Kyle Hepp

December 25, 2011

Happy holidays to all! I hope you’re enjoying this time of year as much as I am. While I’m not one for religious celebrations, I do appreciate any good excuse to hang out with people I love dearly and tell them how much they mean to me.

I am a cheese MACHINE and I adore writing to my friends and family and getting a little sappy. So much so, that sometimes they write back in response to me pouring out my heart, “Kyle, were you drunk when you wrote this?”

No. No I was not. I just love you, get over it.

Speaking of people I love. Seba, of course, and Ashley Ambirge and Leo Druker. In July of this year I traveled with Ash and Leo to Paris to photography Claudia and Manu’s adorable city hall wedding and it was an all around amazing trip. So much so, in fact, that I gave them a permanent standing invitation to accompany us anytime, anywhere. You’d think I would’ve learned after the first time around, that they’d take me up on that offer! And I’m happy they did People who say yes to life make this world so much more fun.

So the four of us hopped on a few flights and met up down in Frutillar, in the South of Chile.

Our first day, we took our tiny rental car out to explore the area, over the river and through the woods…

I absolutely adore the South of Chile. It’s beautifully idyllic in the Frutillar region — we were told that the main exports from this part of Chile are agriculture and salmon so we passed by a lot of farms.

I believe it was Ash who said, “I wouldn’t mind being one of those cows.”

These ones certainly had some amazing views of one of the many volcanoes around these parts.

I thought it was absolutely hilarious that Ash was on vacation with three professional photographers and she followed us around taking pictures with the camera on her cell phone — not even a point and shoot, not even an iPhone camera!

Seriously, how gorgeous is this place? This is a view of Lago Llanquihue and I believe that’s the tiny town of Puerto Octay and Volcan Osorno that we’re overlooking here.

Going on a road trip with me is a NIGHTMARE. A. I have to go to the bathroom constantly — yet I continue to drink massive amounts of water. And B. I want to stop every second that I’m not already stopped to pee, to take pictures.

We drove by this little beach area and I asked Seba to pull over.

We would’ve been idiots not to take advantage of this little chunk of peace and quiet in this crazy world we live in. I felt serene looking out over the water. I never feel serene. I am the opposite of a serene person.

I’m sorry if your retinas were temporarily blinded by my white legs. They don’t see the sun too often and when they do, they wear SPF One Billion.

I’d like to draw your attention to Ash trying to jump the stream. It was a wide stream. With rocks on the other side.

This is what you get when you do something stupid on vacation with photographers Your major wipe out is not only recorded, but then blogged about — probably in multiple places, I’m assuming Leo will post about this as well.

Even though the water made my toes turn into icicles, I still stand by the fact that my way was the way to go.

Seba always looks mean in pictures, no matter where we are or what we’re doing — but I promise, he’s actually enjoying himself here, immensely!

This was our last stop as we made our way up closer to the giant volcano so we could take a ski lift up it to get as close to the top as we were going to get.

The views were already breathtaking and we still had several hundred feet to go!

PS. If you enjoyed this post there are a few things you can do to support me:

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3. Do your Christmas shopping at my new prints store! Inspire yourself or friends to travel with pictures of amazing destinations hanging on your wall.

PPS. Muchas gracias to all who have done these things already!