(Originally published on Feb. 19)
This entire past week was a complete blur for me. I will try to recount all of our adventures chronologically, but please forgive me if I have to jump around a bit.
Let me start by saying that I almost cried at several points during this last week out of sheer wonderment and total happiness. Some of the experiences I was able to have are ones that most photojournalists go their entire lives just dreaming of.
Now my goal is to make you (my reader) feel as though you were there seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling and smelling everything right along with us.
The first two days of our journey last week were spent in the coastal town of Chiloé, and although being in Torres del Paine, Patagonia was certainly the pinnacle of the trip for me, it would be a terrible disservice to my readers to not touch on this historic Chilean island.
Chiloé’s important role in Latin American history really begins in the 19th century, when Chiloé became the main Chilean port for foreign whalers. Moving into the twentieth century, this little island grew to be the main producer of railroad ties for the entire continent of South America. Up until this point, European settlers had mainly occupied the coastline, but with the influx of farming inland, Chiloé slowly became more and more inhabited, and new towns were created.
Today, Chiloé is a thriving, sea-loving, friendly island. It is home to Magellan and Humboldt penguin colonies, as well sea otters, sea lions, many different types of gulls and a plethora of fishermen, all of which we saw during our visit.
In summary, Chiloé is a place where the air is always a bit salty, everything smells a bit like fish, the people are always inviting and the seafood is out of this world.
From Chiloé, we made our way to the wild country of the Torres del Paine national park in the region of Patagonia.
Patagonia is a broad name for the region of land that covers the bottom of South America (Chilé and Argentina). Torres del Paine is a governmentally protected national park within the country of Chilé and within the geographical region of Patagonia. The heart of the park is the breathtaking mountain range known as Cerro Paine.
Torres del Paine is a uniquely spectacular place because it encompasses natural masterpieces from mountains to glaciers, and from lakes to rivers. It also houses endangered wildlife such as guanacos (cousin to the llama and in the same animal family as the camel), flamingos, pumas, foxes, Andean Condors and emus.
Due to its awe-inspiring natural wonders, Torres del Paine recently won a travel competition and earned the title “8th Wonder of the World,” and was also recently recognized by National Geographic.
Please comment below if you have any specific questions.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.