Just as Marea’s family arrived, we confirmed the final details of our next volunteer experience. In fact, I wrote the final “Yes! We’ll see you then” as they walked in the door, and we were excited to tell them all about it.
We’d be helping on a quince farm, we explained, whatever that was. This prompted a bit of research on the asian fruit and the sweet cheese/paste/jam stuff it makes. We all began to spread to word: we were going to a quince farm and soon we’d be quince masters. Fun!
A few days after our initial rejection from Mendoza, we gave border crossing another try, this time by bus. Success! We now have so many Argentina stamps in our passports from various shenanigans that a customs officer recently asked Kristy in Spanish if she lived there. She didn’t understand him so she cheerfully responded, “dos o tres semanas?” which we think indirectly answered his question.
A worldly Columbian we met in Peru said this of Chile: “It is the best of the South American countries, but my least favorite for travel. There are no – how do you say? – surprises. The showers, they are hot. The buses, they are on time. The toilets, they are working.”
I was relieved to hear this as my mother was coming to visit us in Santiago and bathroom-related surprises are some of her least favorite. And honestly, after a few months enduring some of the “surprises” Peru, Bolivia and the more remote regions of Chile had to offer, this didn’t sound so bad to us either.
After leaving Patagonia, we only had a few weeks to explore the rest of southern Chile before we needed to hightail it to Santiago and greet our next round of visitors.
Past experiences had made us somewhat distrustful of Patagonian transportation, so we didn’t want to jam too much in and get stuck in some remote town with bi-monthly mule departures. We decided to play it safe and stick to two places – Chiloe and Puerto Varas – and pre-booked as much transportation as possible to avoid disaster.
Continue reading Last Hurrah in Southern Chile: Chiloe and Puerto Varas
Almost as far south as Antarctica, you can safely call Patagonia a remote location. In recent years, tourism has taken hold in a handful of locations like Torres del Paine National Park, El Chalten, and the adventure tourism capital of Pucon, where you recently heard about the nearby volcanic eruption.
Roads have been built, a few paved, and bus routes and flights have grown in number. It’s all gotten a lot easier to maneuver as a tourist/traveler but as a Workaway volunteer we had our work cut out for us when traveling to our next job in the town of La Junta in Chilean Patagonia.
We didn’t know where to start. We couldn’t even find this place on a map! Even the host warned potential volunteers that they are located in one of the most remote parts of Chile and travel is difficult with buses and ferries that leave once or twice a week. They boast the life motto:
“If you’re in a hurry, you’re wasting your time.”
The Patagonia portion of our trip opened with a very wonderful, welcome change: friends!
Kristy and I enjoy each others’ company very much, but when you spend literally every moment of your day with one other person, occasionally the conversation wants for some additional voices. Kristy will often start a sentence with, “did you hear that they recently did a study…” and I have to cut her off because it was a mutual friend that posted that article on Facebook, and I just read it too.
Continue reading Patagonia: So Much More Than a Clothing Brand You Can’t Afford
Visiting Bolivia was sort of an accident, and our first diversion from our 3 countries in 6 months plan. We originally thought we’d work our way down slowly on buses from Peru into northern Chile, but we had some good friends coming to visit that were interested in going to Patagonia (i.e. the very tippy end of the continent). Chile is that lonnngg skinny country on the map that looks like a subway sandwich – when rotated ninety degrees I believe it wraps around the world thrice – so the most practical option was flying. We were happy to make this change as Patagonia was high on our list and not a place we probably would have made it on our own, but to fly, we had to find our way to the nearest large city. Enter: La Paz, Bolivia.
Copa… Copacabana.
Marea forbade me from singing that song while we were visiting the namesake on Lake Titicaca* (hehe), and now my privilege of even speaking of the beach-town has been revoked.
Continue reading Kristy Reviews Non-Midwestern Lake; Finds It Acceptable
After Arequipa, we hopped on an overnight bus to Cusco. Cusco was the capital of the former Incan empire, and is thus the jumping off point for visits to some incredible piles of stones, most famously Machu Picchu.
Arequipa- The White City
After a relaxing time at the Jihuay farm, we were off to the city of Arequipa and on our own once again. Arequipa turned out to be a refreshingly, urban setting so we decided to upgrade our accommodations to a hotel instead of a hostel. Big spenders!
As usual, we had a few different hotels in mind to check out but our taxi driver had other plans.
Continue reading The Mistakes…I Mean, Lessons of Arequipa and Colca Canyon
The Traveling Blues 