Chile March 2016

We said goodbye to the untouched southern parts of Chile and headed inland to do a little mission work in Santiago.  Ryan and Becky would be touring his mission while Mat and I would head to the hospital to deliver equipment to ophthalmic peds clinic.

We had a bit of wait before we caught our flight to Santiago so we hung out Puento Arenas. Luggage and rain don't mix.


I guess you eat so you can take shelter. Funny thing is we ordered sandwiches and they said the bread hadn't showed up yet. And then they served us bread.  Odd.

Once the rain cleared, we headed to the cemetery with our personal tour guide. We didn't ask for one, but we got one. I don't know why so many dogs felt like they were our body guards/tour guides, but it became comical. Every town we were in, it seemed like some dog was always there to greet us and show us the town. At one point, I believe we had a total of three dogs showing us around.





Now, one usually doesn't visit the cemetery while on vacation, but this was a particularly interesting cemetery and very old and we were very intrigued.





On to the clinic....

Dr. Vogul had some hard cases lined up for Mat to see and potentially operate on next time we come down. Here is a picture with the staff and the new instruments we brought.



It was Christmas!





The Mom of this bunch is a big spiritual leader in her village and when she noticed our missionary tags, she wanted a picture so she could show the people of her town all the good work going on in the world.



Many patients travel all night to reach Santiago and wait a long time to get care.





Sometimes surgeries don't go as planned and you realize doctors make errors too. This boy in particular was sewn up incorrectly after surgery and as a consequence, he now has scarring over his eyeball and is forced to wear a prosthesis.



He was cute and did not mind the undivided attention!





This was the saddest case of all. This beautiful gal has a skin disease that does not tolerate the sun. Unfortunately, she did not know to completely stay out of the sun.  She told us that she does cover up but lives in the shadows of the sun (shade).



She is now blind due to infection and scarring over the eye.



Her family was really supportive and her boyfriend, who ironically, has the same disease.



We closed the day with a press conference and a reception. They had TV cameras and newspapers there to spread the word. It was fun to see Mat interviewed and watch him speak his magical Spanish as if he grew up there.









The rest of the time we caught up with Ryan and Becky touring the city and taking a drive to the beach.

Fresh sopapillas from a street vender!



Beautiful walks





My lunch date!



With lunch friends



And a cute old man playing the guitar while we ate.



Squirrel balls



Hike to San Cristobol











Santo Domingo



Mat had them make the sandwich of his dreams, made to order, just like the one he had on his mission.



Flew in on the red eye looking stellar!



We surprised the girls at the school for lunch and dropped off Becket some chocolate. They were not expecting it and I teared up when they ran up and gave us a hug.  Mr. Checketts said that Micah just wasn't herself while you were away. We were so happy to see them.  Thanks again to Mat's parents for watching them while we do this.

Patagonia March 2016

We arrived in Santiago on the 23rd of March. Now, check out this orchestrated triple play of flights into Santiago. I left SLC and was to land at 9:10AM. Ryan and Becky Thomas (my life time friend from high school and college) were flying from Las Vegas and were to land at 9:25AM. And Mat, who was already in South America, more specifically Argentina was to land at 9:35AM. Crazy right. BUT! Even trickier, we were all to board our next flight at 11:30AM and that was with going through customs and storing part of our luggage. We made it and it was an amazing feat.

Here we are actually all getting on the plane and heading to Patagonia. True story.



We stayed in a little town Puerto Natales and rested up.  It was a three hour drive from the airport and I think I had been traveling over 36 hours by then. Sweater teeth and all.







The next morning we stretched our achy bones and took another 1 1/2 hrs car ride to Torres del Paine, the national park of Patagonia.  My first impression was "eh.'" I felt like it was very similar to SLC, but when you physically got in there you recognized the glaciers and their grandness.



We had a tour guide Jose with us the entire time which made it nice and my job easy.  He planned the hikes, the food, and the lodging. Beautiful.



We took a ferry to a refugio which is an upscale version of a hostel.  Here is our bunk room for the night and common area.  I will spare you the hair coated, toilet paper overflowing communal bathroom.









Over the next few days we did some hiking, fishing, kayaking, wanaku chasing and plenty of laughing.  This guy, Mr. Mat,  did it all wearing his fashionable hiking boot. So bleh that he broke his foot two weeks prior due to a skiing race.  He did not complain and pressed on.











Fishing was a little tricky with the swollen ankle, but the show went on.



We had a little competition that if you caught the biggest fish, everyone would buy you your favorite treat.

The salmon were tired from traveling and it was almost the end of their season.  Ryan ended up faking us out running with a giant king salmon in his hands, "I won! I caught the biggest fish!" Turns out the salmon was so tired he just picked it up right out of the water because it was so tired.

Jorge was our tour guide of the day and he and his cousin fixed a fabulous lunch for us!





Beautiful right? I was so grateful.  It's nice to not have to worry about food and just to show up and have it ready and waiting was a treat.





Jorge's cousin was a musician and played a little ditty for us while we ate. Mat took a turn too!





This was the bird's eye view we had leaving the campground after lunch.



While Jorge showed the Mat and Ryan a "quiet" fly fishing spot, Becky and I went on our own adventure to try to find the guanacas--lama-like animals roaming the meadows.







Kayaking was day 3 and the suits alone took half the day to put on. Going to the bathroom was not an easy task either.





Once we got the hang of it, team Harris did pretty well.



It was fantastic being all pocahontas like on the open water.







Once again, lunch was prepared for us. Jose knows we love chocolate so there was an awesome assortment.



After kayaking I felt free! I felt the need to do a modern dance in my one piece suit. It just came from within. I can't explain it. It just flows out of me.