Week 43: Puerto Inca, Huacachina, Huaraz 
Tuesday, November 8th

We woke up in our amazing tent campsite, practically alone on a beautiful beach, and for the first time in days there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Unfortunately we were out of food and it was time to move on. We ate our remaining food for breakfast and then went to the black sand beach. The sand is rich in minerals and absorbs the sun so it’s very warm. I wanted the therapeutic benefits so I had Sarahi bury me in the sand. We had fun looking at the black sparkly sand and I felt awesome afterwards. We packed our things and at the perfect time a taxi arrived with a few guests. We returned to Chala and ate lunch. I had some nice fish called pejerrey. I’m not sure if it’s freshwater or saltwater but it’s a small tasty fish with filets that are easy to remove from the spine. We found a collectivo (12 passenger van taxi) to Nazca, the city famous for the Incan Nazca lines. We decided not to go because you really need a plane flight to see the lines and it costs USD $80 per person for a 15 minute flight. Instead we hopped on a bus headed a few more hours through the desert to Ica. We found some cheap Chinese food and then took a ten minute taxi ride to Huacachina at the edge of town. Huacachina is an oasis with a pond and Palm trees nestled among massive sand dunes. We arrived before sundown and walked around the lake until we found a cheap hostel that was awesome. We had a whole eight bed dorm to ourselves and great common areas for hanging out. After checking in we got cleaned up and then headed out for a night time walk. We bought a bottle of rum and wanted to play a drinking game for the presidential election. I told Sarahi I thought Clinton would win by the time Florida’s results came in. We were so surprised when Trump started winning everything! Unfortunately I fell asleep in Sarahi’s lap and missed the results in the end. 

 11/9:

The next day we still couldn’t believe Trump won so we spent quite a bit of time reading the news and Facebook reactions. 

We found a breakfast place right next to the oasis. After a big breakfast we sat by the oasis pond for awhile. We returned to our hostel and relaxed for awhile. We bought hamburgers, chips, avocado and beer for lunch and took them to the shore of the pond. After lunch we booked a buggy tour for the afternoon. It cost less than $10 per person and lasted from 4pm until sunset at 6. The dune buggy was fun to ride in and then we started sandboarding. These sand boards are home made and much lower quality than the snowboards we used in the desert of Chile. But you can easily lay or stand on the board and we slid down several different sand dunes. Plus the buggy drives you around so we barely had to walk up and sand dunes. We met a nice guy and a few older ladies on our tour. Then we watched the sunset and had a great view of the oasis. It was a really fun tour. Next we got cleaned up and headed to dinner at a Thai restaurant that was quite nice. 

11/10:

Sarahi was quite upset with me on this day so we ate breakfast separately. I bought some snacks and ate them on the beach. We met up later and took a pedal boat out on the oasis pond. Later I swam in the pond, but some other tourists seemed disgusted so maybe it was a bad idea… We packed our things, ate a quick lunch, and then headed to the bus station at around 3. We arrived in Lima at around 9 PM and then quickly found a night bus to Huaraz. We ate a snack and then hopped on our bus and tried to sleep even though it was freezing cold. 

11/11:

We arrived in Huaraz just after sunrise and it was cold outside. We were tired so we found a cheap hostel from my lonely planet book and were soon napping. We woke up and had some relationship discussions until we realized the day was half over. We headed to lunch and by the time we left it was three in the afternoon! We attempted to visit the hot springs but they were closed by the time we arrived. We spent the evening preparing for the Santa Cruz Trek, which we planned to do ourselves. We weren’t feeling prepared also we signed up for transportation to the Laguna 69, a famous day trek a few hours away. We went grocery shopping and spent $40, but we bought five cans of tuna, fruit, pasta, and everything else we needed for our trek. We ate dinner and prepared day packs for the next day. 
11/12:

We woke up before five am and waited for awhile to be picked up. Then we rode two hours in a bus and stopped for breakfast. We stopped again to pay the park entrance fee and then stopped for pictures at an amazing blue green lake. Soon we arrived and began hiking. The trail was beautiful with a glacier fed river, nice trees, and green grass. Soon we started hiking steeply uphill for a couple hours. There were amazing glacier capped mountains and waterfalls all around us. It was beautiful. Finally we reached the Laguna 69. Just above the lake is a huge glacier and large waterfall pouring into the lake. It was simply stunning. We ate lunch here, took pictures, and sunbathed until it was time to head back. The walk back was much easier and soon we were at the bus. We walked about 12 miles but we felt pretty strong. We returned to the hostel, showered, and then went to dinner at chili heaven. This restaurant has Thai, Indian, and Mexican food, but specializes in anything spicy. We had Indian and Thai curry and both dishes were so spicy but delicious. We took care of some last minute things before our trek and headed to bed. 

11/13:

We woke up at 4:45 am after another poor night’s sleep. We grabbed our bags and walked to the corner where we took a combi (Peruvian term for collectivo taxi) and rode for a couple hours to the next town. From there we took another combi about three hours, just past the road to Laguna 69. We continued until we reached a very small town and began hiking down the trail. Most people take a guided trek of the Santa Cruz trail for about $250 per person, but we only paid around $100 for both of us. We were a bit sore from the previous day and found the trail to be harder than expected. We stopped for a lunch of tuna, cream cheese, crackers, blueberries, and grapes. We walked downhill then slowly uphill through a valley along a beautiful River. We had nice views of the distant snow topped mountains. After another four hours of hiking we arrived at the first campsite. It was at this point we realized we had packed light. So light in fact that we didn’t bring a pot for cooking our food. (Sarahi forgot it). We had mostly noodles and oatmeal and had no other way to cook our food. We decided it was just about impossible to cook our food and didn’t want to starve for three more days of hiking. I couldn’t see another option besides eating a cold dinner and walking back the next day. Sarahi was on the verge of tears and I was quite disappointed as well. Just then a German couple arrived who we had seen on the bus on the way. The guy asked us if we were ok, and Sarahi half jokingly asked if they had an extra cooking pot. He went to consult with his girlfriend and said that they had a small pan that served as the lid to the pot. But because of the altitude and cold, it’s almost impossible to boil water in a pot without a lid. It seemed we would both struggle to cook if we took their lid/pan, but we asked if we could just camp near to them and borrow the pot/lid combo for cooking. They said sure so we continued another thirty minutes trekking to another suitable campsite. They made dinner first and then we borrowed their pot. We made pasta with tomato, cheese, and pepper sauce, and added onions and a can of tuna. It was delicious and so nice to have a hot dinner. We started a fire and hung out with our new friends for a little while. We were all tired and headed to bed by 8 pm. That night it was freezing and we could barely sleep. We woke up with frost on our tent and it was really hard to go out into the freezing cold! 

Week 42: Cusco, Arequipa, Chivay, Cabanaconde, Chala

10/31

Halloween!! Tonight was going to be our last night in Cusco. We were moving to a different hostel but planned on going back to the Point to hang out with our new friends.

After a disattisfying cheap lunch, we wandered more around the city and moved hostels. 

We went shopping for our Halloween costumes after researching and hanging out at our new hostel for a while. 

We ended up buying toilet paper to wrap ourselves up as mummies. 

We bought groceries for dinner as we attempted to make blt, plus cheese and avocado. They worked out well after a little bit of practice. 

Afterwards, since we were planning on getting up early to see some more ruins we took a nap to rest before our long night.

We finally got up and went to our old hostel. Fortunately for us, they had Halloween costumes we could borrow! I picked the ugliest wig and Luke picked a bunch of random things including a Canadian flag as a cape! 

We hung out, met new people, and had late night McDonald’s before losing our friends and going to bed. 
11/1

This next morning, we tried to go early to the Saqsaywaman  (pronounced sexy woman) ruins since we heard that we could get in before they opened at 7. Unfortunately, we got there and we couldn’t get in. We didn’t want to pay the $70 soles each so we went around and viewed them from the outside. 

We ate a pretty good breakfast and made plans for the day. We had a lot to research and do before we left Cusco! 

We decided that we were going to finally do the walking tour and so we did that and learned a lot about the celebrations in October and the beginning of November. 

We ate a wonderful lunch of ceviche and soup for only $8 soles each before we went to book a tour to Rainbow Mountain for only $80 soles each. Afterwards, we ran errands like returning the costumes, picking up groceries like dried fruit for our trip, and packing for our next couple days. 

We went to bed pretty early after a really productive day. We had to be ready by 3:20 in the morning to head to Rainbow mountain as well!

11/2

We got up very lazily around 3:00 in the morning. We finished packing our stuff and then waited for them to come get us!

We loaded up and then headed on a long but beautiful 4 hour drive to breakfast – sleeping a majority of the time. 

