After a few days in El Calafate, we headed south, crossing the border into Chile, to Puerto Natales. There, we met up with our guide Serkan (who is actually Turkish), and got ready to spend 3 days trekking through one of Chile’s most famous national parks, Parque Nacional Torres del Paine (National Park Towers of Blue; Paine means blue in the native Tehuelpe language). During our three days in the park, we got to see three pretty cool places:

• Las Torres. The towers themselves. These are pretty tremendous rock formations that have been carved by a combination of wind and ice (there are a few glaciers in the park, too). Our first day, we spent about 3 hours hiking up to them, and three hour hiking down to return to the Refugio, where we spent the night.



• The Grey Glacier. Our second day was spent transferring to one of the other lodges in the park, and then 4 hours hiking to the glacier and back.



• The French Valley. On our third day, we hiked up into the French Valley. We saw some amazing avalanches on the side of the towers, a few waterfalls, and ran into some people we had net earlier in the park.

Oh, did I mention the weather? The park is known for having four seasons in one day, and (especially on the higher stretches, like the exposed boulder-field ascent to the towers and the later sections of the French Valley) very high winds. All three days, we had bright sunny days, and almost no wind. It was great hiking weather. Even our guide (who had been guiding in the park for over 5 years), said he hadn’t seen anything like it. We got to really enjoy the park – it’s been protected ever since the mid-60s, and has only suffered one major fire; in 2006 or 2007 a few backpackers left their fire burning and it got out of control, taking out more than 10% of the park.
A couple of other interesting things happened:

• Our van driver (who looked almost exactly like Robert Dinero) had to remove the mirrors from his van to make it over one bridge because the van wouldn’t fit otherwise.



• We ran into our friends Richard and John from our Antarctic cruise on the trail to Las Torres (they were coming down as we were ascending the final part).
• We learned the ins and outs of crossing the border between Argentina and Chile.
  • Neither country likes the other very much, so most border crossings involve a few kilometers of “no man’s land” after you’ve left one country but before you’ve entered the other (This isn’t the case at Los Horcones, but seems to be true everywhere else along the Andean border).
  • It usually takes much more time to enter Chile from Argentina than the reverse (at the same border crossing). Chile is MUCH more sensitive to fruit and animal imports than Argentina, so they scan all incoming baggage, but Argentina doesn’t. We think that this is because the land on the Chilean side of the Andes is much more arable than the land on the argentinian side (because the pacific clouds rain down on chile before crossing the Andes).
  • No food, fruits, or meat, and you should be fine getting into Chile. The fewer people you have with you, the better (tourist buses always take longer because there are always a few people who don’t know how the system works and slow everyone else down).

Two more sets of photos:
Lago Nordenskjold

The Waterfall

Enjoy!

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Everyone has been discussing the recent earthquake in Chile (below the equator, where we are, and above, where all of you are). Since we have access to a few sources of information, I thought I’d share them with you quickly. I know this comes later (a month after), but this is the first opportunity we’ve had to share anything! Here are the pieces of information I’ve been able to collect based on conversations, and a bit of Internet research:

1. Thankfully, we were nowhere near the epicenter of the earthquake. At the time it happened, we were on the Falkland Islands, which are 1270 miles (as the crow flies) away from Concepcion.
2. The quake really destroyed infrastructure around Concepcion and Santiago. The airport was shut down for 10 days, and since has been operating out of tents, with limited flights.
3. Apparently, the Internet was partly to blame for a slow Chilean response. This comes from the Economist (see the fifth paragraph for details), so I trust it.
4. Tourism was hit pretty hard. Since all flights into and out of Santiago were cancelled for 10 days, and there were only limited flights after that, a lot of people coming to Chile in March didn’t go. We actually booked with a tour guide for our trip to Torres del Paine, and heard stories about several groups who had to cancel their trips because they couldn’t get there (more on that when we write about Torres del Paine!).
5. We had heard about a lot of damage to Easter Island from a tsunami, but apparently it did not materialize (based on first-person Twitter accounts).
6. I just spoke with a woman yesterday who said that many of the roads around Santiago and slightly south (in the Lakes district, near the epicenter) are pretty wrecked, especially for people trying to travel over the Andes. This is a pretty popular route – we took it when we crossed from Santiago to Buenos Aires in November.

