Chile 2019

Wednesday, November 20

After work we packed and headed down to SLC. Brett got us a room at the Sheraton for $39 because our flight was leaving early Thursday morning. We packed in our day packs and we can’t believe we actually fit everything. Hopefully we brought everything haha when we got to Salt Lake, we went to Lucky 13 with Tyson Fuller for dinner. I got a peanut butter burger and it was actually delicious! Once we finished eating we went back to the Sheraton and hung out in our room with Tyson. Brett stopped by as well! We just watched TV. Then we went to bed. 

Thursday, November 21

We woke up at 5:45am and took the Sheraton shuttle to the airport. Since we packed in our day packs, we went straight to security and got through super quickly. Then we had an hour to eat and chill in the Sky Club. Our first flight was to San Francisco so it was short. I slept the entire time. Once we got to San Fran we hung out in the Sky Club for about 3 hours and then we went and walked around the airport looking for snacks. The Sky Club food wasn’t appetizing at all. We just got Pringle’s and M&Ms and drinks from one of the marketplaces and then we boarded the flight to Atlanta. This flight seemed so long. Eventually we made it to Atlanta and we walked to our terminal and got some food at Panda and Arby’s. On the way to the Sky Club we ran into Cyd Vernon (Wendy’s sister) and so she came into the Sky Club with us! She’s so fun. She had to leave fairly quickly because she had to go to the terminal on the other side of the airport but it was fun catching up with her! Shortly after she left we went and boarded our flight. There were 11 Delta One seats available so I thought for sure we would get upgraded but sadly we didn’t. We were in Delta Comfort though so that was nice. This flight was almost 9 hours long and it was rough. I’ve had a fungal infection on my foot for about a month now and I went to the instacare for it and they gave me a steroid cream. Apparently fungal infections spread even faster when you add a steroid cream so my foot got worse. Then I went to a real doctor and he gave me a new cream that has been working but it takes six weeks to fully clear the infection up. So on the flight to Santiago my foot was fully swollen and it hurt! I had to keep elevating it to relieve some of the pain. We slept off and on because it was a red eye flight and we wanted to get on the Chilean schedule but it was rough sleep. 