After a really nice breakfast of eggs and bread and coffee, we went on another 15 minute drive to the entrance of the trail. We met a very nice Dutch couple who we pretty much walked the whole way with. 

The hike kept getting more and more difficult since we were 1k meters higher than the city and working our way up about another 1k meters.

It took us a really long time to finally get up to the top but the hike was worth it! Every bit of it was beautiful and the end was even more amazing. It was cold and windy and started snowing on us but we got some great views!

Finally, we decided to go back down. After another long and beautiful hike, we made it back to our bus. We were taken to another really great traditional Peruvian lunch of Lomo salteado before another drive back to the city.

We were nervous that we’d be late for our bus, but we showed up with enough time to shower. We were going to have ceviche again but they didn’t have it so we went to the bus station. 

Unfortunately, the bus station was crazy and ran out of chicken so we ended up going to some tiny markets and picking up chicken sandwiches and such for our bus ride to Arequipa.

We spent the rest of the night in the bus.

11/3

We arrived to Arequipa early the next morning and had breakfast of egg sandwiches and coffee. We had to decide where we were going next and were told that Chivay was better than Cabanaconde. We finally found a bus at 9:30 so we hung out until the next bus.

It took us 5 hours to finally get to the next stop, Chivay, a town at the beginning of the Colca canyon! The Colca Canyon is the second deepest canyon in the world, beaten by another Peruvian canyon that’s 200 meters deeper. it’s around five times deeper than the Grand  Canyon.

We found a cheap hostel right away that had wifi and a hot shower so we went to that one. We had lunch at a cheap restaurant for only $5 soles each! Afterwards, we wandered around the city to check out some view points. We went to some miradores and saw a smoking volcano at sunset before it got too cold and we went back. This volcano fully erupted only a few days later and covered most of Colca canyon in ash. We’re pretty sure we were the first ones to see it erupting and would have been famous for the discovery had we known! 

We wanted to go to the hot springs so we went back to the hostel to get dressed. We went to get a tuk tuk but then found out that the hot springs  were closed!

So instead, we went to get some amazing fried chicken and then hung out at the hostel before going to bed early.

11/4

We had to catch the bus by 7 so we woke up early and packed our bags.

We hurried to the bus station but had time to grab a few cups of coffee before we loaded up to head to Cabanaconde for an afternoon!

After a breathtaking bus ride, we finally got there and headed straight to the miradores around the town. We spent a few hours wandering around and taking in the sights as we planned our future traveling trips. While we sat there a condor was circling around and it was truly majestic. 

After heading back, we bought our bus tickets to Arequipa. 

We had amazing pizza for lunch and worked on some Instagram posts before picking up our luggage and loading up on the bus. We spent the rest of the day on the bus before we got to the city.

We found a cheapish, nice hostel close to the main square. 

Once we got checked in, we went to wander a little and find some food. We ate at this place that had different types of peruvian potatoes with all sorts of interesting toppings. We went back to the hostel and did some laundry – it was well needed! After cleaning up and hanging out a little bit more we finally went to bed.

11/5

The next morning, we went sight seeing around the city for a bit after packing our bags and having a delicious breakfast! The city of Arequipa is gorgeous and we couldn’t get enough of the architecture around the place. 

We splurged on a museum ticket ($20 soles each) to the mummy museum and saw the original Incan mummy, Juanita! She is only out a few months of the year so we got really lucky that we saw the most famous one instead of the others that they rotate. 

After the tour of the museum, we decided to check out a French restaurant which had a nice, fancy lunch for only $8 soles a person (drinks included!).

Since we weren’t going to leave until later, we decided to wait for the rest of the city and head back to the hostel for the heat of the afternoon. We hung out for a few hours and charged our phones and relaxed before heading out to a place our hostel owner, Luis, told us about.

We walked for about 30 minutes before we headed to a park overlooking the city. Little did we know, as we showed up we saw all kinds of street vedors and a band was playing! We had perfect timing to catch a little concert in the park. 

We grabbed some beers and some really delicious ribs that were cooking right in front of us as we listened to music and watched the gorgeous sunset fill the sky. 

We shared one last beer as the stars came out and we stuffed our faces with Churros listening to the music before we reluctantly headed back to get our bags and a taxi to the bus station.

We barely made it to catch one of the last busses to Chala! 2 companies only had 1 seat left and the one we took was going to leave in less than 10 minutes! 

We loaded up and got as comfortable  as possible for our night’s sleep.

11/6

I was planning to arrive closer to 5, but we arrived closer to 4 instead. Our plan was to hang by the beach until sunrise to catch a bus to Puerto Inca, a secluded beach a few km away, but it was too early so we snagged a room at the closest hostel for only $30 soles! 

We finally got some sleep before we had to wake up, pack our bags, and find some much needed breakfast.

Once we ate and picked up groceries, we found a cab to Puerto Inca. Puerto Inca is a private hotel located next to two beaches and surrounded by Incan ruins that are in surprisingly good condition. Although the rooms are quite expensive, you can camp for only $8 US a person which includes the pool, hygienic services, the ruins, a table with an umbrella, electricity, and a game room. we were pretty much the only people there camping! 

We set up camp and decided to enjoy the sun and the beach because we thought it might be the last time we were going to be camping on one. 

It was cloudy but we still got slightly sunburnt! 

After a lunch of tuna salad and left overs we decided to wander around the Inca ruins to the right of the beach. We saw a few building with what looked like human bones in it! 

Unfortunately, it was cloudy so we ended up going back and getting firewood for our dinner. We made this delicious tuna pasta that we devoured quickly! Afterwards, we hung out for a bit but got cold then went to bed.

11/7

No wifi meant we had to amuse ourselves for the day. It was definitely more cloudy than usual but we soaked up the warmer weather as much as we could.

We had a pretty lazy day and had fried seafood for lunch from the only restaurant in the area. It was so delicious!

Afterwards, we went to the black sand beach that was just a little further down and then walked to the bigger Inca ruins.

We spent a lot of time walking around them looking at the different structures.

I admit, I dug a little bit because I swore there was a burial ground under our feet. I still swear to it since I found some seashells and fabric. Then I felt guilty and stopped digging but I totally felt like Indiana Jones for a good moment there.

Luke decided to go down and I decided to stay up at the top to see if there was going to be a good sunset. 

Closer to the end of the not so amazing sunset, Luke joined me to snap some final shots. Afterwards, we headed down to play some pool before cooking another dish of quinoa, sauce, avocado, and tuna. Not as good as the night before, but definitely a good meal. 

We hung out for a little more reading our books and hanging out before finally heading to bed.

Over all Peru has had some amazing views like foggy mountains in Cusco, beautiful architecture in Arequipa, massive canyons in Cabanaconde, and desert beaches in Puerto Inca.

Although we didn’t explore as much as usual, we definitely saw a lot of what Southern Peru has to offer and it was breathtaking! We already made plans to come back and see more and do more in this part of the world. Amazing!

Week 41: Puno, Cusco, Aguas Calientes, Machu Pichu; Peru
Monday, October 24th: 

We woke up on the reed island and ate breakfast. We enjoyed the tranquility as we barely saw another person. Until nine o clock when hundreds of tourists began showing up in the boats. I sat on the edge of the island feeling the rocking while I tried to draw the scene with colored pencils. We met a nice Mexican couple. We headed back to the mainland at around noon. We ate some nice and extremely cheap food at the bus station and bought a bus to Cusco in the afternoon. It was two hours delayed from the start but eventually we got on the old, crowded bus with no bathroom and prepared for the eight hour bus ride. We made several seemingly long and unnecessary stops but soon the bus was cruising as the dark set in. The bus swerved a couple of times in a way that made people scream and think we were about to tip over. I put on my seatbelt and tightened it up. Everyone on the bus freaked out and starting yelling and banging on things until the bus driver pulled over. Once they were assured he wasn’t drunk we continued on. The swerving happened again and chaos broke loose. Some very angry Italians led the rebellion, while old men cried and women yelled shrilly with frustration. There were chants of “stop the bus” and most people yelled out the varying speed limits they thought safest. The bus stopped again for quite some time as the passengers argued for a new bus. In the end a passenger rode in the front and the bus did not go above 60 km per hour, which greatly added to the time of the trip. We survived and arrived by 1 am. We went to a hostel I’ve read about and found the upstairs bar in full party mode, and a couple of empty beds. We were asleep by two, thankful to be alive and in a stationary bed. 

