The End of the World

Greetings from Chile, the End of the World!  Many refer to the country as world's end because of its far southern reaching Patagonia Region.

Anyway, even if the world isn't going to end tomorrow, I hope everyone is enjoying time with friends and family as the holidays approach.  The Franske Family arrives in Santiago on Sunday, I'm very excited!

This past weekend I traveled by bus to Los Molles Chile to get my PADI Open Water SCUBA Diver certification.  I chose Los Molles mostly because their Santiago-based dive shop is very close to the ChACE apartment, but it turned out to be a real gem on the coast.  It's a simple town fed by tourism: beach goers, kelp fishermen, and divers.

I took a very early bus Friday morning to get to Los Molles in time for the first dive at 10:30.  I booked a cabin up on the hill that overlooks the ocean.  It was a great call.  I cooked dinner both nights, had a great view and easy access down to the beach, and had great conversations with the owners who have one son that works in the dive shop and another in Torres del Paine in Patagonia.

This is Watson, the very friendly yellow lab that lives on property at the cabins.  We went on a hike together Friday afternoon in search of Puquén, a park my host mother told me not to miss.  When I went with Watson all we found was a locked gate.  It was a bummer, I would have loved to explore with him.

After checking in at the cabins, my English-speaking dive instructor Christian drove me around Los Molles and we wound up at the dive shop.  PADI is known around the world for their certification courses.  Considering my travel plans for January, becoming certified was a no-brainer.  I'm going to have the incredible opportunity to dive in some of the most beautiful waters of the world and I wouldn't miss it.

Here I am with Christian coming out of the water in full gear.  I learned so much this weekend about buoyancy, pressure, and safe diving practices.  Thanks so much to Christian and the crew at Los Molles for everything!

After each dive I walked the beautiful beach.  There are probably 15 boats lined up waiting to take tourists fishing or diving as long as the conditions are favorable.  After launching and beaching our dive boat I can say it's quite the process to get it past the surf and back in.

If you look at the map I linked above, you can see that the beach is a semi-circle facing South.  This is a view from the Eastern most end of the beach.  We actually dove from the other side, which meant we launched our boat technically heading East--in a country where the entire coast faces West.  Cool.

The waves here could get pretty intense at high tide.  There were a handful of surfers and body boarders trying to make something of them but generally to no avail.

The diving was fantastic, but the real gem of Los Molles in my opinion is Puquén.  After being disappointed Friday afternoon, the Cabin owners gave me a back way in.  I eventually found it and wandered through a very hilly prairie trying to find the coast.  The sun was already pretty low and I wanted to see it set over the water.  I eventually found a path that led to a collection of cliffs.  It led to an incline that climbed a cliff and the sun shot out from behind a rock.

This is what I saw.  I think it has a great shot of being the best sunset I've ever seen.  When I arrived there were strange sounds coming from the rock in this picture.  I figured they were birds, but after a few minutes I saw the animals moving around.  There must have been 150 sea lions watching the sunset with me, and the top ridge was lined with penguins.  Incredible.  Even more amazing to me, I was the only person witnessing this beautiful gift from God.  There wasn't another soul in sight.

This sunset brought back lots of great memories.  There are 5 distinct sunsets, in no particular order, that come to mind.  The first is really just a location.  My dad grew up in Waverly Minnesota on the southern shore of the lake.  I have so many great memories there: learning to water ski, picnics with family and friends, learning to wake board...and I love sitting on the dock watching the sun fall behind the trees.  Second was driving across the Howard Franklin Bridge in Florida last year.  There was one particular time that I was driving West across the bridge.  When I started across the sun was completely up, and by the time I was across it was completely down, dropped below the St. Petersburg Skyline.

Third was my on first cruise through the Caribbean.  We took a catamaran as a shore excursion and watched the sun drop on the water as we sailed East.  Fourth was this past summer at a retreat on Lake Michigan.  We had mass facing the lake and the sunset was coordinated with the consecration and Eucharist itself.  It was incredible.  Fifth was this moment at Puquén.  I will never forget it.  The combination of crashing waves, roaring sea lions, and beautiful horizon were perfectly orchestrated.

I went back to Puquén on Saturday and again on Sunday.  I wanted to explore more along the coast.  It was worth it.  Check out the location of this house.  Whoever built it knew what they were doing.  I couldn't capture it with a picture but the view on the other side of this gorge is ridiculous.  Waves slamming against rocks jutting up out of the sea.  There were times that those rocks on the left were completely covered.

The only guy I ran into on Saturday was carrying bundles of kelp up from the water.  Apparently they sell them to make dermatology products.

I probably saw 6 or 7 piles like this one along the coastline.

Here's the sunset from Saturday.  Another stunner.  It wasn't especially windy, but there was a thermal coming over the ridge so there were birds soaring all around me, within 10 feet I'd say.  Such a naturally beautiful place.

On Sunday I had a few hours to kill before my bus came so I just sat on one of the terraced rocks in my favorite spot along the coast and watched the tide rise with giant waves crashing into shore.  I played around with the high speed shutter on my camera until I got some sweet shots like this one.  So beautiful.

Time for this week's travel hint.  On Monday morning I went to pick up my visa for the only country in South America that requires US citizens to have one.  That will come in handy for the second half of February!


Considering the world is supposed to end today, my namesake has made me do a lot of thinking.  Between trying to collect gopher wood and converting from cubits to metric to imperial units in preparation for a biblical flood, I figure this is a great time to mention how much I love my family and friends.  I'm so excited for my family to arrive on Sunday and to share all these incredible experiences with them!

Lastly, I've been hanging onto this gem for a while.  Enjoy Bill Cosby's take on Noah's experience with the Lord.

Heading all over the place with the family next week.  Watch out for some posts from exciting trips!  A very Merry Christmas to all!