Friday, November 22

Finally we made it to Santiago and customs took forever. And it was so hot in the room we were in. The line was so long. We waited for probably an hour before we got through. After we were through, we called our hotel because they had free airport pick up. As I was trying to call them we were getting bombarded by taxi drivers. We just kept saying no to them and eventually we made it outside and the hotel answered my call. It was a rough call because of the language barrier but he said to meet on the sixth floor at the sixth gate. There wasn’t a sixth floor but we found Salida 6 (exit 6) so we thought that’s what he meant. We waited for like 45 minutes and we were looking for some vehicle with our hotel logo on it. We were hoping we were in the right area and we didn’t miss them. Finally we saw a van with the hotel logo on it but it sped past where we were so we kept our eyes on it and we saw it pull into a nearby parking lot. So we started walking over to it but it wasn’t stopping so we started running and chasing him down ha come to find out he was just looking for parking so he could walk over and try to find us. But we found him first so we got in and he took us to the hotel. The hotel was close by so it didn’t take too long but we were way too early for check in. It was about 11:30am and check in was at 3pm. We really wanted to change and shower so we hung out at the hotel until they let us check in. We were exhausted so we faded in and out of sleep on their lobby couch ha around 1pm they said our room was ready so we checked in and went to our room. But we knew we couldn’t fall asleep because it would throw our sleep schedule off so we showered and watched some TV and just chilled for a little bit and then we called an Uber to go into Santiago. Driving in Santiago was pretty crazy. I would still say the Dominican Republic was worse though. Right now there is civil unrest in Chile. The locals are very upset with the government and police officers. It all started when the government raised the bus fare and now they are protesting police brutality, higher wages, lower cost of living, and they want a new constitution to be written. We didn’t know about it until the day before we left but the US said it was only at a level two (proceed to Chile with caution) so we knew to just be careful. Downtown was nuts because of this. The traffic was a mess so our Uber driver eventually just had us get out and walk because it would be faster than driving. We had to walk about six blocks to get to the restaurant we wanted to eat and the entire way there were protests going on. The graffiti on basically every wall was about the protesting and against the police officers. We saw ACAB everywhere and we learned that it stands for All Cops Are Bastards. The protesters all had gas masks or bandanas to cover their faces and some were wearing clear work glasses or goggles because apparently the police officers were shooting at the protesters with rubber bullets and the bullets had taken out about 200 people’s eyes. 26 people have died so far for the cause. The protesters also carry around these big jugs full of liquid and it’s for the teargas bombs. They grab them when they’ve been thrown and put them in the jug. They were all whistling, blowing horns, honking horns, basically however they could make noise, to the same tune. We never felt unsafe though. It was very warm! Like 80 degrees! Super nice. We walked past the Plaza de Armas and there were a ton of people there, they had closed down the Santa Lucia Hill because of the protesters. Basically everywhere that we wanted to go we couldn’t. We made it to Hogs and we ordered four hot dogs (we read that we needed to try a hot dog with mayo, tomatoes, sauerkraut) but I don’t like sauerkraut so I got a hot dog with mayo, tomatoes, and avocado and a hot dog with mayo, tomatoes, avocado, and honestly some other stuff that I’m not sure about. We also got a drink that we didn’t know the ingredients but after looking up the words it was a lemonade with mango and ginger. It was a pretty good meal but we ordered way too much! We had a great view of a park with a ton of protesters in it. We saw people in creepy masks and they were very creepy. After we ate, we walked back towards the Plaza de Armas and stopped at a market on our way. We got some drinks we didn’t recognize and then went to the Plaza to see what was going on. Jeff got a lemonade and a can of Pap. Pap tastes like cream soda (also like Inca Kola). I got Kem and it tasted very tropical! It was really good. At the Plaza we watched a few street performers. There was a guy that was dressed like a mime (but he was red and white instead of black and white) and he basically just walked around mimicking how people walked or just interacting with the people around him. His funniest moments were when he started walking in front of two women and they linked arms with him and he got all cocky and walked off with them ha and when he walked over to a car and honked their horn and he whistled and then they honked the same tune back. Ha it definitely doesn’t sound as funny as it was and Jeff was not amused at all ha we also watched a Michael Jackson impersonator. But it was getting dark soon and we definitely didn’t want to be downtown at night so we called an Uber to go back to the hotel. He took a while to find us. He tried to call me but he didn’t speak English at all so he hung up on me and I sent him a message with where we were and he understood that. Once he found us, we hopped in and his GPS wasn’t working at first so he kept trying to ask me where we were going. Luckily his GPS started working before I had to direct him anywhere ha but he didn’t follow the GPS at all. It took forever to get back to the hotel but I honestly enjoyed it because he drove us through downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. We saw a lot of cool graffiti and we saw some police cars at the scene of a riot so that was weird. We drove off before we could see what actually happened but there were A TON of people there watching. Once we got to the hotel, we watched TV until it got dark and then we took Tylenol PM and passed out. 

Saturday, November 23

We slept 12 hours. It was amazing. We woke up just in time for breakfast and then we went back to the room and rested until 1pm. We took the airport shuttle back to the airport because we were flying to Punta Arenas (Poon-ta air-i-nahs). Luckily our boarding passes were emailed to us because the line for JetSmart was SO LONG. So we got to bypass that and go straight to security. They didn’t even scan our boarding passes at security. They just briefly looked at our boarding passes and we went through security. So basically anyone could’ve taken our boarding passes. We never had our ID checked either. Our gate hadn’t been posted yet so we just found seats and chilled. Right before we boarded our flight we got McDonald’s and our gate had been posted so we went to our gate and we were almost the last ones to board. Even though according to the screens, boarding wasn’t even supposed to start yet. They are very chill at their airports ha they just scanned our boarding passes but didn’t check our passports or anything. The flight was about three hours long and it was 48 degrees when we landed. An unfortunate temperature change now that we are down south. On the flight I had a middle seat next to the cutest baby but the mom ended up moving to a row that had two empty seats so I got an aisle seat! On the flight we flew over parts of Patagonia and it was beautiful! At least what I could see. I could only see a portion past the guy in the window seat. When we got to Punta Arenas we went and picked up our rental car. The process was fairly easy despite the language barrier. This guy took us out to our Toyota 4x4 Frontrunner and the only word he said to me was bye at the end. Ha so we loaded up and headed to our Airbnb. I’m really bad at knowing how long something is going to take and I usually underestimate it (which is why I’m late so often) so on this trip I tried harder to be realistic and I ended up overestimating it ha I told our Airbnb in Punta Arenas that we wouldn’t be getting in until 8:30pm but we actually ended up getting there around 7:30pm. We stopped at a gas station to get some treats and drinks before we went to the Airbnb. The gas station actually ended up being right next door to our Airbnb. The hosts live right by the Airbnb so they were home when we got there. The wife greeted us (I can’t remember her name) and she didn’t speak any English at all. So her telling us where to park and then the tour of the place was fun ha apparently the place we actually booked was under construction so the place we actually stayed wasn’t as nice. After she gave us the tour we unloaded our stuff from the car and then we drove into town to find food. Punta Arenas was like a ghost town! We hardly saw anyone and almost everywhere was closed. We walked along the promenade for a little while and looked at the graffiti while trying to find a place to eat but we couldn’t find anything so we went back to the car and went to that gas station by our Airbnb and we bought gnocchi and marinara sauce to make back at the Airbnb. We tried to watch tv while dinner cooked but every channel was in Spanish (strange I know) and the only channel in English was a history channel. Which is very random to me ha after we ate we went to bed. It doesn’t get dark down in the south until like 10:30pm so when we finally went to bed it was like midnight. Which is late for us on trips. We typically go to bed fairly early on trips but the light outside was throwing us off. 