That’s everything I’ve heard. Thankfully most of Easter Island was spared. Check out the story about our visit there (in the middle of a tropical storm) if you haven’t read it yet!

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After we came back from Easter Island, we spent the night in Santiago and then boarded the first of two buses to get us to Buenos Aires. This bus brought us across the Chilean-Argentinian border at Los Horcones and to Mendoza, Argentina.

This border crossing wasn’t filled with nearly as much pretense as our crossing into Chile (everyone said it would be super-easy), but it wasn’t all smooth sailing:

• We spent three hours of the eight-hour bus ride waiting at the border (where it was cold, a pretty high altitude (so I got a bit of a headache), and there was NOTHING to do but wait.
• One of the women on our bus had about 46 pairs of shoes and 12 sweaters with her, and we waited an hour for her to get finished with customs. Eventually, our bus just left without her – we heard through the grapevine that she had to pay taxes and some fines for all of the import duties she had tried to evade.

So that was our border crossing. Everyone said it would be easy, but it turned out a little more painful than we expected. After we got to Mendoza, we hopped on our 18-hour bus bound for Buenos Aires….

Click on the below photo to see the rest of them from around Los Horcones:

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We only spent a short amount of time in Chile – two weeks. It’s an expensive country, and we were on a tight schedule to get to Easter island and then on to buenos aires, so that we could detour back to the states for a bit. We stayed in three places:

• The Atacama desert (in San Pedro de Atacama)
• Santiago (the capital city)
• Easter island

We may end up spending a few more days in Chilean Patagonia later on, but for now, here’s what helped us most:

• Rain shells. It rained while we were on Easter island, a lot, every day (there was a tropical depression that settled on the island for exactly the days we were there). Our shells (mine is a marmut and stef’s is from the north face, in case you’re curious) really pulled their weight to keep us dry. In fact, I had been planning to dump my shell when we came back to the states, but my Easter island experience convinced me otherwise.
• Unlocked cell phone. This was a huge time-saver in Santiago, because we made a few day trips outside of the city, and the cellphone let us coordinate travel and sights without a guidebook or problems.
• Travel towels. Yes! Easter island was so wet and rainy that we had to trade off between our quick-dry towels and the towels in our hostel.
• Travel Clothesline. I don’t normally pick four things, but the clothesline really came in handy when drying out our wet gear on Easter island. Props to it!

It’s unusual to post about four things, but these really worked out for us, even in the short period of time we were in Chile…

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If you haven’t yet, you should read our posts on Chile. Here’s another way to look at our time in Chile:

• Days spent in-country: 15
• Number of 20+ hour bus rides: 2
• Number of flights: 2
• Total distance traveled in-country: ~6000 miles
• Total number of bus rides: 6
• Hours lost waiting on broken-down buses: 1
• Days in the desert: 3
• Days in the city: 5
• Days in the middle of the Pacific Ocean: 4
• Number of check-ins at hostels: 9
• Number of hostels stayed at: 4
• Most expensive meal: fish and chicken on Easter Island…
• Hours spent driving: 5
• Hours spent driving off-road: 4
• Number of ahu seen: 17
• Number of moai seen: 186
• Number of moai photographs: 56

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As we’ve been traveling, we’ve definitely learned that some days (and trips) go better, and some aren’t as successful. We had a failed trip to Cotopaxi, but less than a week later we were amazed by our hike on Chimborazo! We were amazed by our Galapagos weekend tours, but underwhelmed by our volunteer living accommodations during the week. (I could go on for days, but you get the point).

