Submitted by Pat

Up by 7 am and we met at 7:30 outside the hotel's top floor restaurant for a buffet breakfast. Nothing looked or tasted "normal". Still I chowed down on rolls and muffins and fruit and cereal and coffee. Although I have to say that what I thought was a tube of cocoa turned out to be a tube of instant Nestles coffee that I poured into my first cup. Blech. I didn't look closely obviously. Back to our rooms to finish packing and hauling our luggage to the lobby to wait for the cab. Got to the airport in plenty of time to make our 10:40 am flight to Balmaceda. We struggled to squeeze our way from the baggage claim area into the terminal through crowds of travelers. Found a small restaurant and went up for something to eat. We were starving. There we met three of our fellow Earth River Lakes trip folks: Curtis and Carol from Maryland and Mary Anne, an OB-GYN from Philadelphia. We crammed around a table meant for two and I helped everyone order. Here's where my Spanish came in handy although I had no idea the difference between a Barros Jarpa and a Barros Luco. The waitress was patient while I sorted out our order.

After our food came, a gentleman wearing shorts and hiking boots and a broad white-toothed smile approached our table. I had seen him in the DVD that Earth River sent with their promotional materials - he was Roberto Currie, the Chilean partner of the Earth River founder Eric Hertz. We all introduced ourselves and once we had finished eating joined him at his table where he was sitting with several other members of the trip and one of the four other guides that were joining us. There we met another couple, Don and Ozella from Denver and their friend Karen also from Denver. The three of them were fresh off the Futaleufu rafting trip that we were going on after the Lakes trip. We met Greg, one of Earth River's senior guides who had never been on the Lakes trip before and was going to be the lead guide for a trip scheduled a couple of weeks after ours. We also met Kate, an application security analyst from Berkeley and Frank, a drummer from LA who was fresh off a trek to Antarctica. Rounding us out were two brothers from New York City.

When everyone had finally arrived, we crammed our luggage into a van seating 15 and crammed our bodies in for what the itinerary on the web said was a 3 hours bus ride but was really a 5-6 hour drive. We drove on asphalt for about 45 minutes before the road turned to dirt, rough corduroy for the rest of the journey. The scenery however was absolutely incredible. Tall craggy snow covered peaks, beautifully preserved national park land where we experienced a sighting of a rare and endangered species of deer called Huemul. We drove by the third largest lake in the world - Lago General Carrera. Glacier fed, its waters were a silty blue green. We stopped about 4 hours into the drive at a small store in a small town near the lake where we ate, drank, peed and stretched. Back in the bus and an hour later we turned off onto a narrow rutted road leading to the farm house that was feeding us and allowing us to camp in their field.

We crossed one bridge that was pretty sketchy and came to the next one. Roberto and the driver got out to look and decided it wasn't safe so we all got out and walked the last fifteen minutes to the house. Our luggage would be transported in the Earth River truck in short order. First order of business was to set up our tents. Since I was a single person and there were four single women I picked Kate, the IT person from Berkeley, as my roomie. Roberto showed us how to set up the tents and then let us at it. That first set up was pretty funny - which pole goes in first, was it the medium short one or the short short one that goes in the fly, which end is the front again? We all managed to get our tents set up and haul what we needed for the night out to the pasture where we had set up. Dinner was almost ready.

The farmhouse that hosted us opened to a room where the cooking was done on a wood stove set in the middle of the room. They had running water but cold only. They had a bathroom with a toilet too and we all made use of it since it would be the last time for a while. The meal was server in a larger room next to the kitchen where there were two tables and just about every usable chair and stool in the house set around it. Our meal was a traditional Chilean dish called curanto - a sort of Chilean version of our New England boiled dinner, consisting of chicken, chorizo, pork, beef, potatoes, corn on the sob, and carrots in a broth. We also had cucumber salads, pico de gallo, and homemade bread. There was a huge bottle of Chilean red wine and a smaller bottle of white wine made by the farmer who was hosting us. I toasted with my water. Dessert was a huge bowl of peaches with some kind of oatmeal mixed in. I was too full to even try it.

I was pretty much done by the time dinner was over. I brushed my teeth and headed for my tent and into my sleeping bag. I'm sure I slept but it felt like I was awake all night.