10/25:

We woke up and took the best, most needed showers in a long time. Sarahi was ready to head to Machu Pichu but I was worn out and wanted to check out Cusco first. It’s a beautiful city with a lot to offer. First we checked out a couple of the nearby and beautiful plazas. We wandered around the touristy area and then headed down the food street. I tried the fried pork ribs, which are just as delicious and fattening as they sound, and Sarahi had the menu of the day with mystery meat stew (turns out it was cow intestines – chewy and weird but didn’t taste badly). We returned to the hostel to relax a little. Then we went to one of the fifteen markets in Cusco. Here you can buy any kind of fruit, veggie, meat, or any other food produced in Peru. They also have souvenirs, restaurants with meals for less than $2, and lots of other things for sale. We loved it and bought tons of fruit, dried fruit, nuts, juice, and fried peppers stuffed with ground beef and veggies. We relaxed at the hostel some more, and then decided to get a massage. They’re very cheap in Cusco – from $6 for an hour. After that we went to the chocolate museum where we had lots of nice free samples and only spent $2 on a chocolate bar at the end. We went to a nice Asian fusion restaurant for dinner but decided the prices were too high. So we went to a cheap hamburger restaurant instead. We packed our bags for the next day and left some stuff at the hostel. 

10/26:

Today we started out Machu Pichu adventure! I made some friends after an early breakfast the next morning so we got a slightly late start. We went to the wrong bus station but eventually our bus, which was also late, left the station. It was a 6-8 hour bus ride to a small town called Santa Maria. In our case it took 8 and was a rough bus ride. Once we arrived there we took a collectivo (shared taxi) to the next town, Santa Theresa. From here it was another hour to the hydroelectric station. From the hydroelectric station you can walk along the train tracks until you reach Aguas Calientes, also known as Machu Pichu Pueblo. The alternative method of transportation is a train, which is arguably the most expensive in the world at around $100 one way, or take a multi day trek which costs hundreds of dollars. Our method cost $35 soles ($12) and was much more satisfying. We started the 2-3 hour walk down the tracks and realized it would be dark long before we arrived. We stopped to enjoy an incredible jumping school of fish in the creek. We continued slowly through the dark and stopped for pizza in Aguas Calientes. We backtracked thirty minutes to a campsite at the base of the trail to Machu Pichu. We quickly pitched our tent and went to sleep. 

10/27:

We woke up at 4:30 the next morning and only snoozed for a few minutes. We got packed in the dark and headed towards Machu Pichu. We found a line of fifty people at the first checkpoint and worried we had gotten up too early. The line moved quickly and we were soon hiking up very steep stone steps with hundreds of other early risers hoping to beat the crowds. We passed a lot of people in the nonstop uphill hour hike but saw a few tour busses beating us up the hill. We waited a few minutes in line and then entered quickly, having bought our Machu Pichu tickets the prior day. We didn’t know much about Machu Pichu so we walked up some stairs and then started wandering toward the parts that looked cool. I think everyone else went up above for the iconic picture with no one around, but we found ourselves completely alone for maybe twenty minutes. We had no idea at the time but I ate a snack and Sarahi put on some make up while we sat alone in the sacred temple, probably the most famous site at Machu Pichu. It was amazing. It was a very foggy day which added to the incredible views. As clouds would roll away, while new sections of Machu Pichu would be revealed. We took some pictures of the amazing views we had. We walked around the various sections of Machu Pichu and stopped for a snack. We hiked all the way back to the entrance and exited the park to find at least 100 people in line for the bathroom. This was frustrating as we paid $50 a person to enter Machu Pichu. We had a snack at the snack shop and then re entered Machu Pichu. We hiked up to the upper level where we entered the Machu Pichu Mountain, which costs a bit extra. The hike to the top provides a birds eye view of Machu Pichu, but it is a brutal hike to the top. It’s a straight uphill hike for two hours. The entire trail is made of Incan stone steps, but that doesn’t make it any easier. We had to stop several times but we eventually made it up the mountain despite the rain and fog. Sadly, when we reached the top, we could see nothing except clouds a few feet away. We ate almost all the fruit we were carrying and then headed down the mountain. It was tough on the way down as well. We reached the entrance and continued walking all the way back to our campsite. We were in pain and very tired when we arrived. We changed clothes and packed our tent before walking back to Aguas Calientes. We ran into our Portuguese friends who we had met a few days earlier at the lake. We stopped at a restaurant in town and ate alpaca steak. It was pretty good but maybe just beef. We asked about train prices but found it would be very expensive. We were worn out and it started raining so we decided to stay in Aguas Calientes for one night. We found a nice room with private bathroom and hot shower. We cleaned up and rested until we went out for Chinese food dinner. It rained all afternoon and all night so we were really glad we didn’t camp or hike back in the rain. We slept super well and woke up early the next day to hike back. 

10/28: We ate fruit and bread for breakfast and then began our walk back along the train tracks. We met a nice Colombian guy who was 19 and traveling around for a year eating at soup kitchens and doing soccer tricks for money. We said goodbye and got on a bus back to Cusco. We changed busses in Santa Maria, bought some snacks, and then drove the five hours back to Cusco. We returned to our hostel and got cleaned up. We drank a beer and ate good hostel food. We were very sore and went to bed quickly. 

10/29:

We slept in and had a lazy morning the next day. We ate breakfast in the hostel and then went to the mercado for lunch. It was less than two dollars for soup and a plate of rice, avocado, egg, and salsa. That afternoon we tried to visit the papa museum but it’s been closed for awhile. In the same building was a massage place that offered us a good deal. We had an amazing massage and then returned to our hostel. We looked for Halloween costumes and wandered the city a bit more. We relaxed all afternoon. Sarahi told the guys at our hostel that it was my birthday and they made me take four shots of tequila. It was awful. Then we went to dinner at the number one rated restaurant in Cusco called Organika. I had alpaca steak and Sarahi had beef steak. We also had smoked trout salad and trout ceviche. It was a great dinner and not too pricey. We returned to our hostel where I took a little nap. Somehow I woke up and rejoined the party. We played beer pong and later went to a club. We made it back to the hostel well after sunrise. It was a great birthday! 

10/30:

As we went to bed after sunrise, we both slept in late, until noon at least. Sarahi wasn’t feeling well so I went to bring back some food. After eating and showering we relaxed for awhile. We tried to go for Korean food but the restaurant was closed so we had Chinese instead. We took naps in the afternoon. We didn’t feel like leaving the hostel so we ate some pretty good food from the kitchen. We were worn out from the previous night so we headed to bed early. 

The highlight of the week was Machu Pichu. It’s so much bigger and more incredible than I imagined. It may be the most amazing thing I’ve seen. Cusco is also a really nice city with beautiful buildings and ancient Incan walls. The area around the city had beautiful mountains with many Incan ruins.  This is a place everyone should visit! 

Week 40: La Paz, Copacabana, Isla del Sol; Bolivia, Puno, Peru
Monday, October 17th:

I decided to mountain bike down death road, while Sarahi decided it wasn’t for her. I woke up early in the rain and walked to the tour agency. I met some nice Germans over a meager breakfast and then hopped on the bus for a couple of hours. We climbed up even higher into the mountains (just La Paz is at 4,000 meters of elevation and is the highest capitol in the world). Then we unloaded the bikes. I rented the cheapest version and still paid over $50 for the day. We flew down the steep paved road at first. I’ve never gone so fast. Then we stopped for lunch at the beginning of the death road. Then they told us that the villagers had blockaded death road and wanted 100-200 bolivianos to pass. The plan was to drive two more hours around the road then drive halfway back up and ride bikes back down. At this point there was anarchy. The tour agency had not been honest and we paid full price for half of death road. Many people went back for a refund at this point. I would have but we planned to leave La Paz the next day. Finally, we’re back on our bikes flying down gravel roads with huge cliffs dropping off the side of the road. It was cold and raining but I had a blast. We ended the bike ride at a small house and restaurant in the jungle. We had started the ride at over 5,000 meters of elevation amongst the clouds where there are no plants or animals, and you can barely breathe. We ended in the rainforest at around 2,000 meters where I saw multiple types of monkeys and was warm in a tshirt. It was an amazing experience despite not actually biking the entire road. I returned to my hostel and had a great dinner and a great woman waiting for me. She had spent the day searching for open museums, shopping, reading, and drinking coffee. 

