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Chile: Caldera
We arrived at the Caldera bus depot in the evening and grabbed a cab to our lodge (Ckamur Boutique Lodge), which we had booked that morning at a coffee shop in La Serena. After the cab left, we noticed that the lodge was in a somewhat isolated, very quiet part of town. In fact, the lodge itself was very quiet. Too quiet. Only the outside lights were on and it didn’t seem like anyone was around. We looked for a doorbell or speaker by the front door but couldn’t find either. We walked around the property looking for another way…
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Chile: La Serena
The next stop on our trip was La Serena, a smaller coastal resort town that is a popular tourist destination in the summer months (and the second-oldest city in Chile, after Santiago). The bus ride to La Serena along Route 5 (the asphalt artery that runs north-south through the country) was about six hours and was quite tolerable. Coaches in Chile are comfortable (with several seat upgrade options) and the bus companies are very timely and efficient. We arrived in the late afternoon, got lost walking from the bus depot, oriented ourselves using the sun, and eventually found our hostel…
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Chile: Valparaiso
We arrived in Valparaiso in the early afternoon and took a shuttle to our hostel (Hostal-Cafe Nomades), located on Cerro Alegre, one of the forty-two hills in the city. The term “hostel” is a bit misleading here, as this place felt a lot more like a B&B. Like the city itself, the entire hostel was colorful, cultural, and artistic; the walls were covered with murals and paintings done by the property owner, who is also a local artist. Our private space on the top floor had two rooms, two beds, a private bathroom, and a private balcony. Once we dropped…
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Chile: Santiago
The first twenty-four hours of the trip were about the same as any trip: lots of time spent miserably sitting uncomfortably or waiting in line. We connected through LAX and Panama City and then landed in Santiago on a cool Tuesday evening. After hitting up the currency exchange and securing our baller status with hundreds of thousands of colorful pesos (which I affectionately refered to as “Monopoly money”), we hopped in a cab for downtown. Becca was able to chat up the driver a bit with her Spanish, though we realized later that that poor driver now mistakenly thinks San…
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Chile: Prologue
During the end of May and beginning of June, I spent 18 days with a dear friend sauntering through the cities, beaches, mountains, and desert of Chile. The entire holiday was an incredible experience and now I’m faced with the daunting task of transcribing nearly three weeks of fun and adventures, large and small and everything in between. A lot happened during that time, so I’ll have to split up the entire tale into multiple blog entries (probably one for each week). Before I get ahead of myself, I should give a little context as to how this trip came…
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Galapagos Adventure: Epilogue
The Galapagos Islands have a reputation for being fascinating and unique and for very good reason. Even though this trip was carefully organized, scheduled, and chaperoned, it still felt like an adventure in a remote part of the world that has been minimally touched by the human existence. Even normally mundane activities like transportation became exciting because it involved a pickup truck in the jungle, or an open-air bus on a gravel road, or a fast boat in the open water. This seems like a good time to acknowledge the wonderful hospitality of Red Mangrove, who made this trip really…
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Galapagos Adventure: Days 6 – 8
The final two days of my trip were a bonus of the Travelzoo package. They were completely open and unscheduled and I spent a lot of my time hiking, taking the water taxi, and visiting local beaches for swimming and snorkeling. One of the popular local spots is Tortuga Bay, an inlet that is home to a lot of protected wildlife but also has very calm waters for swimming; the waves were so small that it felt more like a lake than a bay. It’s one hell of a trek to get there though. From the lodge, the hike takes…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 5
The next morning, a few of us went out in search of more wildlife. We found half a dozen flamingos in a small pond and then visited the breeding center on Isabela, whose logo is quite exceptional (see below). Tortoises are bred at the center and released into the wild when they have reached a certain maturity. The center also serves as a hospital; injured animals found in the wild are rehabilitated and eventually released. This trip turned out to be an unexpected delight because we arrived at the center just at feeding time. The younger tortoises (less than eight…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 4
After getting dressed and packing, we went back to Lelia’s for breakfast, which included blue eggs, coffee, papaya, granola, yogurt, bread, and guava marmalade; all the food came from crops and farms on Floreana. Looking back, the two meals at Lelia’s were quietly some of my favorite memories from the trip. Even though the family didn’t speak English, they were incredibly gracious and the food was excellent. It was a very different and satisfying experience to enjoy varied, healthy, and delicious foods that came from farms only a few miles away in a place with barely more than a hundred…
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Galapagos Adventure: Day 3
The first stops in the morning were various natural formations created by magma from ancient volcanic explosions. There are two very large craters, “Los Gemelos” (“The Twins”), which are collapsed lava chambers that have since been overrun by jungle growth and animals. We walked through one of the underground lava tunnels, which was carved out many years ago by sideways-traveling magma. The next stop was a private reserve that serves as home to many free-roaming giant tortoises. Like the iguanas and the seals back at the lodge, the tortoises made fantastic photographic subjects, mainly due to their lack of velocity.…
