Mar 20, 2019 - Calama to Valparaiso

We left the dust and dogs of San Pedro de Atacama and headed for the grime and dogs of Calama. Calama is still high at 2250m, it's a working class city not really geared to tourists unless you want to go visit some of the biggest copper mines in the world. We remembered the Chilean mine disaster of 2010 when 33 miners were stuck underground for 69 days. One of those trapped miners does tours but we decided not to go. We've already visited some big mines in Australia. Our flight from Calama was delayed for an hour due to wind and the rest of...

Mar 15, 2019 - San Pedro de Atacama - we have arrived in the desert

We picked up our hire car and drove 100kms to San Pedro de Atacama a town 2438m high in the dry plateau of the Andes mountains of northeastern Chile. We are booked into Hostal Orange for four nights and it wasn't easy to find but after asking half a dozen random Chileans we got there. At checkin the receptionist said our American dollars were "too broken" and wouldn't except them. The town is very, very dusty and there are lots of stray dogs that love to bark all night. At night the temperature drops dramatically and during the day gets to...

Mar 12, 2019 - Country towns and lakes

After our interesting stay at Choshuenco (which Grae refers to as a kidnapping) we drove around Lake Panguipulli and stopped at the various viewpoints along the way for some stunning views. The roads were very quiet. We went in to Panguipulli for lunch and I made the mistake of asking for cafe con leche which is coffee with milk and is actually a cup of hot UHT milk and a sachet of nescafe - verrryyy milky! At least I've had my calcium intake for the week. I had a completo which is a hotdog with chopped tomoto, mashed avocadovand mayonnaise...

Mar 10, 2019 - Volcanoes of the Lakes District

We based ourselves in Villarrica at Hostel Don Juan for two nights and explored some of the lakes and volcanoes that are in this area. Walking along the black beach we bumped into a Canadian couple we'd met in Puerto Varas while staying at the same hotel and decided to head to a bar for drinks and to swap stories. When we were all in Puerto Varas it was cold and raining and here the weather is very warm with tops of 29 degrees. They are older than us and have been travelling by bus. Well Volcano Villarrica (known as Devil's House to the...

Mar 7, 2019 - Osorno and the Pacific Ocean

Grae needed a new lock for his suitcase so he tried his old key in one of the love locks on the steel sculpture by the lake in Puerto Varas and hey presto, now he has a new lock for his suitcase (hope he hasn't broken up a relationship that was sealed by this padlock!). We headed north and spent two nights in Osorno. In the town of we visited the neo gothic Cathedral of St Matthew which has had an interesint history since it was first built in 1577 when it was destroyed by indians in a war, then burnt down once, then destroyed by an...

Mar 4, 2019 - One dodgy empananda = Chile Belly for Grae

Poor Grae woke up with a case of Chile Belly which wasn't great when you have to be up early in Punta Arenas to drop off a hire car and catch a plane to Puerto Montt and pick up another hire car. Hopefully the views of the Grey Glacier and the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and the Andes mountains through the clouds cheered him up a bit. We arrived in Puerto Montt mid morning and seem to have an upgrade as we thought we'd hired a compact car and have ended up with a 4WD. We drove straight to our hotel in Puerto Varas also known as the city...

Mar 2, 2019 - Running on empty

Woke up this morning and looked out the cabin window to see that the peaks were shrouded in mist and the sky was grey. It was a chilly morning made even more so by the lukewarm shower. Driving through the park we picked up some hitchhikers, a young couple from Germany. It was drizzling and we felt sorry for them with their huge backpacks and raingear. After dropping them off we headed for the main road out of the park but stopped at a shallow lake as we had spotted pink flamingos feeding. We continued on our way back to Puerto Natales to...

Mar 1, 2019 - Torres del Paine National Park

We left Puerto Natales and headed 100 kms up the road for the Serrano entrance to the national park. Once in the park we paid our entrance fee of CLP$42000 and got our waterproof map of the park and headed for the first viewpoint. Spectacular, glorious, gorgeous and stunning are some of the words that come to mind when attempting describe the scenery in the park. This park has it all, craggy mountains covered in snow, endless glaciers, azure lakes, ponds, and various meandering rivers and that's just the landscape. Throw in some weird...

Feb 27, 2019 - Ultima Esperanza and no wind - double yippee!!

Today we took a very pleasant 250km drive from Punta Arena to Puerto Natales which is in the region called "Last Hope". The road was in excellent condition throughout and very quiet. This allowed both driver and passenger to enjoy the passing scenery of scrubby tundra at first with the occasional sheep farm later. The jagged, snow-capped mountains in the distance grew larger and clearer as we progressed. The skies were grey but at least it wan't anywhere as windy as it could have been for this time of year. We are spending two nights at...

Feb 25, 2019 - Heading South to Patagonia

Chileans must not be keen milk drinkers as the supermarket only stocked UHT milk and lots of it. When we asked for coffee at the restaurants we received a cup of hot water and a container of instant coffee so we could add our own amount of coffee but no milk. When I did ask for coffee with milk they brought a cup of hot UHT milk and the container of instant coffee. At the OXXO, which is like a 7/11 I selected cappuccino from the coffee vending machine and it came with cinnamon on top! Food-wise Chileans are very keen on hot dogs served...

Feb 22, 2019 - 22 Feb in Chile - Ground Hog Day

Upon arrival we had to go to a special counter only for Australian nationals and pay a $US117 reciprocity fee. Odd isn't it that we have to pay the Chilean Government $117 in US currency (not in their own currency) and the notes have to be in IMMACULATE condition or else they WON'T be accepted. You can't believe how many $US notes the official rejected before finally accepting some. They either had tiny tears or tiny marks so were rejected. We never considered checking the notes when we ordered the US currency before we left Australia. As...

Feb 14, 2019 - Sailing the Fjords to Punta Arenas

04 05 Feb. 14, 2019 Sailing the Fjords to Punta Arenas On our way to Punta Arenas, we encountered vast mountain ranges along the fjords. One unusually shaped mountain top looked like a Spanish Galleon. There was a ship wreck deteriorating in a shoal where it sank over 60 years ago. We were greeted with a full rainbow in the early morning as we docked in Punta Arenas. With gale force winds