Sunday, November 24

We had to get up at like 5:30am so we could be at the meeting point for our tour by 6:30am. It was only five minutes away but I wanted to be early and we weren’t sure how the parking situation would be. It ended up being super quick and easy to park but the tour office was already open so we went inside and checked in. Then we loaded onto a big bus and drove to the boat dock. At the boat dock we loaded onto a covered speedboat looking thing and we drove to Isla Marta through the Strait of Magellan. We also learned this is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean! We sat by two other couples and we bonded slightly over the weird butt strap on our life jackets. People had buckled them and they were causing a massive wedgie and it was hilarious. The tour guides were adamant that we buckle those whenever they saw us. During the drive Jeff and I went out to the back of the boat and there were sea lions and seals jumping and swimming all around us as we went! At Isla Marta, we stayed on the boat and just drove close so we could see all of the sea lions and seals. There were SO MANY. It was crazy. They were fighting, swimming, eating, yelling haha it was pretty cool. We were able to go out onto the top of the boat to watch. Then we headed to Isla Magdalena where the penguins were. We saw some dolphins on the way! When we got to Isla Magdalena we took off the dumb life jackets and we went onto the island. The island was covered in penguins and seagulls. They were everywhere. We had to walk along this roped off path to the lighthouse but the penguins were able to cross the path whenever. We just had to be about 2 meters away from them out of respect. So if they crossed in front of you you had to stop walking and wait for them to cross. It was the cutest thing! Our tour guide was very strict ha she yelled at us for being too close to a penguin right off the bat and we were probably four meters away from it ha so we steered clear of her for the rest of the time. We hung back and walked slow and it worked out ha it was crazy seeing all of the penguin nests. The penguins would stand in front of their nests and throw their beak up into the sky and make this weird squawking noise. We saw a couple of penguins fight. We saw a penguin fight a seagull. It was crazy ha I saw baby penguins in the nests as well. Their nests are basically underground burrows. At one point we were walking and we caught up to a small group from our boat. They were all taking pictures of the same penguin when all of the sudden the penguin just waddles over and starts nipping at an old guy’s shoe. This other couple that we didn’t super like (they were know it alls and extremely full of themselves) were there and they were squatting down putting a GoPro in the penguins face and then they stood up and started getting mad at everyone for not walking away. One of the park rangers had come over and was yelling at everyone to back away and the guy from the couple went up to her and was asking questions but also answering them. Like he said, so when the penguin does that it’s probably because it’s being protective of its nest right? Its nest is right off the path so that would only make sense. I knew to back away the second he started towards us. Then later I heard him say this to another guy on our boat, “I wasn’t at fault. It was everyone else that wasn’t backing away. I immediately got up and walked away but no one else did.” That made us so mad because he was the reason the penguin was freaking out! He was all up in its face! Anyway, super annoying. But right after the park ranger came over, the penguin actually started pecking at Jeff’s foot haha Jeff had no idea because his back was turned ha So the island overall was pretty cool! After we did the loop to the lighthouse we got back on the boat. They gave us hot chocolate which was delicious and then they were walking around giving out other drinks and they gave us some and we drank it. It was absolutely alcoholic ha come to find out it was a pisco sour which is a Chilean cocktail. When the boat docked, we got back onto the bus and went back into Punta Arenas. Once we got to our car we headed towards Puerto Natales (puerto nuh-tall-es). It was about 2.5 hours away. On the way, we stopped at this beach that had tons of colorful, massive concrete blocks and took pictures and we stopped at a sign that said we were on the route to world’s end. We listened to a podcast on the drive and just talked. It was really nice! We saw tons and tons of sheep on the drive. It’s spring right now so all of the animals are having babies! I love it! The lambs were adorable. There was hardly any civilization on the drive to Puerto Natales. Zero gas stations as well. So we had to make a pit stop on the side of the road at one point ha we also saw hardly any cars. Driving down south is very easy and not sketchy at all so that was nice. When we got to Puerto Natales, we drove into town and just parked somewhere so we could walk around. We found a cool souvenir shop and bought some stuff and then we ate Napoli’s Italiano Pizzeria. Our server was the nicest guy! Jeff ordered a pizza with guanaco meat and I got Hawaiian style. It was so good!! After we ate we decided to head to the Airbnb. It was a little bit outside of town. The directions to get there were interesting ha we had to find a giant blue warehouse at kilometer marker 237 and take the small dirt road that runs along it and then take the first left and go down a ways and then you get to this small farm. Our Airbnb was on the farm property. The host Kelsey came out to greet us and her dog was with her. She was the cutest dog! She really liked Jeff. The Airbnb was so cute. It was surrounded by trees and out in the middle of nowhere. The trees were FULL of ibis birds. They were the size of chickens and the noises they made sounded like cackle laughing. They cackled allllllllll day and a lot of the night ha anyway, we unloaded all of our stuff and we just chilled the rest of the evening watching Friends on Netflix. We realized we needed to get food for the next door when it was 10pm (again the light throwing us off) so we found one of the only mini markets that was open and we went and bought food that would be good for hiking. We got these cereal bar things and apples. After that we filled up on gas and then we went back to the Airbnb and went to bed. 

