WOW - about sums it up!  We just spent two weeks in Northern Patagonia (the Arctic of South America) with a rental truck.  It is a weird time of year to do it since it is fall now and too cold for most tourists (but not us Canadianses) but it was great because we had the whole place to ourselves!  

Ideally maybe it would have been nicer to camp with either warmer weather, or proper cold weather camping gear.  We did camp a few nights but were really freezing cold (there was ice involved) so whenever possible we stayed in hostels (which were so expensive, like US$30/night compared to the rest of SA, avg US$10).  The coldniss and rainyniss also made hiking slightly less enjoyable, though for the most part we had pretty good weather, considering.

We started our two week truck rental in Puerto Montt (see travel map, southern Chile) and decided to also return it there since it would cost an extra US$500 to drop it off in another town, jeeeesh.  We got the extra insurance to be able to cross the border into Argentina (about $100 extra) and then headed out!  Our itinerary was a bit screwed up since we didn't have much success researching the best routes to take etc.  So if you are reading this as a travel guide for yourself I have a number of recommendations at the bottom of this so you don't waste time like we did!

As we’ve stressed many times before (with such claims as “La Paz Sucks”), we’re not city people, and so weren’t really looking forward to passing through Santiago.  In this case, however, we were pleasantly surprised!  I’m not saying we loved it, but we did spend a couple enjoyable days walking around the relatively clean and attractive city, wandering the parks and admiring the colourful street murals.

For me, the most enjoyable part by far was our afternoon at the huge and attraction-packed Metropolitan Park, located on atop a forested hill overlooking the city.  One of the largest urban parks in the world, within its over 700 hectares it contains multiple botanical gardens, a zoo, a religious sanctuary, and by far the best part, a long funicular saving you from the hour or more uphill walk.  Just what is a funicular, you ask?  Well, it’s something between an elevator and a trolley, using cables to pull cars along tracks up the side of a hill.  Why the absurd name, you ask?  Well, it’s because FUN + SPECTACULAR = FUNICULAR!!  Wouldn’t that make “funacular" or “funtacular”, you ask?  Well, why don’t you just shut up!

After our amazing ride up, we decided to make our way over to the botanical gardens in order to appease our nature cravings.  From atop the hill were some great views of the city skyline, and because we were lucky enough to be there on a relatively smog-free day we could actually see across the valley to the mountains behind (kind of).  Being located in a valley as it is, air pollution is a huge problem in Santiago.  We were both pretty disturbed by the brownish hue looming over the city, and to think that this was a good day is pretty disturbing.  While admiring the view at a lookout, we ran into Eleanor, a technical writer from Seattle who’s been solo-traveling her way through Chile.  We ended up hanging out with her for a few hours, sharing travel-stories and getting some great advice for our upcoming trip to Patagonia.  In the late afternoon we parted ways so Chelsea and I could make it to opera.  Yeah, we do stuff like go to the opera, because we’re fancy people.

After a couple days in Santiago, we were ready to move on to the much more highly-anticipated Valparaiso, a port city about an hour bus ride from Santiago.  A beautiful and hilly city made up of arsty-fartsy bohemian-types and sketchy port-workers, Valparaiso took all the things we liked about Santiago and somehow made them ten zillion times better; where Santiago has one funicular, for example, Valparaiso has FIFTEEN.  Booya!  We stayed in the cafe-packed neighbourhood atop Cerro Alegre (happy hill), and from the minute we arrived we were amazed by just how picturesque the city really is.  From atop the hill, everywhere we looked was packed full of colourful buildings, elaborate graffiti and murals, and it was almost impossible to walk anywhere without stopping every few steps to take another photo.

As luck would have it, our new friend Eleanor was staying at an hospedaje just down the street from us, so we met up with her the next day to explore.  In search of fun-icular times, we decided to try and tackle as many of the badboys as we could, an interesting goal that promised some scenic views of the city. We reviewed our maps, put together a rough route and hit the road with a skip in our steps.  Things quickly ground to a halt, however, when we reached the top of our first funicular, ascensor San Augustín, and were warned by the operator that it wasn't safe to leave the tiny building.  Apparently we were about to stroll into the sketchy neighbourhood atop Cerro Cordillera, where walking around as tourists with our day packs and cameras would surely get us mugged.  We asked if it was safe to at least pop our heads out for a look, but were warned that someone may catch a glimpse of us and end up following us down!  WTF?!  This caught us completely off guard, since we'd already walked around Cerro Alegre and the downtown core the previous night and felt completely comfortable.  To be safe, though, we resignedly rode back down and modified our plans.

