April 16,

We awoke freezing!! Jeff lit up the stove. The hostess or caretaker had prepped a stove full of wood for us. So as soon as he got it lit he came back to bed to get warm. We finally got up, showered, and set about having our Javas with breakfast of Granola. The sun was shining, but it was not for long. The clouds rolled in quickly and it started spitting. It continued all day with rain at times, but always spitting. But the temperature warmed despite the gloom. 🙁😞

So we settled in for a day inside. The place we are in warmed up nicely enough, thankfully. Our house is a three bedroom, two bathroom. It sounds big but the bedrooms are small. The living room/dining/kitchen area is spacious though and lovely. There are two couches, a futon, dining table with six chairs, and a full size fridge. We like it and will be here for three nights. The best part though…the views from the windows are killer! The place is nestled in a valley with mountains, circling in almost a complete 360°. The town of Coyhaique is on a ledge above us and spread on a mountain Cerro McKay. The valley we are in is quiet and still covered mostly in wild grasses and shrubs with more houses than there seems to be. We actually saw two Pheasants and three Southern Lapwing in the backyard of the property. That was great.

We walked to the Simpson River, which is 80m from our place. The rain had stopped long enough for this reprieve. It is lovely, and swift flowing – enough to give a nice sound. But the rain started back up so we hustled back to our place. The rest of the day was Jeff reading, and me sewing. Jeff did go to the local store for stuff for dinner. We had a lemon creamed sauce pasta with veggies. The place had flour so I was able to make proper roux! Great dinner with a nice wine.

April 17,

I did not awaken until eight, and not up til 0830! That was lovely! Jeff made a nice cozy fire and our place heated up quickly again. The sun dappled in and out playing with some clouds, but no rain! We had our Javas with breakfast of French toast with some lovely oat bread we had found.

Then I set about blogging, a bit behind. Jeff did a bunch of planning and setting us up for the next couple of months at least. Finally, around two the sun really came out so we went out for lunch. As we started we changed our minds and went for a drive. As we started south on Route 7, a male pheasant darted in front of us. He was so colorful, but quick. I still missed a pic of him. Beautiful big sky country, due to the openness of the valley even though there are mountains encircling us. As we went we saw a green layer striping in a cut away of some mountains. Cool! I assume it to be copper or iron, but I’m not sure about that. As we continued we climbed up a pass and the land became more closed in by mountains and fall color clothed trees. The road followed another river, called Rio Blanco. We entered Cerro Castillo National Park. We also saw more and more deer signs and actual warning signs for the Huemul! That would have been way cool, but was not in our cards. We were blessed though with the beautiful bands of yellow, orange, red and still some green of the fall foliage. It actually made us think that this might be the best time to visit Patagonia. Then at 1500 started to rain on us. We were contemplating on turning around and going back, when I noticed snow flakes! We definitely turned around!!! We had gone 76 kms past Coyhaique. (Jeff figured later that we had done 682 kms of the 1,240 kms of Route 7- the Carretera Austral).

We arrived back into Coyhaique and went to La Miserable Taqueria, which was fantastic, not miserable!😆 I had Tacos de Mushroom Al Pastor- mushrooms in al pastor marinade, diced onions, grilled pineapple, and cilantro; and Jeff had Tacos de Birria- shredded beef cooked in its broth, slightly spicy, with diced onions and cilantro. I had a Holy Margarita and Jeff had water. So good, and messy! The bill was 25,960 CLP or $29.61. Finished, we found an ATM, and went to the store (I broke a wine glass and we had to replace it).

Then back at our place. We had French fries and popcorn for dinner and watched some YouTube. A couple of days simply living, someplace else.