Monday, November 25

Our plan was to go hike Mirador Las Torres but when we woke up at 5:30am, it was supposed to be raining all day so we decided we were going to try and drive to a glacier in Argentina. Because why not check off another country when you’re so close? So we drove about an hour and a half to the border but when we got there, we had to go to the PDI (police unit in Chile) building and check in. So we went inside and when we got to the counter, the guy asked for these PDI papers that they give you when you enter Chile. We left ours back at the Airbnb so then he asked for our car paperwork. So I went out and grabbed our contract and the registration and he said that we didn’t have the right papers. So we couldn’t go to Argentina. So fun fact — carry the PDI slip that they give you when you get here. At this point, we had been asked twice for it. So carry it with you! Also you have to get a certain document from your rental car facility that says you can drive across the border. Fun facts for future use! We should’ve obviously looked into this before we just spontaneously tried to drive across the border ha we decided to go into the Torres del Paine National Park at this junction and check out Grey Glacier. So we drove another hour and a half to the Hotel Lago Grey. On the way we had to stop and pay the park entrance fee. It’s 21000 pesos per person and they give you paperwork to keep and verify that you paid. You have to write how many days you are visiting the park and if you have accommodations within the park. Then we drove to the hotel. We went inside the lobby and they had an excursion desk so we went and talked to the guy there (who spoke great English!) and he said that all of their excursions for the day were booked but there was a small hike you could do to at least see the glacier. So we showed up where to go and off we went! It was absolutely freezing. We walked through this forest, found this cafeteria building, and from there we walked across a bridge and along a beach to an island you can hike. There were ice bergs in the lake and they were incredibly blue! We walked out to the island and could see Grey Glacier off in the distance. It was so cold though so we didn’t last long out there ha and we were starving. On the hike back to the hotel it started raining ha we stopped at the cafeteria to see if the food was any good and they were actually closing in like 20 minutes so we went back to the hotel to see if they had food. Their restaurant wasn’t open yet but you could get food from the bar. So we got seated and we ordered a Chilean beef sandwich and the Club Sandwich Americano. Both sandwiches were SO FREAKING GOOD. It could’ve been that we were famished but man those sandwiches were good. The Chilean sandwich had beef, cheese, and guacamole on it and the Club had guac, tomatoes, lettuce, bacon, ham, chicken, and a fried egg on it. Holy moly so good. After we ate, we drove back to Puerto Natales. When we got to town we found a super market (Unimarc) and we bought some better food for the hike the next day and breakfast. Another fun fact, they don’t have ranch, jam, or peanut butter in Chile. But they did have Trix :) Then we went back to the Airbnb and watched some Boy Meets World and then we went to bed. 

