Ice Climbing and Marble Caves… Puerto Rio Tranquilo

Trekking on ice, beautiful marble caves, and paying for transportation for the first time in a month.

We were so bummed to be leaving Ignacio and Antonio. Traveling with the two of them was so much fun and brought back so many memories of our own road trip back in the states. It made us realize how much we really like the freedom of driving our own car wherever we want whenever we want. With that said, we were super stoked to be heading down to Puerto Rio Tranquilo for some fun excursions. We said our goodbyes to the boys in the morning and made our way to the edge of town to hitchhike.

We knew hitchhiking here would be a bit harder than it had been in the past because the further into Patagonia you go, the fewer cars there are and the more hitchhikers are found. But with our luck, a man and his son picked us up rather quickly. He said he was only going a bit down the road, but that he thought it would be a better spot for us to hitch from. Little did we know, he was taking us right outside his house, and he surprised us by making a small packed lunch for us while we were sitting outside trying to get a ride. Eventually, we got picked up from a younger guy who was heading down to the airport about 30 more minutes down the road. He actually ended up passing where we needed to be let off, so luckily we barely caught the sign on the side of the road, and explained to him he was no longer going in the direction we needed to go in. From there, we waited a bit and just watched the rain clouds come closer and closer. There weren’t very many cars passing by, so we were getting nervous we wouldn’t get a hitch. But the Lord knows better. We got our final hitch with a man who took us all the way into Puerto Rio Tranquilo, and he actually had camping on his property, so we ended up camping at his place too.

Now, this place definitely wouldn’t be our first choice. It was extremely crowded and was literally just in their yard, only had one bathroom for their family and the 50 plus people camping there, and was really loud at night. We couldn’t find camping anywhere else, and with the price so cheap, we couldn’t pass it up, especially when we weren’t really going to be there often anyways.

Since we got in so late, we were unable to plan any excursions for the next day, so we took advantage of our chance to sleep in and just relax in the tiny village for the day. We enjoyed the view of the massive lake, strolling down the four streets in the village, and shopping in a tiny market. We visited all the different tour agencies to try and find a tour that fit us best. We eventually found a company that worked perfect for us. We booked our Glacier Expedition for the next morning, and the Marble Cave Tour for the morning of the day we were going to try and hitch out of town.

{Traveler’s Tip.. If you are even considering doing a glacier expedition, do it here!! It’s cheaper than any other place in Patagonia, and you get to be on the glacier for more than four hours versus being on it for only one hour in other places. It’s also not as busy here, so your tour group will be a lot smaller than down south, and you have much more freedom to walk around anywhere instead of staying in a straight line.}

The glacier expedition was absolutely amazing! We were so excited to get to actually walk on a glacier with crampons and use ice picks to crawl up the face of the ice. The tour was so much more than what we could have hoped for/dreamed of! We can’t even explain the thrill of tromping around on a huge ice field with huge crevasses and ice as far as you could see. We had awesome food included in the tour and it was just us two and one other couple in our group making it all so much better.

After the tour, the other couple invited us to have an asado (typical Chilean BBQ with beef or lamb, in our case it was with lamb) with them back at the house they were renting for the week. We were thrilled and gladly accepted the invite! They picked us up from town not too long after we had got back, and took us to the house. We thought it was only two kilometers out of town, but it ended up being like a 20-minute drive. We felt really bad because they offered to drive us out there and back that same night because we had a tour early the next morning. Thinking it was only 2 km outside of town when we agreed to go, we figured we could just walk back into town after, but when it turned into a 20-minute drive, we knew they would have to bring us back to town. But they were more than happy to do it as long as we would help them eat the asado that night. The night with them was so much fun and filled with great food and kayaking on the lake. They took us back into town just past midnight so we could pack our things and recharged our cameras for the tour the next morning.

7:00 am came extremely early. We kept pressing snooze, and then finally got up and made our way to the launching point for our Marble Caves tour! We were so excited for this tour as we had been anticipating seeing the beauty of these caves since before Christmas. The boat took off and we enjoyed a nice easy ride past the village and around a few corners of the lake when all the sudden the caves were ahead of us. The beauty of the caves was breathtaking. We have heard some people say they weren’t as impressive as they thought they would be, but to us they were! The lighting was perfect, we again had a small group on our boat, and the water was crystal clear all around them. Once again, our God completely spoiled us with the beauty that He created on Earth for us to enjoy.

{Traveler’s Tip… Do the marble cave tour early in the morning. The lighting was perfect for us, and there weren’t very many people on the 8:00 tour!! Make sure your cameras are fully charged, and wear warm clothes!!}

We got back into town, made some breakfast since we snoozed through our breakfast time before the trip, and then packed up our packs before trying to hitch out of town. Now, Puerto Rio Tranquilo being such a small town with very few buses running through and barely any cars was a very hard town to hitch out of. We had seen people trying to hitch for days without any luck there. We decided that if we couldn’t get a ride before the first bus came we would just take the only bus there was out of town that day.

Again, the Lord had our backs. While we didn’t get a hitch, the only bus going to the destination we wanted to go was leaving that day, and within about an hour of us being ready to leave. Thank goodness it worked out perfectly. We were able to catch the bus, wait two hours in the connecting town, and then catch the next bus to our next destination, Caleta Tortel all within one day. Nearly unheard of in this part of Patagonia.

{Traveler’s Tip… Try and figure out bus schedules before you get down into Puerto Rio Tranquilo and further south in Patagonia. We got lucky with having the buses the days we wanted them, but they only go to certain places two or three times a week, and usually don’t connect with the bus leaving from the next town very well. Definitely be open for spending a couple extra days in places you don’t plan to!!}

…Where We Have Been And Where We Are Heading…

Well, we gave you all an update last time we posted not too long ago, so you know where we have been for the most part. We have now been in Uruguay for about a week and we are loving it here! We have had some stressful times with our whole banking situation, but overall it has been great. We are now in the beach town of Punta Del Este enjoying the warm sun rays and water! We will be here for the next three days before heading to Montevideo to fly to Peru! 🙂

…Prayer Requests…

*Pray for Jason as he continues to prepare for his interview!

*Pray for us as we process and unwind from this crazy adventure and begin a new one in a completely new location soon!

*Praise God for His healing hand with Jason’s Crohn’s!

*Pray for God to continue revealing things to us as we sit and seek Him here.

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