So we were really surprised when everything came together for 24 hours straight when we were in Santiago. Here’s what happened:

1. On our last full day in Santiago, we decided to try to visit Pablo Neruda’s house (now a museum).
   • A. You should know that all the guidebook says is to go to Isla Negra by bus, so we figured it wasn’t too hard.)
   • B. We had to wait in line to buy our tickets – it was a really busy Saturday at the bus station.
2. When we called them (on the cellphone) to make sure we were taking the correct bus, we found out you needed a reservation to visit, and made the last available English-language reservation (our Spanish is ok, but sometimes we opt for English tours, especially when we don’t know much about a place).
3. When we got to Isla Negra, we found out that return buses (to Santiago) came every hour. We finished our tour and walked back to the bus station just as a Santiago-bound bus was arriving.
4. The ticket assistant even got the ticket for us – we had to pay, but we didn’t need to go into the office at all!
5. The next morning, when we checked into the airport, we were issued exit-row seats for our 5-hour flight to Easter Island!
6. When we boarded the plane, there was another couple who had the same seat assignments as we did. Convinced we were going to be bumped (standard practice in the US), I went to the front as recommended, ready to fight to stay on the plane. Instead, I was told “You have an upgrade”, and Stef and I flew first-class to Easter Island!

What a great 24-hours – they were really enjoyable. We took a couple of photos of first-class – you can get to them by clicking on the above pic.

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We left San Pedro de Atacama late on a Monday afternoon – we took another night bus that left around 5:30 (after a long delay) and drove into the night. Our bus ride was 20 hours to Santiago, so we arrived in the early afternoon to the bus station. We got to our hostel – La Casa Roja, highly recommended (fun, safe, great staff, good food) quickly, but found out that they were really busy for the 5 days or so that we would be there. So, we made reservations for the 5 nights (including Halloween), and developed a routine that we followed every day while we were there:

1. Wake up in the morning
2. Shower, Get dressed
3. Order breakfast, Wait for breakfast, Eat breakfast
4. Pack our bags
5. Check out of the hostel
6. Leave our bags in the luggage storage room
7. Walk around Santiago, check out sites, do a short day trip
8. Return to the hostel
9. Check in to our new room, pay, and pick up the room key
   • we stayed in 5 different rooms in the 5 consecutive nights we were there!
10. Collect our bags from the luggage storage room
11. Go to our new room and drop off our bags
12. Go to dinner
13. Return to sleep

During that period of time, we became very good friends with the reception staff, as we spent an hour or more every day at the front desk, checking in, checking out, and chatting. Keep in mind, when you’re traveling, you want to minimize steps 4,5,6,8,9,10, and 11. We got to do them every day, so we were a little more limited in what we saw in Santiago. We did, however:

• Eat at the BEST steakhouse we’ve ever been to, Las Vacas Gordas
• See the public library
• Climb the Monastery and Military hill



• Shop at a few interesting stores (and I got a plug converter! Ours was lost 4 months before, in Costa Rica)



• Go into the bus stations – all three of them (Local, Inter-provincial, and International – Argentina and Bolivia)
• Visit Vina del Mar – a little ocean/beach vacation town where we:
  • Had our first completo – a hot dog with ketchup, mayonnaise, and guacamole (BTW – you can skip it, not really worth it other than for the novelty factor)
  • Visited the Easter Island Museum – saw a great explanation of some of the archaeological sites



• See Valpairiso, about an hour outside of Santiago, where we:
  • Walked around the town
  • Checked out the port, with all of its crazy taxi-boats



• Toured one of Pablo Neruda’s houses (the one in Isla Negra), with:
  • All of the ship’s mastheads
  • The cigar collection
  • Other collections
  • The beautiful view of the sea

I’ve given you a preview of some of the photos here; below are links to a few of the photo sets that didn’t get full coverage. Check them out!

