staying until her originally scheduled return flight on April 3rd, but I was really nervous about that and we convinced her that she should probably head home to Chicago. The LATAM Airlines office had been closed, so we went to the airport in Puerto Montt to try to buy our tickets since we couldn’t get their website to work. But when we got to the airport, they told us they couldn’t sell us a ticket there! So I logged into my computer and was fortunately able to use Expedia to book our flights. We were so thankful that Expedia worked when the LATAM site didn’t! Then I bought tickets for Ivan and me to go from Santiago to Atlanta on good old Delta. I LOVE DELTA! They were so great to us and we felt so happy when we finally boarded that flight! It was almost like being home already. We were also able to help Joanna get a flight scheduled from Santiago through JFK to Chicago and she ultimately made it home safely as well.
One final story about our Delta experience . . . While we were waiting for the flight, we met some people who had been waiting to get a flight home for almost a week! I’m not sure exactly why they couldn’t get on a flight, but they had been scheduled to take a cruise out of Chile that had been cancelled and so they just needed to get back home. I’m not sure whether there were flights, but they were all booked, or whether there just weren’t any flights for a week. But either way, we felt so fortunate that we were able to book the flight and get home all on the same day. We really didn’t want to have to stay in any more hotels or hostels! We also met a nice couple who had been waiting for several days to get back to their home in Connecticut. They had been on an REI trip to Patagonia with 16 other people from all over the world, but had to cut their trip short. It was so interesting because the husband, Keith, had grown up in Port Angeles, Washington where Ivan used to live while he was logging in Forks and going to college in Port Angeles. What a small world! We also had a sweet friend named Gabrielle, from Dublin, Ireland (we had met on an earlier ferry) and she booked a flight from Puerto Montt to Santiago but had to wait in a hotel for several nights before she could fly to Dublin. So once again, we felt so fortunate!
Once we got back to Atlanta, we decided that we would use some of our Marriott timeshare points to stay at a condo in Hilton Head for 2 weeks, in case we picked up the virus while we were on all the busses, taxis, ferries and airplanes. So we rented a car in Atlanta and drove to HH. It was so nice to be in a place with a nice kitchen and hot water and a comfy clean bed!
Since we have been back, the country of Chile has locked down many of their towns and cities. The island of Chiloe that we had been on is completely closed and many towns that we might have gone to require you to have a permit before you can be outside. All of the domestic U.S. airlines have suspended flights out of Santiago. I don’t know where we would have gone if we had stayed there, we’re so glad that we left when we did! But I can’t wait to go back to Chile. It is a beautiful country with beautiful people!