Tuesday, November 26

We woke up at 6am, ate breakfast, and drove about two hours to the welcome center by the Mirador Las Torres trailhead. You have to show them your paperwork from the park entrance and then if you plan on camping you have to show them hour reservation. Since we were staying outside of the park we were good! Then we started the trek. The first 1.5 miles are fairly flat and then the next mile is straight up hill. I was dying ha then you have a half mile of up, down, and flat until you hit the lodge. There you can buy food, drinks, and/or use the bathroom. This is where people camp when they’re doing the overnight treks. You can do the W, O, or Q hike. The W is the most popular and it’s like 4-5 days. We didn’t have the time to do it but we hit the highlights of it (Grey Glacier and Mirador Las Torres). We stopped at the lodge and got Gatorade and some candy bars. My hiking pants stretched and wouldn’t stay up so I asked the cashier if she had any rope or anything that could be a belt and she found me some rope. She was a lifesaver! The rope was a game changer ha then we started hiking again. There was 3.8 miles left in the hike. The first two miles start out flat with some spontaneous ups and downs and then the next mile is uphill and it’s a combination of dirt path and bigger rocks. Then you hike the last .8 and it’s directly uphill scaling rocks. It was ROUGH. I slept weird the night before and my right butt cheek did NOT like scaling the rocks. It kept seizing on me so I’d have to stop and stretch it out. It took us 3.5 hours to get to the top. On the way up we had sun, rain, and snow. We had to keep stopping and either add more layers or remove more layers ha the views were super pretty on the hike. But the view at the top was amazing! The weather actually worked out perfectly for us. It was super cloudy towards the end of the hike and we couldn’t see any part of the mountains above us but right when we got to the top, it cleared and you could see The Towers! They are MASSIVE. Pictures don’t capture how incredibly big they are. We chilled at the top eating our pineapple and strawberry jello and vanilla Oreos for a while. We took a ton of pictures. And then we started the descent. On the way down we ran into so many groups of people. We definitely missed the crowd at the top! It made going down somewhat difficult because you had to stop and wait for these big groups to pass before you could go down. I also rolled my ankle going down so that was also fun. We actually saw the annoying know it all couple from the penguin tour ha but we didn’t say anything. We also saw one of the couples that sat by us as well as this solo British man! It was fun seeing people we knew! We stopped at the lodge to go to the bathroom but that was it. We made it down in 2.5 hours. We basically ran down ha it doesn’t hurt my knees as much going faster ha so the total hike was 13.6 miles round trip. Everywhere online said the hike was 18 km (11-ish miles) so either we took a detour or the website is wrong haha when we got to the bottom, my hip felt like it was broken ha I was a disaster. My foot hurt from rolling it, my hip was killing me, and my toes hurt from the pressure of running downhill ha we got drinks from the welcome center and then we drove back to Puerto Natales. On the drive we saw a ton of rheas and guanacos with their little babies! We ate at Patagonia.food in town and they didn’t have great options so I ordered a chicken sandwich and Jeff ordered something called oyster suck ha when they brought our food out we couldn’t hold back our looks of shock. My sandwich was easily the size of a flattened bowling bowl. It was HUGE. And Jeff’s turned out to be this weird thick soup stuff with small mussel shells in it. I didn’t even know how to eat the sandwich. I cut it in half but it took both of my hands just to hold it to eat. I was a mess. I had guac all over my face and hands. And the sandwich just fell apart as I tried to eat it. I tried to grab my bottle of Coke and it slow motion started falling and Jeff caught it with his elbow. We died laughing haha we couldn’t stop. Everything was hilarious. I gave up on trying to eat my sandwich and Jeff couldn’t finish his soup because he hated randomly chomping down on shells. So we paid and left ha we stopped at the Unimarc again to grab more cereal for breakfast and a bar of soap because our Airbnb didn’t have soap for showering and then we went back to the Airbnb, showered, watched some Friends, and went to bed. Those birds usually stopped cackling at night luckily! 

