Sunday, March 1 Our room last night was surprisingly pleasant and comfortable, and I so wished we could sleep in, but we planned on visiting the second park in the area in the morning and then needed to make up some distance going south, so sleeping in wasn’t an option. For breakfast we went back […]
Tuesday, March 3 We took advantage of our nice hotel room and after another breakfast of instant coffee and stale pastries with jam we lingered until a “courtesy call” came for the 10 am check out. Before getting out of town we stopped at a Yamaha shop to get a few quarts of oil for […]
Sunday, March 8 Today we were finally leaving our fine quarters at Hotel San Francisco for a two-day car trip. Our plan was to spend the night in Valparaiso and the next day head south for Chile’s Ruta Del Vino to check out the wineries in the Colchagua Valley. After breakfast, Matt and Judy (his […]
Monday, March 9 After breakfast at the hotel we decided to do the final walk around the neighborhood in hopes of visiting some artist studios and artisan shops. Just like dinner doesn’t start till 9 pm in this part of the world, shops don’t open until 11 am, so nothing was open, except for one […]
Tuesday, March 10 We met for breakfast in the downstairs dining room around 10 am. Our favorite guest service lady was buzzing around replenishing the buffet spread and filling up our cups with tea and coffee. The buffet had an amusing selection of chocolate cereal, yogurt, cheese and salumi, tomatoes and avocados, jams and cookies, […]
Saturday, March 16 Today was one of the best and diverse days of the trip as we were venturing into the famous Chilean Lake District that stretches 340 km from Temuco to Puerto Montt. Our 2-day boredom run on the Panamerica was ending and being replaced with stunning scenery of dense forest, lush farmland, snow […]
Sunday, March 15 Our hostel room was very comfy and pleasant so despite our best efforts to be on the road early, we lingered a bit enjoying our breakfast of fresh berries purchased yesterday and finally rolled out around 10 am. We drove to Park Nacional Puyehue via a scenic road along Lago Puyehue and […]
Wednesday, March 18 When we were planning this trip, reaching the town of Bariloche represented to us the arrival at the final leg of our adventure – the remote and beautiful region of Patagonia. We have heard many good things about this town and decided to spend two nights here, using today to rest and […]
Thursday, March 19 We got up at 7:30 am knowing that we had a long day ahead of us as we were crossing back into Chile. We realized that we had no Chilean money and the travel book mentioned that there are no ATMs in the 500 km stretch of the Carretera Austral, so after […]
Monday, March 23 Since we had somewhat of a late night last night, it was hard to pull ourselves out of bed earlier than 8:30 am this morning. We ate a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fruit we purchased yesterday and were on the road before by 9:30 am. The border crossing was fast and […]