Valparaiso is an awesome city to explore by foot (avoiding the sketchy parts...), guaranteed to bring out the photographer in anyone.  We wandered the streets taking in the breathtaking coastal views and admiring the variety of colourful graffiti, ranging from small but detailed characters to multi-storey murals on the sides of apartment buildings.  We wandered all over town, checked out the large cemetery overlooking the city (Eleanor seems to be fascinated by monuments to dead people), stopped for a delicious fish almuerzo (an affordable two or three-course lunch typical in Chile), and managed to ride four of the fun-tacular elevators (last time, I promise).  We wrapped up the day at our hostel, sharing some of Chelsea’s home-cooked Thai curry, a couple bottles of delicious Chilean wine, and an action-packed Jenga tournament.  Thanks, Eleanor, for the awesome day!

After stumbling on countless teenagers rolling and smoking doobies in the many secluded stairways and alleys on the previous day’s wanderings, temptation kicked in and we managed to score some of the good stuff from one of the guys working reception at our hostel. Needless to say, our second day in Valparaiso consisted of much more bein’ chili, relaxing, listening to music, watching movies... when in Rome!  

Our next stop is Puerto Montt, where we hope to rent a car and spend a couple weeks exploring Patagonia!  

Until then, keep eating your beans!
~Mandrew

To open Santiago photos in another window, click here.

To open Valparaiso photos in another window, click here.

As we made our way south from Atacama, we decided to take a bus break and spend a night in La Serena.  Flipping through our Lonely Planet for things to do around there, we were excited to learn that the nearby Elqui Valley is famous as a hot spot for paranormal activity, with numerous reported UFO sightings and a population of crystal-power practitioners.  The valley also boasts production of some of the best pisco (a liquor made from distilled grapes) in Chile.  Hoping to get in on the action, we threw on our tinfoil helmets and caught the next bus to Pisco Elqui.

Although we didn't end up meeting any obvious extraterrestrials (we weren't sure about a few of the locals), we did see some excellent starry night skies while relaxing in our hostel's garden.  We also gained some insight into how pisco is made by taking a tour of the distillery just outside of town.  This is what I learned from the hour long tour: pisco has something to do with grapes, and it's painfully boring to sit through a tour when you can't understand what the tour guide is saying.  Although our spanish isn't terrible, we have a hard time making out the Chilean accent, especially when people (such as our mile-a-minute tour guide) speak too quickly.  Despite our powerful desire to sneak away and run, we stuck it out until the end and scored a few tiny free samples.  When you haven't had a paying job in almost a year, your perception of the value of time becomes very skewed.

Pisco Elqui itself is a nice and quaint town, a good place to be chili and enjoy the surrounding dry and hilly landscape. There's something about sitting in the eerie silence while watching the first few stars appear above the neighbouring mountains that makes you feel like there may indeed be something out there... though the bottles of pisco nectar (like a very sweet wine) may have had something to do with it.

After a couple nights of failed alien-spotting, we were ready to get back on the road and continue south to Santiago and beyond!

If someones bein' mean,
Hit them with a bean-
flavoured fart.
~Mandrew

To view the above photos in a new window, click here.

Have you ever really looked at a map of Chile? Really looked at it? The country is long and skinny, bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Andes mountains (the world’s longest mountain range) on the east with not too much between them. It stretches 4600 km north to south from the driest place in the world to the most southern city in the world, and is only 150 km wide on average (about twice the length of the Panama canal).  This crazy geometry makes it impossible to look at a map of Chile on a single page, a bit frustrating when trying to plan our travels using our Lonely Planet.

We entered Chile from Bolivia after our salt flats tour and found ourselves in the tourisy town of San Pedro de Atacama, the driest place in the world (it rained for the first time in 5 years just last week).  Immediately we noticed a difference in the culture - the streets were clean, people were very friendly and happy looking, things were much more expensive, there were plenty of good food options available, drivers stopped at red lights and stop signs, and as tourists we didn't stand out quite as much as we did in Bolivia where streets were littered with garbage, people were friendly enough but also maybe, understandably, a little resentful toward travellers, everything was overly affordable, food lacked flavor of any kind and consisted mainly of stale bread and eggs, and driving or walking on any road was a significant risk to your life. Don’t get me wrong; I loved Bolivia for many reasons, but it was not a place that I would recommend travelling to with young children or if you have any kind of personal standards for cleanliness or health.