10/18:

The next morning we made breakfast in the hostel and packed our bags. We headed to a random street where we caught a minibus to Copacabana. It was a miserable long drive over dirt roads and I had a large Quechua woman with several layers of baggage and a baby that was half laying in my lap the whole ride. We had to take a ferry and finally the beautiful but claustrophobic ride was over. Copacabana is a small beach town on Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at over 4,000 meters. The lake is massive. Roughly the size of Massachusetts or Vermont I believe. In the mid 1900’s, the U.S. gave trout eggs to Bolivia or Peru, and the trout population in the lake is huge. The other fish species are being wiped out by the trout. But if you like trout you can find it in every restaurant in Bolivia and Peru, and generally for $3.50 or less. Copacabana is a beautiful town and we found a hostel with a private room for only $7 for both of us. The wifi was fast and we even had a tv! After checking into our cheapest room yet we headed to the beach. We had a nice walk on the beach and took pictures at sunset. We had dinner for about $7. I had decent trout and Sarahi had spaghetti. In Bolivia and Peru nearly every restaurant has a menu of the day. This always includes a big bowl of soup and a few choices of entree. If you’re lucky it might include and appetizer, drink, and desert as well. Believe it or not, we love eating in these countries, especially Peru. After dinner we watched netflix with our fast wifi before bed. 
10/19:

We slept in a bit and then headed to the central market where they have super cheap breakfast. We ordered two coffees with milk, three egg cheese and tomato sandwiches, six Bolivian doughnuts called bunuelos, and api, a hot, spiced and thick purple corn drink that is actually quite nice. It all cost around $4 and was very nice! We lounged in our room a bit longer, packed a day bag, and then grabbed some chicken salteados, the Bolivian version of empanada. It looks like an empanada with burnt edges, but it’s much more saucy on the inside and delicious. We hopped on a boat for a few dollars per person and sat on the roof with a nice Russian girl. It was freezing yet my nose got very sunburnt. After an hour or two we reached the Island of the Sun, a huge island with steep terraced hills. It’s amazing that the people in this region carved small strips of farmland out of steep mountain sides. After getting off the boat we had to pay a few dollars entrance fee and then walk up the Incan steps along the steep mountainside. After some exhausting hiking and confusion, we found a decent hostel for around $4 per person. We shared a room with “Sasha”, our Russian friend, and had a lovely view out the window. We all went to dinner which wasn’t very good. We were worn out and it was cold and stormy. We got in our cozy beds and were soon asleep. 

10/20: 

The next morning we ate cereal for breakfast and enjoyed the view. We packed our bags Sarahi and I set off hiking. We walked down a very steep hill through the Incan terraces until we reached the lake. We laid down on the rocky “beach” and enjoyed the serene and tourist free spot for hours. We watched the birds, donkeys, and locals at work. After a grueling hike back up, we collapsed in rocking chairs at a pizzeria with great views overlooking the lake. We ordered some nice grilled chicken (+soup and sides as is the custom) and had a well earned beer. After lunch we headed back down to the boats and bought a ticket. We waited with Sasha and new friends for an hour and then took the ride back to Copacabana. We checked back into our lovely cheap hostel and then headed to dinner. We found an amazing Italian restaurant where whey were making noodles by hand right in front of us. The gnocchi and pasta was amazing. We were worn out and after some more Netflix went to bed. 

10/21: 

We woke up and returned to our favorite breakfast place in the market. We were sad to leave the cozy town (and our fast wifi) so we decided to stay another day. We spent most of the day laying in bed and watching our Netflix shows. We checked out the massive cathedral in the center of town and ate Hawaiian pizza for lunch. We spent most of the afternoon napping and watching Netflix. That night we went to a great Asian restaurant that serves several courses and desert for a good price. They also had mango lassies which are essentially milk shakes with mangoes. So delicious. 

10/22:

We returned to our favorite breakfast place and ate like kings once again. We returned to our rooms to pack but just couldn’t bring ourselves to leave. Apparently we really needed some r&r so we decided to stay one more day. Sadly, about fifty people showed up for the weekend to the generally empty hotel, and our Netflix didn’t really work after that. I tried some fish native to the lake for lunch, which was pretty good, while Sarahi opted for more pizza. We had a lazy afternoon before hiking to the top of the hill overlooking town. It was a brutal climb but we had some really amazing views at the top. That night the Asian restaurant was full so we tried the Mexican restaurant in town instead. It was delicious and we headed to bed soon afterwards. 

10/23:

The next day it was really definitely time to move on. We returned to the breakfast place, really for the last time, and met a nice family. They had bought a new car, so they brought a small model of it to be blessed by the Virgin of Copacabana. We bought our tickets for one o’clock and relaxed until lunch. We had pizza again and then hopped on the bus for Puno, Peru. Border crossing was pretty easy, but I’m nervous because my passport is filling up with visas and stamps. We arrived to Puno around four and arranged for a boat to take us to the floating reed islands. It took about one hour by boat to arrive at the first island. There are hundreds of islands made from reeds in the lake that float together in a community. It’s a really cool but bizarre place to visit. After walking around on the springy reed ground, we took a reed boat for a few dollars to the next island. Here was the capital island which consists of one snack bar/ passport stamp office, one restaurant, several gift shops, and a few buildings for guests. We decided to stay on the island for about $10 per person. We had our own cozy shack made from reeds. We ate some overpriced but delicious trout for dinner as a massive thunderstorm raged overhead. There was a nice cat who wanted to cuddle in our bed all night ( and I let him). We slept pretty well on our floating reed island inside our reed house! 

We had a great week exploring lake Titicaca and relaxing! Peru is the last country we will visit on this trip; I know it’s sad. Bolivia has some amazing sights but it’s not our favorite country. We’re glad we went, but happy to make it out in only two weeks with extra time to enjoy Peru! 

Week 39: Salt flats, Sucre, La Paz, Bolivia

10/10

After getting up earlier, we packed up the rest of our things, made coffee, and hurried to finish anything else we needed to do.

The bus came and picked us up for our border crossing before leaving us with our 4×4 and our guide, Luis.we met our newest friends before finally leaving San Pedro de Atacama.

The border crossing was a longer process for us, Americans, then for everyone else and it also didn’t help that they wouldn’t take a slightly, and I mean slightly, torn bills. Fortunately for us, they let us pay in Bolivianos, but unfortunately for us, that meant we didn’t have money for the rest of the tour’s expenses. (It costs $160 USD for a ten year Bolivian Visa for Americans.)

We finally crossed the border after meeting our guide and having breakfast and started our way to Uyuni.

The first stop were the green and white lagoons. It was explained to us that the lagoons each have different minerals like Borax (used for cleaning materials) and salt. Both of them for being so close together were very unique in their colors!

We stopped by Dali’s Desert to see a very interesting landscape that reflected some of the work of the artist. 

Afterwards, we went to the Polques hot springs and enjoyed a nice dip in the warm pool! It was cold outside but the pool was really nice and we warmed up pretty quickly. 

After changing we headed to Geysers Sol de Mañana and spent just a few minutes there since it was smelly and most of us had seen the bigger set of geysers in Atacama. 

We loaded up and headed to the red colored Laguna Colorada which was even more amazing than the pictures show. It’s way larger than the pictures give it credit for and it was filled with flamingos! 

Our sight seeing day was pretty much over and we finally stopped by a little town and stayed in a small hostel. 

They gave us tea to warm us up and then after a while of hanging out we had a very nice dinner! We were all cold and the electricity was only on for 3 hours so we hung out a little bit longer and then went to sleep during the cold night. Unfortunately, many of us couldn’t sleep since it was so cold and dry that it hurt to breathe!

Fortunately the spectacular day overshadowed the bad sleep!

10/11

 The first stop we made was the tree rock. There were random boulders and rocks throughout the desert which was mainly from vocanic eruptions and glaciers. 

These rocks were worn down into interesting shapes and sizes and so we spent a little of the morning climbing on the rocks and taking pictures.

We drove through the Siloli Desert which we were told pretty much only got snow as moisture.

Our next stop were the Lagunas Altiplánicas where we could see 3 different types of flamingos. Almost all the girls had to go to the bathroom, but there was no where to hide or use the bathroom so we ended up making a bigger connection when we held up a scarf as shelter as we rotated using the restroom! 

After that incident we went to a small view of the Ollagüe Volcano. Since it was just a view we didn’t spend too much time there. We also stopped at a rock field that was many many miles wide. Our guide said it was caused by multiple volcanic eruptions. My favorite was the rock shaped like Sid the Sloth.

Our last views of the day was an extra little lagoon that was surrounded by more amazing rocks as well as the Chiguana Salt Flat.

That night we stayed at an amazing salt hostel. We hung out and watched people watch soccer. Luke wasn’t feeling well at all so he took a nap and then took his temperature. It was 101.2 so we only woke him up for the spectacular sunset and for dinner. 

We were going to shower but the girls had cold showers and you had to pay for them so we skipped out. 

Our guide gave us a bottle of wine that we all shared as we heard about the current animosity between Chileans and Bolivians. He also told us he wanted to leave by 4:30 so we quickly hurried to bed. 

This night of sleep was way better than the previous night’s!

10/12

Waking up at 3:50 was a little difficult but we made it on time to watch the sunrise on the salt flats of Uyuni. It was extremely cold so we watched the sun rise and then quickly went back to the car. Then we headed to the Inca Huasi Island that is essentially a mound of cacti in the middle of the salt flats. We spent about an hour wandering around and checking out the views before heading down for an amazing breakfast!

