Kyle Hepp

February 16, 2011

I haven’t done a date night posting in a while because we haven’t been on any dates recently. Unless you count the couple extra days we spent in Coyhaique, which I clearly do

Anyways, I thought today would be a fitting day for a date night post because me and my wonderful husband are celebrating our four year wedding anniversary! FOUR EFFING YEARS.

It’s crazy to me that we’ve been married that long. Being young and newlywed was great. It really was. The excitement of having just gotten married, the new and shininess, those feelings were euphoric — but I wouldn’t go back in time for all the money in the world. The Now is so much better. I can’t believe how much more I appreciate who Seba is or how wonderful it is to be married to him.

I don’t want to talk about how we’ve been through a lot in the past couple of years. That’s cliche. Every couple goes through a lot, or at least thinks they do. “A lot,” is all relative. But I will say that the past four years have really, really deepened my love  and respect for the man by my side. I didn’t even know that loving Seba more was possible, because when I married him, I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst.

He’s good to me. He understands me. He respects and appreciates me. I honestly couldn’t ask for more. Of course, he has flaws. So I do. But we work on them together.

All of our experiences, the good and the bad, and even the just ok, the every day, make us closer and stronger and all of those corny things. We love each other and we keep getting better together. He helps me grow, even when he makes me crazy. I think I do the same for him.

So happy 4th anniversary to us. I’m happy to be here with Seba. I’m happy to be anywhere with Seba.

On to the post.

We celebrated our last wedding anniversary like pretend ballers, and we’ll be doing the same thing next week when we go back to Patagonia where we will be continuing the tradition of free hotel stays every year for our anniversary. So I need to finish up posting about this trip before we go again!

Seba and I had left Coyhaique and spent the day traveling down the Carretera Austral, perfecting our We Are The Slowest Travelers In The World technique, by doing the stretch that should’ve taken 4 hours to drive, in 6.5 hours — part of the reason being that we stopped to take pictures of anything that caught our eye along the way. These awesome Southern Chile cemeteries were one such thing. Apparently the way they bury their dead in this end of the world, is to build them tiny little houses with the best views they can find. The dead deserve it. This cemetery overlooked General Carrera.

I was entertained by the Coke bottles inside.

When we arrived to Puerto Tranquilo, I insisted that we stop immediately and find a place where we could  take a tour to go out to see the Capillas de Marmol. They’re these huge marble rock formations in the bluest lake you’ve ever seen. They’re the entire reason why I wanted to drive to Puerto Tranquilo. Everything else on the way down was just a bonus.

We pulled in to the first boat place we saw and asked for prices. They told us it cost 35,000 pesos for the entire boat if we wanted to go out just us, that we could wait for 4 other people to show up and share the cost between 6, or come back the next day when there would definitely be groups going out and for sure get the group rate. I would love to say that I was smart and thought about how the weather was really nice right at that moment so we should definitely go out then because it could be raining the next day (which it was), but I have to admit that I didn’t think twice about the cost and practically threw myself into the boat before Seba could say no, just because I was impatient. There was zero reasoning through the situation. I was like Veruca Salt. Seba, I want it NOW!

In all honesty, even though I harped about the costs of this trip, we could have done it much cheaper. If we would’ve waited and went in a group tour of the Capillas, it would’ve cost 12,000 pesos — less than half the price we paid. If we would’ve rented our car in advance, we would’ve paid 20,000 less.

And I should probably admit that part of the reason we spent 20,000 on food was because I bought gourmet mustard for our sandwiches

For the record, our sandwiches were delicious. And it rained the next day (our last day) in Puerto Tranquilo, all day long, so we wouldn’t have been able to go out to the Capillas, had we been cheapskates (aka followed our budget) and we would’ve missed out on this amazing experience.

So we went out on the boat, just the two of us an the boat driver. It was very romantic. A perfect date night!

These are the rock formations they take you to see. Unfortunately, when we went, the water was quite a bit higher than pictures of the Capillas de Marmol I had seen previously. I’m not sure if it was high because of the time of year or because of global warming melting the glaciers to make this lake rise or what.

The guide asked if we wanted him to take a picture of us. We said no. He insisted. When Seba told him that the lens was manual focus, he said, no problem, focus it for me and then I’ll just have to push the button. So Seba stood on the seat in front of me, focused on me and handed the camera to him.

He took the camera and hopped across the boat seats on one leg. No, I wish I were kidding. He got to the front of the boat, balanced himself precariously and turned around and snapped the following picture. These are our “SHIIIIIT, this crazy fool is about to drop more than 3k worth of equipment in the lake!!!”

And that’s also why we’re not in focus, because he chose not to take the photo from the place where Seba focused for him. Other than that, he was a really great guide.

Doesn’t it look like the legs of the rock are so thin they’ll snap and all that marble will just fall into the lake.

Soooooo pretty. I want to make a kitchen out of this.

This is what it looks like once you go inside the Capillas.

I still can’t get over the color of the water.

I LOVE this picture. Going to make it my desktop now. It looks amazing huge.

Oh and this is how stormy looking it got as we took the boat back in. From that point on it started raining and didn’t stop until we left Puerto Tranquilo. We made it out there literally in the nick of time!

There were quite a few backpackers hanging out in Puerto Tranquilo trying to hitchhike their way back to Coyhaique or else keep going South. We didn’t pick any of them up because Seba was worried we’d get stuck with someone smelly in our car for four hours and I really didn’t want to make small talk with anyone for that long. On our way back to Coyhaique the next day though, right as it was started to get dark, and still raining hard, we saw three girls on the side of the road and our consciouses got the better of us. So we stopped to pick them up. Except they weren’t three girls. They were two skinny boys with long hair and one girl. And OMG they smelled SO BAD. Seba’s fears were not put to rest at all. We were SO relieved when they told us they only needed to go about ten minutes up the road to their campsite.

This is Puerto Tranquilo. Basically all of it. That white building on the right of the photo is a hotel. But almost all the other houses either offer rooms for rent or have cabins in their backyard. It was super easy to find accommodation there. Just walk around the block (which is the whole town), knock on doors and get prices. Choose the one you like the most. Voila!

This is the gas station.

Yep, that’s it. Gas cost 850 pesos per liter here and in Santiago costs around 700 per liter. Also, a can of Coke in Santiago costs 600 pesos and here it costs 1,200 pesos. Everything was way more expensive.

I’ll post about the last day of our trip soon! Prepare yourself for glaciers and giant waterfalls galore!