My trip to the south of Chile was absolutely incredible. It was so beautiful that at times I thought it was fake.

It was super fun getting to know the other exchange students that live in the cities from Santiago to Talca I feel like I made a lot of life long friends that I will never forget.

The people I got along the most with are the people from New Zealand and Australia. They have been here nine months already, so they will be leaving soon which makes me really sad. I bonded with them a lot because the trip consisted of a lot of driving in the bus from place to place.

On the trip, we visited were Concepcion, Puerto Varas, Puerto Montt, Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas.  {sidebar id=65} My favorite city was Puerto Varas. It is on a lake so large that I at first thought was the ocean! It is very cute and the adults who took us to a bar where we danced a little and had to sing.

After Puerto Varas, we went to Puerto Montt for the afternoon. There, we shopped a little and ate lunch before beginning our voyage by boat, which we were on for four out of the 10 days. Luckily, there was only one day where people were getting seasick. And even more fortunately, I remembered to buy seasickness pills, which helped so much. I don’t even want to think about the state I would have been in if I didn’t have those!

The boat was very boring. My friends from Australia and New Zealand and I sat in our cabin basically the whole time making friendship bracelets and talking. We named the cabin “the cave” and only left to eat or to go to the bathroom. We all bonded a lot and I think we got a little crazy from being inside all day.

When the boat docked in Puerto Natales, we were all so happy and I was so excited for the next day because we were going to Torres del Paine (Patagonia).

Patagonia is literally the most beautiful place I have ever seen. It’s a place that everyone needs to see before they die. It’s hard to explain it in words, and pictures don’t do it justice.

We visited on a beautiful, sunny day, which according to the tour guide is rare. The weather was perfect, blue skies and big dramatic clouds! My Patagonia apparel from Ventura was perfect. The only cold part of my body was my legs.

One of the first things we did there was stop at a gorgeous lagoon. The whole trip the exchange students had been talking about swimming somewhere in Patagonia. Well, we took this lagoon as our opportunity!

We asked the adults if we could and they were hesitant, but they eventually said yes. Then, the next thing you know, there were a whole bunch of crazy foreigners stripping down to their undergarments and barging into the ice-cold lagoon. But it was totally worth it! How many people can say that they swam in Patagonia? Not many at all!

We didn’t see much wild life, only wild llamas and an emu with it’s babies. I really wanted to see penguins, but I don’t think we were down south enough for that.

One of the coolest things we saw were icebergs! They are so pretty and have the coolest icy blue color. Of course, my camera died the second we got there. Luckily, it was the last place we were stopping and my friend let me put my sim card into her massive camera so I got some photos.

Patagonia is now my favorite place. I want to go back someday and do the W trail, which is about a four-day backpacking trip. I am not much of a backpacker, but if it were there I would do it in a heartbeat.