After another 50km drive we finally got to a place where we could take all the cool pictures. We spent a lot of time trying to get them perfect! 

It was another long drive before we saw the first salt hotel and so we stopped there to take some pictures. It was disappointing not to see the American flag in the mix of all the flags they had there.

Afterwards, we arrived in the small town of Colchani. They had a lot of souvenirs available and so we wandered around looking before having a nice lunch.

We packed up and left towards Uyuni, our final stop. We stopped a little at the Train Cemetary before he dropped us off at the agency.

We said our goodbyes to Luis, and the rest of our group went to find bus tickets to our next destinations. Once that was done, we found a place to all grab a beer and wifi before going our separate ways. We made plans to hopefully meet back together in La Paz.

Our newest German friend, Johanna, joined us for this part of the trip so we booked a room at the same hostel and took a bus to Potosí. It was hot, loud, and filled with screaming, singing, and crying children. It also had dogs on board.

This bus ride was definitely not a good first impression of the people here in Bolivia but we hoped to change our minds once we got some food, rest, and a warm bed.

Once we got to Potosi, we were dropped off on the side of the road. We had to cross the street to get to the bus terminal but it looked like everything was closed.

Unfortunately, by the time we got there, there were no busses left to go to Sucre. There were only random people yelling at us and offering their cars to Sucre. At first both Johanna and I were iffy but at the price of $50 Bolivianos we decided that the 3 of us were okay to go with one guy. 

He was nice enough to take us to a good restaurant and let us eat before we continued on our way to Sucre.

The road was very windy and I had a hard time not dozing. After a few hours, he finally dropped us off at our hostel and quickly went to bed!

10/13

We got to see Sucre at night, but it’s completely different in the morning! It really is a beautiful city and all the building are white! We had a measley breakfast and then were invited to go to the 7 waterfalls by another Brazilian girl named Cathleen. Luke and I were getting ready but had to have a little discussion before we were ready. 

We spent half the morning looking for transportation to the 7 waterfalls and after getting a price of $200 Bob we decided to see about going the next day.

Luke had heard about the Dinobus to the dinosaur footprints and museum in Sucre and fortunately we had perfect timing. 

The bus showed up a few minutes later and after checking the prices, grabbing some snacks, and waiting for the girls to stop by an ATM we were on our way to the dinosaur museum!

We were on the first floor of the bus and they played a BBC show about dinorsaurs which switched from Spanish to English every once in a while. It was great to get a ride there and back plus TV for only $30 BOB (less than $5 US). 

When we got there, Luke had to borrow shoes since he couldn’t wear flip-flops down to the footprints. We spent a wonderful time at this museum looking at fossils, sculptures, information, and one of the biggest reserves of dinosaur footprints on the planet. I felt like a kid again!

Afterwards, we decided to stop by a Chifa & Thai place that had a meal for only $19 Bob that included fried wontons, soup, a big meal of your choice, and a small dessert! It also helped that it was soooo delicious (the quinoa was excellent) and that it had the fastest wifi we’ve had in a long while. 

Afterwards, we were really exhausted and then started to feel awful. My head was splitting (worst headache I’ve had in years) and Luke wasn’t doing too hot either. 

We skipped the meeting with the girls to go watch the sunset to rest. We only left to get more water and some pizza. We ate a tiny bit and drank a lot of water, popped some pain meds, and went to sleep early. 

10/14

We woke up completely symptom free and very refreshed. We packed even more water since we were at such high elevation and left with the girls to see the waterfalls after yet another sad breakfast.  

We finally found a bus that would drop us off close to the 7 waterfalls, but we still had to walk down an unknown and slightly treacherous trail all the way down. One of our group fell and he hurt his feet pretty badly but we pushed forward. We finally get to the “river” and see that it’s pretty much empty! 

We decided to continue forward and finally found the refreshing pools and waterfalls.

Luke and the girls went to go swimming in another area up a ways while me and our Dutch friend stayed behind with a group of Bolivian students having a cookout.

We got free food! Unfortunately, Cathleen fell into the water with her entire bag and got everything wet! Once we all met up we decided to go back. One wew ere in the center of the city we split up and Luke and I had lunch at the same restaurant from before. We also bought bus tickets for that night to head to La Paz. We headed back to the hostel, hung out, and then headed to watch the sunset at the Mirador a few blocks away. 

It was a nice sunset. We grabbed burgers on our way back, grabbed a taxi, and finally loaded up on the full bed, all nighter bus to La Paz.

10/15

After a long night of bus rides through curvy roads, we finally get to La Paz around 7:30 (12 hours!). We decided to have breakfast at the station before heading to our newest hostel. After eating a lot, we finally get a taxi to our hostel.After waiting until around 10, we finally get checked in early to our 3 bed dorm.

After settling in and taking a small nap, we decided to go around the city a bit. After a bit of nagging, we stopped by the supermarket to pick up some much needed contact solution, pain medicine, personal hygiene supplies, etc. Then, we visited the market place, the witches’ market filled with dead llamas, and a few other streets. We also finally got both of our hair cut and Luke’s beard shaved for about $10 total. 

Luke bought me some earrings (super cute) and booked his tour to do Death Road by bike. Obviously, I would’ve died so we decided to split ways on Monday. 

We went back to the hostel and hung out for a little before heading to the market down the street to pick up groceries for dinner. 

We picked up fried chicken on the way back. I made homemade mac and cheese with the friend chicken. We hung out on the wifi before going to bed. Luke went to bed earlier than I did since I was loaded up on caffeine. I went to bed a few hours later.

10/16

This morning, we slept in just a little bit. We spent most of the morning alone. I did some reading and journaling and Luke did some research on the rest of our trip.

After lunch at a Chinese place where Luke finally got some searched out trout, we decided to stop by a market Luke had read about. 

It. Was. Massive.

You could find literally anything you needed there like car parts, clothes, food, cell phones, baby carriages, and more!

After wandering a few hours, we decided to go to a Lucha Libre show. It was really funny after I got used to the humour of the show and we spent the next few hours there!

It was reallllyy cold by the time we left so we hurried to the telerifico down to the center and walked back. 

We weren’t hungry when we got back so we decided to hang out just a little bit longer. I tried warming up my mac and cheese #fail. So afterwards, Luke wandered the city and I picked up some cheeseburgers. 

We ate our burgers and watched Nacho Libre and then soon went to bed since Luke had to be up early for his adventure!

Week 38: Valparaiso, San Pedro de Atacama; Chile
Monday 10/3:
We woke up in Valparaiso and ate breakfast. We decided to stay another night but we moved to another hostel. After packing we took a bus and then walked up one of the many stairways through the hills of Valparaiso to our hostel. It has been full all weekend but when we arrived there were only a few other people there and we had a whole dorm room to ourselves. There was also a nice balcony and big tv in the living area. We set off walking around and checking out some street art and tourist attractions. We returned to make a snack of guacamole and fruit salad with homemade tortilla chips. That night we watched Netflix on a big hostel tv , worked on Instagram photos, and ate stuffed squash for dinner. 

10/4: 

I booked a flight from Santiago for the following day so we decided to spend one more day in Valparaiso. We slept in, then hung out around the hostel working on blog posts and such. We found out about a great free concert in the evening. We walked to Pablo Nerudo’s house. He’s a famous poet and politician from Chile. It was close to ten dollars per person to enter and it wasn’t that cool. We also visited a museum about a cartoonist named Lukas. We found a bus back and finally found a cheap restaurant where we ate two Italiano (topped with tomatoes, guacamole, and mayonnaise) hot dogs each. Then picked up some white wine and pineapple ice cream before walking back to our hostel. We attempted to make a famous Chilean drink called terremoto (earthquake) but were missing an ingredient or two. We relaxed a bit and then went out for a free outdoor concert which featured an orchestra and a band that was a mix between rock and Andean folk music. It was quite entertaining and in a great setting with tons of locals. We stayed for the concert and then walked back among a huge crowd of people. We ate some leftover fruit salad and then headed to bed. 

10/5:

The next morning we woke up early and left the hostel by seven. We trudged down the hill and caught a bus that took us close to the bus station. From there we caught a bus to Santiago within two minutes. When we arrived in Santiago we caught a shuttle to the airport after thirty minutes. We were checked in and waiting with two hours to spare. The flight had beautiful views of snow covered mountains turning into desert. After a two hour flight (much better than the 20+hour bus ride) we landed in Calama, a desert town near a huge copper mine. We took a taxi into town, ate some fried chicken, and then waited for a bus. The bus to San Pedro de Atacama took an hour or two but the ride was beautiful. Once we arrived we hiked awhile to a hostel that offers camping. We found a good spot and were even offered a mattress to put under our tent (a lifesaver on the rocky desert sand). We walked the town and asked about tours, found an atm, and then went to dinner at a nice place nearby. We were worn out after a long day and headed to bed. 