After checking out San Pedro for an afternoon we decided to spend the next day exploring the famous national park Valle de la Luna.  Although there were many tours offered in town, since it was so close by we decided to rent bicycles and check it out at our own pace.  We grabbed some groceries for a picnic lunch and rode out of town and into an incredibly unique landscape that’s perfectly described by its name “Valley of the Moon”.  We stopped at a number of recommended locations along the park road and did a few short hikes.  I found the area to be very geologically interesting!  Layers of weathered gypsum and caves formed by water and wind erosion.  The surrounding hills looked like they had been painted: sandstones and siltstones, reds and yellows, boulders and sand dunes.  The air was so dry that both of us had bleeding noses by the end of the day (that as of a month later still haven’t fully healed) but it was worth it to explore the alien landscape.  Our legs were very sore the next day but we got some rest on the bus while we made our way south.

Turns out, you can even be chili on the moon,
~Chelsea

To open the above photo slideshow in another window, click here.

Let’s face it; volunteering our time and effort to a worthy cause is a nice, feel-good thing to do.  For many of us, however, the idea of doing work when we could otherwise be relaxing on a beach or exploring the jungle just sounds … crazy.  We travel to enjoy life, not to waste our precious time milking cows or digging trenches. Well, not only can volunteering let you to contribute directly to a cause you’re passionate about, it can also be a great addition to your travels, providing unique and rewarding experiences as well as a means of stretching your travel budget.  Remember, too, that volunteering is an exchange, meaning that not only is your host benefitting from your hard work, enthusiasm and great ideas; you’re also honing a new set of skills while gaining a different perspective on life.

If simply helping to make the world a better place isn’t reason enough, here are five completely selfish reasons to give volunteering a try on your next trip.

Volunteering can be a great way to save some money and let you stretch out your travels.  In exchange for just a few hours’ work a day, you can score delicious home-cooked meals and a comfortable bed, letting you hang out and explore a new place for weeks without spending a dime.  This can be an awesome deal, especially when you’re working with a fun group of people on something you enjoy.  Unfortunately, depending on where you are in the world and what kind of volunteering gig you’re looking for, this isn’t always the way it will work.  In some situations, the value of your work (despite the fact that you’re giving it your all) just can’t cover the full cost of keeping you around.  Because of this, many volunteer hosts will ask you to contribute a small fee during your stay.  This may sound unreasonable at first, but if you consider the host’s point of view you may understand.   

We spent a few weeks volunteering at a family-run organic farm in Costa Rica, working our butts off for five hours a day AND paying $12 U.S. per day for the right to do it.  It took a while for us to swallow this, but once we’d learned more about the local situation (and found the awesome experience made it worthwhile) we quickly came to terms with it.  Part of the issue is the fact that a local could be hired to do the work for the equivalent of two U.S. dollars per hour, and could do it a heck of a lot faster, at that (no matter how hard-working and well-intentioned you are, after an hour of cutting grass with a machete, you’re soaked in sweat with a sprained back and wrist while the local worker has cleared three times the area and hasn’t slowed down a bit).  The other problem is the relatively high cost of living in Costa Rica; we would’ve spent a small fortune to stay in a hostel or eco-lodge in a similar area.  On the bright side, the fee you pay can go straight to work helping out the local economy, providing your host with the means to employ a local worker (hopefully saving you from machete-mowing duty in the first place).

Don’t be afraid to pay a small amount, as long as it seems reasonable – if they’re asking for way more than it could possibly cost to host you, however, either ask them to explain where the money goes or simply steer clear.  If completely free is a requirement, though, be persistent and you’ll find something.  Countries with a lower cost of living will offer more affordable options, as will volunteer gigs with more profitable ventures (hotels or restaurants generally make more money than independently-owned organic farms).  Also keep in mind that many hosts will be willing to work out a special deal if you prove especially useful or are able to stick around for longer.  Bonus points if you’ve got some relevant skills from your past life – even if it’s just rewiring a couple light switches in your friend’s apartment back at home, you may find you’re the most experienced electrician in town.  On a related note, try not to touch the exposed wires on your electrically heated showerhead…