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We left Arica late – around 10pm, on an all-night bus to San Pedro de Atacama, in the highest and driest desert in the world. The next morning, we stopped for an hour in Calama, and then continued the remaining hour to San Pedro. Our bus slowed after a half-hour, cruising at walking pace along the side of the road, and then stopped. We waited in the middle of the desert highway for about 30 minutes while they fixed the water coolant system.

Once it was repaired, we finished our trip to San Pedro.

What a touristy place!
San Pedro is super-touristy – the food and the hotels were more expensive than any place we had visited yet. And we only found one really decent restaurant in the whole town (granted, there are maybe 10-15 restaurants there). But we did have some fun:

• Toured the Valley of the Moon (Valle de la Luna) with a great tour group, and saw some really cool landscapes!



• I rode a mountain bike across 5 rivers to an amazing canyon, rode up the side, and saw some of the desert:
• A really incredible tour of the night sky. Our tour guide was a crazy French astronomer, who explained how every culture has always believed that it is at the top of the world (and how France is at the middle of the world), and what we perceive in the night sky. He showed us all of the constellations of the southern hemisphere, and over the course of the night we saw how their positions in the sky changed. And he helped me get this great shot of the moon!

It was really hot during the day, and really cold at night. And of course, it’s the desert, so it’s always really dry – there wasn’t any rain while we were there.

Check out the rest of our photos around of the Valle de la Luna below:

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As we’ve mentioned before, we were on a schedule on our way through Peru. After a couple of days in Arequipa (and our GREAT Colca Canyon trek!), we decided to travel:

1. Tacna, Peru
   • Takes about 5-6 hours by bus
2. Arica, Chile (includes the border crossing)
   • Takes 1-2 hours by bus
   • Takes 1.5 hours by train
   • Takes 45 minutes by collectivo Taxi

So we made reservations at a hostel in Arica (via Skype, great for cross-border phone calls), bought our bus tickets to Tacna, and got ready to head out.
If you remember, our previous border crossing was pretty uneventful, even though it happened at 3a.m. on a bridge over a river. While we really enjoy easy, simple border crossings, I was beginning to worry that I would miss out on the full Latin America experience if all we had were easy border crossings. Thankfully for me , this one turned out to be pretty interesting.

Paro – Chilean border strikes!
Our morning trip to Tacna was pretty straightforward; the bus had lots of music, a movie, but unfortunately no food. We stopped in a bus terminal restaurant for an almuerzo. That worked out well, and we walked from the intra-provincial bus terminal to the international bus terminal. Along the way, we spoke with three or four people who all explained that the border crossing was really difficult, because there was a strike in Chile. It took a while to sort through the language and cultural obstacles, but after the third conversation I began to get the point:

• The Chilean customs workers were striking, but their office could not “close”.
• Instead, they took a 20 minute break between letting each visitor pass through the border
• This effectively changed everyone’s border crossing from a 20-minute affair to a 2-3 hour affair.

The paro, or strike, made it much more expensive to cross the border. Why? The delay caused the buses and taxis from Tacna to only travel to the border, then you needed a Chilean taxi/bus to get to Arica. Normally one taxi or bus goes from Tacna to Arica.
Everyone recommended the train, but the line was very long. So after investigating our options, we changed some money, and took a collectivo taxi to the border. It was the craziest taxi we had seen yet – a 1970′s Buick with an automatic transmission that had been converted to manual, and a radio that used a pen for the controls (Click to see the rest of the photos from our border crossing)

Check out the video of our taxi ride!

Border Surprise
When we arrived, there was no one waiting at the border. We arrived at Customs, and walked through the entire process in about 15 minutes, found a Chilean collectivo taxi, and went to Arica. It turns out that the Chilean customs officials were only striking between 8am and 5pm Chile time. We had arrived at 6pm Chile time (4pm Peruvian time), so we missed all of the strike activity.

Skip to the end!
When we arrived in Arica, we thought we were feeling ok, so we decided to push through to our real destination, San Pedro de Atacama. We bought bus tickets and got on a night bus headed to San Pedro…

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