10/6: 

We slept in a little to avoid the cold desert night but we were soon greeted by the hot desert day. We bought some groceries and ate cereal, yogurt, kiwis, and coffee for breakfast. Then we set off hiking to some ancient ruins just outside of town. It was very hot and dry but a beautiful hike. We walked through the ruins and then to the top of a hill next to it. We ate tuna and crackers for lunch at the top. We hiked back down and relaxed in the shade. After signing up for the Moon Valley tour that afternoon we made another trip into town. We headed to the tour agency at four and were soon driving through other worldly landscapes. We stopped at several different places including a field with rocks carved by sand and wind, a huge sand dune, a cave, and a great lookout point for sunset. We met some nice girls from America and had great tour guides. After our tour we ate Mac and cheese in our hostel. It tasted like fruit loops for some reason so we bought some ramen noodles and eggs to eat instead. I drank wine instead of water and started feeling bad so I went to bed. 

10/7:

We relaxed a bit the next morning and I attempted to rehydrate and adjust to the elevation and dry climate. We ate cheese omelette for breakfast. We went to town and signed up for a tour that afternoon to the seven altiplano lakes. We found an open air restaurant with a three course meal for $5 per person. We headed to the agency and found that nearly everyone else on our bus was Brazilian. After driving for an hour we entered the salt flats. They were beautiful on their own but had the most amazing lakes scattered throughout. Apparently they were only discovered in the last five years. The water was so blue but extremely salty. We were allowed to swim in two of the lagoons. They have five times the saltiness of the ocean, and like the Dead Sea, everyone floats. The water was cold and it was windy but after swimming we were completely dry, though covered in salt crystals, in a matter of minutes. At the end of the tour we were given snacks and Pisco sours (Pisco is the national alcohol of Chile and Peru and is a strong liquor made from grapes, then mixed with sugar, lime juice, and generally egg whites). We signed up for the geyser tour the next morning and bought groceries on the way back. We ate ramen with eggs, peas, and leftover chicken. Chile is by far the most expensive country we’ve visited, especially the food and lodging. Because we spent a fortune on tours we did our best to eat cheaply and get our calories from beer and wine, the only things cheap in Chile. It was now Friday and the campsite filled up. I’m talking tents stacked wall to wall. Some people in the campsite partied loudly until about four in the morning. This was frustrating as we had to be ready for the shuttle at 5 am the next morning.  

10/8: 

After a sleepless night we put on our warmest clothes, which were shorts because our jeans were being washed (I know we should have thought that one through). We huddled in our sleeping bag on the side of the road and looked at some amazing stars. We hopped in the van/bus with more Brazilians and were soon back to sleep. We arrived before sunrise, paid the entrance fee, and parked near the geysers. While they prepared breakfast I went running through the below freezing temperature snapping pictures amongst the most amazing geysers. There are over 80 in the area and are the third best in the world after Yellowstone and somewhere in Siberia. They’re also some of the highest in the world at over 13,000 feet. I ran back to the van, grabbed a coffee and sandwich, and huddled under the sleeping bag with Sarahí. The sun began to rise so we headed back into the geyser field for some amazing pictures. It was truly amazing to walk through clouds of steam, hear the hissing and bubbling geysers, and watch the sun creep over the mountaintop. There’s a hot spring on site where swimming is allowed. I was excited and hopped in. Unfortunately it was pretty cold except for one area where the boiling geyser water flowed in and threatened to scald your skin. I didn’t stay for long and soon we were back in the van. We passed some amazing scenery and animals like the vicuña (Andean camel) and flamingoes. We stopped in a tiny town were were tried lama meat skewers (quite tasty) before heading back. That afternoon we made sandwiches and attempted to nap but it was too hot. We tried to figure out our Bolivian visa and Uyuni tour and ran around all afternoon trying to get everything done. We decided to stay in town the next day because we didn’t quite have everything ready. We ate a delicious and massive dinner that wasn’t too expensive. Then we went sandboarding at night. It was a lot of fun with lights and a DJ at the bottom of a 300 foot sand dune.  It was a bit difficult to get the hang of but we had a great time. We came back to the town around 1 am and then headed to a party in the desert. There was live music, a bonfire, and incredible stars. We left after awhile and made it to bed by 4 or 5 am, utterly exhausted. 

10/9:

We slept in till eleven and the. Made eggs with ham, cheese and chard. We hung out in camp before going to town to finish arranging our entry to Bolivia. It took a lot of the day but eventually we had everything ready. Sarahi went to the meteorite museum. We ate sandwiches and worked on blog posts but had awful wifi. We ate leftovers from the restaurant the night before. Then we packed and went to bed early. 
It was a phenomenal week. Though Chile is a bit expensive, we saw and did so much in just a few days. Check out next weeks post about our continued trip through the desert to the Uyuni salt flats! 

Week 37: Chiloe Island, La Ensenada, Valparaiso; Chile
Monday 9/26: 

We woke up a bit later than planned, ate cereal for breakfast, and then packed our bags. The weather was a bit rainy so we decided to wait it out. However the rain got worse and the kind hostel owner called to the other side of the island. It was raining there as well and bad conditions for camping. So we decided to stay another night in a cozy room rather than camping in the rain. The hostel owner shared his lunch of meat and beets with us. It was delicious. Eventually we wandered through the rain down to town. We visited the famous church which is made almost entirely from wood. The museum was closed and we couldn’t find anything else to do. So we bought some deserts and found a collectivo (shared taxi) which took us up the long hill near our hostel. We bought a few grocery items and then stayed in our hostel for the rest of the night. I made spiral noodles with tomato sauce for dinner and it was excellent. We watched some tv together and then headed to bed. 

9/27:

The next morning we decided against camping. Sarahi wasn’t feeling the best and we were worried about mud or more rain. So we hopped on a bus and crossed the island in an hour and a half arriving at Chonchi. We entered the national park and hiked for a bit but weren’t super impressed. There’s a beautiful beach to the north of the park but 20 kilometers one way makes for a long day and we didn’t arrive until noon. And we had heard of the Muele de las Almas (point of souls I think) and decided to head there. It’s at least 15 kilometers south of the park and there’s no public transport. So we sat by the road hitchhiking, because without a lift we could never walk the whole way and back before the last bus back to our room. Eventually we did get a lift but only for a couple miles. Then we set off on a long hike and realized we did not have enough time to walk there and back before the last bus or even darkness. Luckily a nice Chilean couple picked us up and we all went to the Muele de las Almas together. From the parking lot it was still a 45 minute steep hike in mud but the views were great. Eventually we reached the destination, took a bunch of pictures, ate a picnic, and rested before heading back. We set off walking down the road again and after several miles the same nice couple picked us up! They really saved us twice. They drove us to northern part of the 20 km long and very wide beach. It was beautiful but super windy. In the end the Chileans drove us the whole way back to Castro, where our hostels were. We returned to the hostel and found out that the following day the fisherman/ entire island were blockading the island in protest against government management of fishing areas. Because there are no bridges we were stranded, possibly for days. Luckily the blockade did not begin until 9 am, meaning we could get up at 5 am and make it on a ferry in time. We decided to have one more seafood dinner and went to a nice restaurant on the coast. I had a whole roasted congrio (conger eel) which is delicious and one of the highlights of Chiloe. But Sarahi had 24 oysters au gratin that were so amazing! It was a meal we will never forget. After dinner we hiked the long way back up the hill and were soon in bed after walking over 14 miles in the day. 

9/28:

We woke up at 5:30 in the freezing cold long before the sunrise. We quickly packed any loose items and set off on the long hilly walk to the center of town. We caught the last bus we could and have never been so grateful for a seat on a bus. We fell asleep as the sun rose and then saw the fisherman blockade beginning as our ferry was the last to cross. We arrived in Puerto Montt an hour later and took a quick bus to Puerto Varas. We bought some groceries and then took another bus around the massive lake to a small town on the far side called La Ensenada. This town is surrounded by three volcanos and borders a lake you can barely see the other side of. It is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. We camped essentially on the beach and just at the base of volcano Osorno. It was 75 and sunny and I quickly changed into shorts and a tank top, then of course went barefoot on the sand. The campsite was pretty cheap, had bathrooms with hot water, electricity, a light in the campsite, and even wifi! Not to mention that we were the only campers and the view was incredible! We were in heaven. I swam in the freezing cold lake. We relaxed on the beach and played cards. We drank cheap wine and walked around the tiny town. Then we had the most amazing sunset of our lives. You can look at the pics and judge for yourself! We took hundreds of pictures. For dinner we reheated leftover pasta and sauce and grilled a couple sausages. Though we bought a cooking pot finally, we had no utensils so I had to carve sporks out of driftwood. It was a delicious meal. I drank more wine and fell asleep after one episode of Sarahi’s favorite show Once Upon a Time. 

