Spring break & more

Hey blog friends!

These past few weeks have been something I will remember forever! Picking up from where I last left off, we traveled to Argentina to see the beautiful Perito Monero glacier and learn how impactful and well known it is across the world. We saw the complete history of glaciers in the Patagonian region after visiting the Glaciarium to read all about how climate change is affecting these huge creatures. The next day we were all released for our spring break (yes you heard me right haha) and we all went off in our own ways ready for a much needed break from classes. My group of 7 made our way up to El Chalten the next day to do some adventurous hiking. The two most popular hikes are El Fitz Roy and Laguna Torre. Fitz Roy is the what the Patagonian mountain range is labeled after. This is one of the most amazing hikes I have ever experienced taking a total of 9 hours with lunch at the top. The lake at the base of the massive peaks was frozen letting people like myself venture out towards the middle to really indulge in the experience. Though it was one of the best hikes, it was also one of the hardest hikes I’ve done. 

After these beautiful hikes we made our way over to Torres del Paine National Park to do some more hiking. We camped in tents for two nights and just enjoyed the sound of running water off in the distance, the sound of the wind hitting the sides of the tents, and the sound of being content in life. We did a 5am sunrise hike up the the base of the towers and watched the sun come up over the rocks making them glow with a beautiful yellow/orange glow. Though I will say sitting there for an hour makes you freeze your butt off and when the sun finally does peak over the mountain you run over to the little sliver of sun to get as much warmth as you possibly can. Getting up at 4:30 to get ready to head out doesn’t seem worth it then, but looking back it is one of the best hikes I did. Being able to hike in the dark, see the sun come up, and just sit there and think about life listening to some good jams. Side note: On the first night we were camping we went for a walk at dusk, and just like we have read about and been told we saw a real life puma. Yup, I said PUMA! My inner Zoologist was so pumped to see one of these wonderful cats in person slowly walk its way through a field trying to find some large hares. It came to around 25-35 feet away from us and definitely noticed our presence but continued on searching for a yummy meal.

After spring break ended we had around a week in town which consisted of some macro invertebrates testing in the local river, and many more assignments.

Just so you know a timeline of Chile and what was going on around this time I’m going to share the crisis Chile is going through right now. By the time we had returned from spring break the protests that started in Santiago started to spread further south and north. People had already begun to start protests in the streets here and the night we returned tear gas was thrown by the police on the street right in front of our center. If you don’t have any idea of anything I’m talking about go take a quick look and search google because not gonna lie… it’s pretty crazy! Definitely if your constitution was made after your last dictatorship and many of the things in it have no relevance in the country of Chile today. Anyway – enough political talk. Just had to share a quick blurb because being in it and experiencing it first hand is much different than hearing it from the news.

Our next expedition was a 9 day trip to three different locations in the northern part of Chile right off the coast, called Chiloe Island. This place was stunning with the amount of green and vegetation everywhere. This was so new to everyone and we kinda all forgot how much we missed the color green. The first 5 days it pretty much rained all day making it a very fun experience since in two of the locations we were taking data on leaf size, length, width, and color. This is what field work consists of so I couldn’t complain too much, because after you were all wet and cold you could come back to the cute cabin/house we stayed out and gather around the fire and drink tea and hot chocolate. We also were able to experience walking an active volcano that had just erupted in 2015 creating lots of tephra (the ash and other materials blown out of the volcano when it erupts) that made it look like you were walking on the surface of the moon. We studied the layers of the rock dating back to past eruptions from this same volcano and were able to differentiate the layers and see which had larger tephra and ash in them. On our last day before flying back to the center here in Puerto Natales, we visited Puerto Varas (a small cute city with a growing increase in tourism) which had two stunning volcanoes off in the distance (the one we had previously been on). The sun was shining (finally!!!), and this beautiful restaurant where we had lunch at had these homemade hammocks, all kinds of animals, and a delicious all you can eat buffet. We all laid down after a filling meal to enjoy the nature around us and explore the very interesting landscape.

Getting back to the center (aka home for me now) was so sweet to be back in your own bed and having a somewhat schedule again. This only lasted 3 days, and having tons of assignments to do made it fly by. This is finals week here. Gross. We take our final exams/field exams this week so it’s been very stressful and jam packed. We leave tomorrow to go to Patagonian Bagual where we will be camping for 3 nights and taking our exams and hiking. This is sadly our last group expedition where we are all together. How has time flew by this quick… whoa. Once we get back from this trip on Friday, we have a few rest days before our directed research begins and classes end. We will be gathering data, conducting a hypothesis and writing a paper with the help of our professor and other students. I will tell you more about this when I get back and actually have some free time to kind of breathe again haha.

As always, keep adventuring

Luke