I made it.

I'm in Santiago de Chile!  It took five days and lots and lots of hours in trucks and on boats to get here, but I made it.  I left Val Chac with Don Juan on Monday morning and we took our sweet time getting to Murta, where the men loaded two big trailers with terneros (young cows) and a horse in the rain while I hung out inside with the women and children drinking coffee by the fire, watching a soap.  Typical Chile.  Juan and I continued on our way to Cerro Castillo, where we spent the night at his friend's house, but not before stopping for a mate visit at another friend's house on the side of the road.  I swear I've never had so much mate and coffee in one day, and I felt jittery and somewhat gross for it.  Typical Chile.

Tuesday morning we woke up and drove our way through the rain and snow (!) to Coyhaique, where we stopped for a few hours waiting to hear about the boat we were slated to take from Puerto Chacabuco to Puerto Montt.  Because of bad weather, the boat was delayed about twelve hours in docking, which meant that we would depart twelve hours later than scheduled as well.  Realizing we were in no hurry, we waited for Paula and Cristián to come say goodbye (they were in Coyhaique for a long weekend and were heading back to Val Chac when we saw them) and then made our way to the stockyards, where we killed quite a few hours sitting in the truck, drinking more mate and napping and listening to the radio and talking.  Some of the stockyard workers invited us in for an asado before we hit the road, and I couldn't help but relish how Chilean it was: a bunch of guys standing around a big pan of grilled meat, drinking Coke and talking about trucks and cows and making fun of each other.  Classic.

After the asado, we drove another couple hours to Puerto Chacabuco, where we visited another friend to kill a couple hours before we could load onto the boat, a Navimag ferry.  Once we boarded the boat, I left my backpack in my cabin and wandered into the dining room, where I ran into none other than Eli, one of the Round River students who'd spent the past three months in the valley.  I did a double-take before I recognized him, but then we had a good time catching up about travels and such.  He had been spending the whole day waiting at a hotel in Chacabuco, where he'd befriended a few truckers (Luis, Yony, and Mario), who he promptly introduced me to.  They were pretty nice and interesting to talk to, and I ended up changing cabins to be with all of them.

The boat finally departed at eight in the morning on Wednesday, and we spent most of the day sitting inside watching movies, holed up against the relentless wind and rain still plaguing our journey.  I took a nap in the middle of the day, and awoke only to walk into the dining room and find all the passengers (all truckers) transfixed by a movie about a girl who gets her gruesome revenge on four small-town rapists.  It was too much for me to handle, so I went back to bed for a bit.  In the afternoon the weather cleared, and we all wandered outside for a little sightseeing; what we found were some beautiful forested hillsides and islands that bordered the black waters of the fjord.  The sunset was, consequently, spectacular.  After our outdoors adventure, we all headed back in for dinner and more movies, while we crossed the Gulf of Corcovado, a patch of water not protected from the ocean by any land barrier, which makes it victim to some pretty bouncy waves and currents coming in from the Pacific.  It became a running joke amongst the people at my dinner table that we were feeling seasick and on the point of vomiting...luckily the joke never turned into anything more than that.

Yesterday we docked in Puerto Montt around 11:30, and it took about an hour and a half for me to get out of town with one of Juan's trucker friends, Guillermo, who was heading all the way up to Santiago. We drove for hours and hours, intermittently talking, snacking, listening to music, and napping (at least, I did).  Last night we made it to Talca, where Guillermo unloaded the cattle he was carrying, and then we bedded town 'till morning.  The truck we drove was a big one, originally from Florida, with enough room for a bunk bed setup in the cabin behind the seats...pretty sweet.  This morning we got up early, waited for someone to come clean out the cow trailer (it's illegal to drive with an empty dirty trailer) and then hit the road again, driving through the heart of Chilean wine country, until we finally pulled in San Bernardo (a southern suburb of Santiago) 'round 2:30.  We called me a taxi and I made it here, to my hostel, feeling worn out but relieved to have arrived.

Of course, the first thing I did was open up my emails.  Big mistake.  Too many!  It was little overwhelming, but I think I've managed to respond to most of them by now.  I have a feeling this evening will be full of overdosing on a decent internet connection, maybe loading pictures and such.  I have about three days in Santiago to get a feel for the capital city, and then I hop on a plane Monday night to take me back home!  Hasta pronto, K.