9/29:

The forecast called for rain so after a breakfast of scrambled eggs, tea, and coffee, we packed up our campsite. After relaxing a bit we rented kayaks to take on the lake. It started sprinkling right as we set off but then stopped and the weather was cloudy but nice for several more hours. We kayaked for about two hours and it was spectacular! The water is blue but extremely clear and there was almost no wind so reflections of mountains on the lake were amazing! We saw a couple fish and several birds, as well as some sort of lake oysters. We returned the kayaks and the owner of the campsite told us about a whitewater rafting trip that afternoon with two open spots. He offered a good price so we said yes. We ate crackers and pate (imagine puréed hot dogs in a can, it’s an Argentinian thing but it’s not for us) and rested until it was time to leave for rafting. The other two rafters were a young couple from Belgium. It was their first time rafting and Sarahi’s second. The river was the same color as the lake and just as cold. It offered beautiful views and solid class three rapids. But the water was freezing, the wet suits did not keep us warm and by the end it was rainy and windy. We were soaked already from the huge waves but we were a bit relieved when it was over. We went back to our campsite for hot showers and fresh clothes. We waited for an hour in cold rain for a bus and headed back to Puerto Varas with our new Belgian friends. We hoped for a night bus to Santiago and arrived at the bus station at 8:55. We were on the bus to Santiago by nine and sound asleep shortly after. It was an amazing time and I will forever miss La Ensenada. 

9/30:

We arrived in Santiago at about 9 am and were on a bus to Valparaiso by 10. We arrived at the Pacific coast again at noon. We walked two blocks to a hostel that luckily had two spots for us. Little did we know but a music festival “Mil Tambores” (thousand drums) was in town for the weekend. There was barely a single room available in the whole city, but we found one slightly overpriced room for the next two nights. Our hostel was on the second floor over a meat shop and there were fruit and veggie stands everywhere. It made the hostel stinky and loud in the mornings but allowed for great eating! After showering and shaving we found lunch nearby and then walked down to the beach. The “beach” was actually huge boulders along the ocean but we watched the sea lion colony just off shore. Sarahi dropped her glasses and they fell down among the massive boulders. We figured they were gone but I managed to climb underneath a few of the boulders and by some miracle found the glasses! We left the “beach” after another hour or two and headed to our hostel. We bought some strawberries for $1 per kilo and snacked. We relaxed at the hostel for awhile and made some new friends. We all hung out for awhile and then Sarahi and I walked to a food truck for some good sandwiches. We went to bed shortly after. 

10/1:

After a decent breakfast I hung out with my new friends and then we packed up our bags. We walked to the market and bought quite a bit of vegetables and fruit, like 10 pounds for $4-5! We also found some great ceviche to go. Our hostel was full so we tried to take an Uber which never arrived. We walked to where we might find a taxi and eventually took a collectivo, which is a complicated shared taxi system based on zones that we can’t seem to figure out. We arrived at a house owned by a nice old lady who loved to talk. We had a nice big room with a comfy bed. We ate ceviche and fruit. Sarahi stayed in for some r&r while I went on a hike. I attempted to go to the beach (an actual but tiny beach) but it was closed. So I walked to the top of one of the many hills in Valparaiso. The view over the harbor was nice. I returned to our place and we bought some groceries. We cooked squash stuffed with cheese, ham, and more. It was great but took a long time to cook. We watched Netflix and drank some wine. We went out to near the center of town and checked out a three story bar with two live bands. One was good the other was bad. It was fun but the party didn’t start until at least 1 am and we were too tired to continue for long. We took a bus close to our place and walked back. 

10/2: 

We slept in after our late night. The woman of the house made us breakfast. Then we made some great sandwiches with tomatoes and avocados for the road. We walked down to the nearby road where the all day parade of the festival was taking place. We were surprised to see many women with pretty much nothing but body paint dancing in the parade. There were hundreds of groups and thousands of members of the parade. The street on both sides was packed with people. It was an awesome time and we stayed until the parade ended around eight. We enjoyed our sandwiches and some beer and bought some fries. We took pictures of the sunset and then headed back to our place. I ate leftover sandwiches, we watched more Netflix, and went to bed.

 
It was an amazing week! One of my favorites. We saw so many different landscapes and types of people. We moved around a lot and did quite a bit but it was all worth it! If you ever go to Chile definitely check out La Ensenada! Chiloe Island is amazing as well. 

9/19

After an early morning to pack up our bags and campsite, we headed to the bus station to grab some breakfast and check on our AirBnb in Santiago.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t check it since there was no WiFi available anywhere and we had to load up on the bus.

The bus ride through the Andes was gorgeous! We soaked up the mountains since we were about to leave them for a while.

The border between Chile and Argentina was one of the longest crossings we’ve had in a long while. They didn’t check for drugs, they checked for apples. One of the security guards asked if he could stick a tube in my bag to test the dog and it contained an apple scent! He got it.

After that, we finally spent a few more hours on the bus and made it to Santiago.

We ended up taking a taxi to our apartment, but it took a while since it was the last day of the weeklong celebration of Chile’s independence and the roads were all blocked off. 

After finally making it to our nice little apartment. We took the metro to a new part of the city. Unfortunately for us, literally everything was closed in the area we were in. It felt like an end of the world scene and it was kinda freaky.

We wandered over to another area where we were hoping to go up to the Cerro San Cristobal which has an entire view of the city, but the lines were packed. We decided to skip out on that and headed back to our apartment. 

On the way, we spent a good hour looking for groceries and beer since everything was closed.

We finally found some but also ended up finding a Chinese restaurant that seemed decent priced. 

We watched the sunset from the top of the building and played a Spanish card game since we had mistakenly bought a Spanish card deck earlier that day.

That night, we ended up ordering Chinese food and watching some Family Guy before going to bed.

9/20

We spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon on a walking tour and afterwards we ended up making some amazing friends with the other couple in the tour with us. 

We had lunch with them, tried Pisco sours and some lomo a lo pobre. All of it was delicious and with the company we had the afternoon was perfect!

Afterwards, we split up. We did the same round we did the day before only this time everything was just starting to close! We went by the famous Varga market to see all the fresh fruits and vegetables, stopped by the modern art museum and the classical art museum, and then we finally went up the Cerro San Cristobal to watch another pretty sunset.

It was pretty cold by the time the sun was down so we ended up heading to our apartment. We made quesadillas and soup and then went to bed.

9/21

We got up a little earlier than usual, made breakfast, and tried to see the other bits of Santiago before we left the city.

We stopped by the Pre-Columbian museum which was fantastic and then we went to the fish market to have some food at a restaurant recommended to us. Luke had the fried fish and I had the crab cake (which was more like crab dip). After eating that delicious meal, we finally went back to pick up our bags and headed to the bus station for an over night bus to Puerto Montt. 

9/22

When we got to Puerto Montt the next morning we quickly loaded up on a ferry to Chiloe Island and the city of Ancud. 

We had been hearing about all the amazing seafood in this region so after seeing the town’s museum we stopped by a restaurant and tried Curanto, which was clams, mussels, chicken, beef, pork, and 3 different kinds of potatoes all cooked together in an underground pit, and congrio, which is conger eel and delicious. 

After that, we decided to go find a campsite we read about that over looks the ocean. We hiked up and found one a great campsite for a slightly expensive $6500 pesos each. The view was worth it though. 

We set up and then left again to wander the town. Unfortunately, a lot of things were closed so we ended up heading back after buying groceries and then setting up our fire for our campsite. 

We made tea and sausages, potatoes, and onions and soon went to hide in our tent. It was so cold but we slept nicely in our warm little tent.

9/23

This morning, we decided to wander around the area we were in and stop by to see some of the beaches. We saw a lot of beautiful coastline and some wildlife – which we were hoping were penguins but actually weren’t.

We stopped by the information desk to ask more about the island and got a lot of information on where to go, which busses to take, and which areas were worth travelling to.

After getting all of that, we went back to our campsite and broke down our tent. Then, we grabbed some more seafood for lunch at this really cheap restaurant. It was so delicious! Since we wanted to go to the penguins, we took the bus at 4:00 to the area. It took over an hour for a 15 km ride because the bus took the long way.

When we finally got there, it looked like everything was closed or closing but we got really lucky as usual.

One of the owners of a restaurant had a spare room where she let us stay for only $16k. It had everything we needed included the tour run by her husband to go see the penguins – only at $7k ($10) each!

We quickly got on board since they were loading up pretty much after we dropped off our bags and away we went!

It was a good 30 min tour where we saw a load of different birds like 2 different kinds of penguins, pelicans, ducks, swans of the sea. We even saw one lonely sea lion!

