(note: just click on an image to see a full-screen slide show of the whole collection)
We woke up in the desert and ate dessert. Yummy membrillo tarts! It was Easter morning and we were about out of water...definitely not enough to boil some eggs for a hunt. Instead we opted for a raw egg hunt with our 4 white eggs (the brown ones would be preeeetty hard to find in the desert!). Ben and I (Cana) went out into the cold mountain air and hid the eggs for the kids. They found mine pretty quick, but Ben is more sly so they had some work to find his. We had a few false alarms when the kids found wads of tp instead (BTW we do NOT leave our toilet paper out in the wilderness, we have a trash for that!!!) of eggs and once they found a shiny beer can. Then it was their turn to hide the eggs for us!! I got fooled by tp and beer cans too, but we wound up finding 3 whole eggs and 1 broken one.
We woke up in the desert and ate dessert. Yummy membrillo tarts! It was Easter morning and we were about out of water...definitely not enough to boil some eggs for a hunt. Instead we opted for a raw egg hunt with our 4 white eggs (the brown ones would be preeeetty hard to find in the desert!). Ben and I (Cana) went out into the cold mountain air and hid the eggs for the kids. They found mine pretty quick, but Ben is more sly so they had some work to find his. We had a few false alarms when the kids found wads of tp instead (BTW we do NOT leave our toilet paper out in the wilderness, we have a trash for that!!!) of eggs and once they found a shiny beer can. Then it was their turn to hide the eggs for us!! I got fooled by tp and beer cans too, but we wound up finding 3 whole eggs and 1 broken one.
Cana's toes were too cold and wet to hang around camp to make a proper breakfast, so we broke camp quickly and drove off to find some sunshine and let the car's heater thaw my feet.
We decided that Esquel is very similar to Pocatello, Idaho. There is a small university there, a ski-hill, a railroad, desert, mountains and serves as a gateway city to other touristy sights and the border with Chile. Sister city?
After about an hour along Argentina's dusty and famous Ruta 40 we stopped to make food and hang out. Ben and Wells played on the skateboard and Cana played with a little moth (what is the difference between moths and butterflies?).
Back on the road we saw Ñandu (ostrich) and red-tailed deer, but, man, Argentina is made up of a lot of desert. No offense, but there were some weary moments on this stretch of highway.
We finally got to Argentina's border outpost at El Coyte and were greeted by yapping dogs at this cute little house place. After little fanfare, the border guard moved the little wooden gate and we exited the fine country of Argentina.
The Chilean border guard station was just as small and instead of dogs there was a little kitten. Of course we hid the honey again, and after glancing through our cooler the guard gave the command, "Adelante!" It was funny, all of us felt this relief getting back into Chile, like we were coming back home or something. We did the "Chi! Chi! Chi! Le! Le! Le! Viva Chile!" cheer and drove into the lush Chilean wilderness towards Coyhaique.
The drive into Coyhaique is gorgeous and Ben got all excited about some little pimple-like rock hills in the middle of this valley (Roche Moutonnee in geology-speak) and we stopped to take all sorts of photos. We finally arrived into Coyhaique right as dark was settling in (it is not good to drive in the dark because there are cows all over the roads) and got a bite to eat at a funky little
hippy cafe.
We had been cruising pretty fast to get into Coyhaique by Sunday night in order for Ben to do some research work on Monday and Tuesday. We were relieved to make it in time...and we were relieved to have a little bare house to sleep in with beds, a wood burning stove, toilets and a shower. Thanks Brian! The kids watched Space Balls and Audrey Hepburn and we all went to bed happy and warm.
