It was such a great feeling to get off the Navimag Ferry in Puerto Natales, Chile, and have friends to call. Puerto Natales is at the tip of Chile – Extremo Sur (south) as it is called – and Ted and I have not one, but two great friends living down south.
Drew is a Boulder connection who moved down here over a year ago and just fell in love with the place. He is now managing the one and only microbrewery in town and dabbling with many other smaller projects. He’d spent the previous cold, dark winter studying Spanish, and it showed – impressively. Chilean Spanish is particularly difficult to speak and understand not only because of the speed and pronunciation but due to the ridiculous amount of slang used between Chileans. Drew was speaking like a local by the time we caught up with him.
Drew, whipping up Thanksgiving dinner
Our other friend Francisco is Chilean, born and raised in Puerto Natales. He lived in Boulder for several years and now splits his time between the US for our summer months and Chile for their summer months. He does a lot of guiding in Patagonia both in Chile and Argentina which keeps him super busy during the tourist season.
Francisco, whipping up some fresh bread
Both Drew and Francisco were amazing and generous hosts, and we are so grateful for the time we got to spend down there. Ted and I stayed at Francisco’s house for nearly a week, but he was only there for a couple days of it (due to his guiding schedule). He has an amazing place just outside of town with a wicked view and the most adorable puppy, Poco, that we got to watch. We loved cooking food at his place, taking life easy and staying in one place for more than a couple days.
View from Francisco's back yard
Sarah and Poco
Drew also works entirely too much, but Ted and I visited his bar every night to say hello and enjoy some American-inspired food and delicious micro-brewed beer. We covertly planned our visit to coincide with Thanksgiving as Drew is an amazing cook and we knew our meal would only benefit from his culinary skills and company.
Thanksgiving Dinner - Chilean-Style
Drew and Francisco have a very good thing going on in Extremo Sur, and it was a treat to see such great friends on our trip, and to see them so happy was icing on the cake.
The Boulder Crew in Natales