Afterwards, we wandered around that little area and looked for a grocery store or something but everything seemed completely closed. 

Since we still had time before sunset, we decided to hike up to one of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. We were accompanied by a couple dogs and a very curious calf.

It was really cold and the sun didn’t set until about 45 minutes after so we tried to do some yoga to warm up but the dogs kept jumping on Luke!

The sun finally set even though it wasn’t a great sunset, it was still pretty.

We finally went down and hoped to find some food. Fortunately, we found the only restaurant that looked open. 

We got some seafood soup, empanadas, and some wine. After dinner, we went back to our room and hung out for a little before going to bed.

9/24

This next morning, we tried to hike to another beach a few kilometers away, but couldn’t really find the trail. The only road to the beach we wanted to see was an extra 15km out of the way.

We snacked at the mirador over looking that beach and then went back. Fortunately for us, a gentleman was driving to the location we were going so we hopped in and rode the rest of the way down.

Our host gave us free brunch, so we hung out there eating and drinking tea until we were ready to wait for the bus.

There was only one bus heading back that day and there were no busses available the next day, so we were getting pretty nervous that we missed it after waiting an hour for it to show up.

Some of the guys thought it had passed already, but fortunately some other travelers were told a different time – 3:30 vs 2:15.

So we finally got the bus back to town. When we got back, we decided to move on to a different town called Curaco de Velez. 

Luke had read about a campsite where we could stay, but unfortunately it was closed. After asking around, we discovered that there was nothing open since it was low season – not even restaurants.

Fortunately for us, there was a guy that let us stay in his backyard! After walking to his house and setting up our tent, we saw the beginnings of an amazing sunset!

We quickly hurried down to the lake in the town and watched that amazing sunset for a long while. Afterwards, we tried to pick up some groceries and stopped by a coffee shop in hopes of finding food, but had to resort to sandwiches and chips.

We soon went to sleep.

9/25

We woke up to find that our tent was soaked! After packing up early we headed to Achao to see the oldest church on the island. 

We accidentally walked to the wrong one but it was a nice walk! We finally made it to the old church which was very beautiful. Afterwards, we ate at a nice restaurant and had some more fresh seafood before heading to Dacalhue to check out their Sunday fair. There were a lot of neat products and we bought a few souvenirs to send home!

After that, we headed to Castro. We had an Airbnb that we waited for at the bus station but finally gave up and walked to the place at the top of the city.

We finally made it there and figured out we were both at different bus stations! We bought spaghetti and made dinner that night after enjoying some wonderful hot showers and washing some of our clothes. 

We were excited to be in a warm place and hung out there for the rest of the evening.

Week 35: Mendoza, Uspallata, Puenta deal Inca; Argentina

9/12: After a big breakfast in our hostel we said goodbye to new friends and took our stuff across town to a cheaper hostel. After checking in we packed some snacks for lunch and took a local bus to Maipu, a suburb of Mendoza. Once we arrived we rented bikes and received a map for our self guided wine tour. We cycled along the road for a few miles before reaching the first vineyard. This was the cheapest one and we tried six wines for only $7! None of them were too great but the view from the patio we had all to ourselves was amazing! We headed on to the next vineyard which had better wine but was a bit pricier and didn’t have the best view. We tried a few more types of wine and then ate our picnic at a shady area on the property. We pedaled on for a couple more miles and found another vineyard. We got a bottle of wine here but were sitting in the shade and getting cold. So we took our bottle and continued. Then Sarahi told me she really wasn’t enjoying the biking so we ended our tour and headed back to the bike shop. It wasn’t as fun of a day as we had hoped. We went back to our hostel and then headed out to dinner. The restaurants we wanted to visit were closed but we found another one and had some nice steak and pasta. 

9/13:

The next day we ate breakfast in our hostel and then packed a day bag. We bought some sandwich supplies and wine and hopped on a bus to the Cachueta hot springs. The bus ride was beautiful and only took about an hour. It cost around $7 per person to enter but the price included access to around 15 pools of varying temperature, picnic tables, and an amazing view. We ate a great picnic down by the river and drank some wine. Then we lounged around the hot springs all day and moved to different temperatures as they became hot cold or crowded. We left as the springs closed and had to wait outside in the cold for a bus. Eventually we caught the bus, walked back to our apartment in the cold ( maybe I should have worn more than flip flops, a swimsuit, and a tank top) before heading to dinner at a middle eastern restaurant we had heard good things about. It was overpriced but tasty. After eating we were exhausted and headed to bed. 

9/14: We woke up and ate breakfast, dreading checking out of our hostel and moving on. We decided to stay one more night and after breakfast we went grocery shopping. We spent a lot of money but purchased tons of groceries and some other necessities. We made a huge salad and some grilled cheese for lunch. That afternoon we walked around the city and went to a museum on the other side of town. That night we cooked a ton of food and prepared some of the groceries for travel. We ate fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. We put the leftovers in the freezer for the following days travels. We tried to watch a movie together but were quickly asleep. 

9/15: 

After breakfast we packed our bags and cooked some pasta (for pasta salad!). We walked to the bus station and found a bus to Uspallata. It was another beautiful bus ride near the hot springs but then we reached an amazing blue lake we had never heard of. We almost got off the bus there hoping for a campsite but we chickened out and stayed on. We found a sign for Uspallata and got off the bus but then realized we were still several miles away. It was hot and we had water and food for camping so it was a miserable walk. Luckily the one taxi in town stopped and we caught a ride for the best spent $3 of my life. We found a beautiful free campsite in the heart of the town but still quiet. We set up camp, ate pasta salad (delicious by the way), and enjoyed being in nature once again. As it grew dark we wandered the town, which only took ten minutes, and bought some beer and sausages. We returned to our camp to build a fire and cook our dinner of sausage onion and potato wrapped in foil and roasted . It grew quite cold by the time we finished eating so we took shelter in our tent and quickly fell asleep. 

9/16:

After a very cold night we stayed in our tent until the sun warmed it up. After a breakfast of fruit and granola bars we read and relaxed. We added tons of vegetables to the pasta salad and extra ranch dressing. It made an amazing salad and we ate a ton. Then we set out on a hike. A couple of cute dogs came to our campsite and we became friends so they accompanied us on the hike. We walked down the road looking for a museum. We couldn’t find it so gave up and headed down a scenic path. Luckily it led to the museum! It wasn’t too big or exciting but the views out back were great. We collected rocks for awhile and took pictures before returning to our campsite. We wanted to buy some hot dogs for our new friends but the store was closed for siesta. We went into a coffee shop for awhile and when we came out the dogs were gone. We bought hot dogs anyway. That night we ate salad as well as some leftover sausage and veggies. There was an amazing sunset! We watched Lord of the Rings in our warm tent before bed. 

9/17:

We woke to a beautiful day and packed up camp after breakfast. We ate hot dogs for lunch and then hiked to town. Here we found that the next bus onwards was four hours later. So we returned to the coffee shop and watched “Seven Years in Tibet” starring Brad Pitt on Netflix. It’s about a German hiker who is a prisoner during World War Two and forced to flee into Tibet where he learns from the child Dali lama. It was partially filmed in Uspallata, and the coffee shop, named Cafe Tibet, was inspired by the movie and decorated in accordance. It was a great movie and a very fitting location for watching. We kept “recognizing” mountains throughout the movie. We finally took the bus to Puente del Inca. The bus broke down and it was dark and freezing when we arrived. We were surprised to see snow on the ground. But nothing was open, even the “open year round” hotel. We had taken the last bus and were worried about freezing to death in our tent. But we found the only open hostel with very nice people and even hung out with the park rangers that night who fed us amazing food like stuffed pumpkin. Though Puente del Inca is only ten minutes from Chile, the busses do not stop here so we were forced to return to Uspallata the next day.  We were very happy for beds and blankets because it was truly freezing at night. 

9/18:

We made breakfast (of tea, crackers and dried fruit) and then hiked. A few feet outside our front door is Puente del Inca, a naturally formed stone bridge with many colors due to hot spring minerals. We hiked along the train tracks and had cool views. Then we found the national park and talked to the Rangers from the night before. We hiked through the snow to get a nice view of the mountain and some frozen lakes. Aconcagua mountain is the highest outside of the Himalayas. It has huge glaciers and made a spectacular view. We hiked back out of the park, waited with our things and read for awhile, and the took the bus back to Uspallata. We went back to the free campsite, pitched our tent, bought bus tickets for Chile the next morning, went to dinner where we ate baby goat (delicious), went to the coffee shop, and returned to our camp site for well earned sleep. 

It was an amazing week full of activities and camping! Our clothes smelled horrible and our bodies aches after the camping and hiking and bus riding but it was well worth it!