Wednesday, November 27

We woke up at 6:45am to the cackling of the birds (our alarms woke us up but the birds definitely kept us awake) and we tidied up the Airbnb and headed out. We had to drive back to Punta Arenas because we were flying back to Santiago. So we drove the 2 and a half hours back and listened to a podcast. We stopped and got gas at the only gas station on the route to the airport. After dropping the rental keys off, we went through security. They were a little more “strict” here (meaning they actually checked our passport and boarding pass) and then we walked through the shop, bought an ornament, and went to our gate. This airport only has three gates ha when we got to our gate, there was a massive line but we assumed it was for a flight leaving before ours because there was still an hour before our flight so we just sat down and chilled. After watching the line for a little while, we realized it was for our flight and everyone was having to get their bags sized so we got in line. We fit our bags in the sizing thing but the lady told me I was only allowed one personal item (I had my red bag as well as my backpack) and she told me to fit my bag in my backpack. So I hid it beneath my jacket and under my backpack because there was no way I was fitting anything else in that backpack haha after we got our bags sized, they started the boarding process but there was no plane there ha they were just having us wait on the jet bridge. The plane rolled up about 20 minutes before take off, unloaded the passengers, and then we started boarding. It was actually much faster than I expected ha Jeff and I both had middle seats but we each had an empty seat next to us so I got a window and Jeff got an aisle. I was so excited to maybe see Patagonia again but of course it was super cloudy haha we’ve lucked out with weather so far though! The flight was three hours long. When we landed we got an Uber and he took us to our next Airbnb. This Airbnb was an apartment complex and we had to check in at the front desk first. After giving him our info we went upstairs and dropped our stuff off. We had a balcony that looked over downtown so we chilled on the balcony for a little bit and then we found a restaurant close by and started walking. It was so warm outside! It felt amazing. On our walk to the restaurant we walked through what I’m pretty sure was remnants of teargas. Not even joking. The people we were walking past kept putting their shirts up and covering their eyes and I thought it maybe was just a weird smell or something? So I breathed in and I felt it in my nose. Then it hit my eyes and then my throat. Jeff was feeling it in his eyes the most. It burned! The restaurant was called Holy Moly and our server was extremely nice. It was a burger place. We each got a burger and we shared fries with queso and bacon. It was a delicious meal! After we ate we walked to Santa Lucía Hill and went up SO MANY stairs to get to the top ha I was still sore from the hike! At the top it looked like part of a castle and there were great views of the city. On our way back down we bought some slushies. They were only okay. We saw tons of dogs and people making out on our way back through the park haha after we got back to our Airbnb we sat out on the deck enjoying the sun since we won’t be seeing the sun much back in Utah. Then we watched the sun set and we set up a time lapse on Jeff’s phone. But it was freaking me out because we were on the 21st floor and the wind was blowing so I was holding onto it for dear life and having a minor panic attack. As I was freaking out, Jeff went to go get us some drinks from the mini market across the street ha when he got back I stopped the video because I couldn’t take it any more. Then Jeff set up a different time lapse on my phone in a more secure place and after he set it up we noticed that small fires started popping up on the streets below. It was nuts. We sat on the balcony and watched people pouring gasoline into garbage cans and throwing a match in. At one point there were nine fires going. The entire cans were up in flame. I was nervous because a few fires were very close to some trees. We also watched protesters blocking traffic and walking in the middle of the streets chanting. We saw a large group of protesters take over a bus. They surrounded it and one person went on and then came back out and the entire group starting cheering and they all got onboard. We could hear tons of people nearby chanting. We never saw them but you could definitely hear them. We watched all of this for a long time and then we went and got in bed. 

Thursday, November 28

Happy Thanksgiving! It feels weird not being in the US for the holiday. Anyway, we woke up at 7am and headed down to the street to get an Uber. When the Uber driver showed up he asked Jeff to sit in the front seat because the police would stop us if we were in the back. Apparently the police don’t like the ride share stuff. We got to the airport with no problems and we went through security. They take forever to post the gates for the flights so we got McDonald’s and just sat somewhere random while we waited. I had to hide my red bag again because we were flying Sky Airlines for the second time. I lucked out and was in the aisle with no one sitting in the middle seat! The flight was almost two hours long. When we landed we went straight to the car rental counter for Europcar and the guy walked us out to the car, explained everything, and then left us with the keys. We had a little white car that only had like 150 km on it total. It was a manual! Jeff and I were so stoked haha neither of us have driven manual much since we lost our cars that had it. I drove at this point. We had a four hour drive ahead of us so we started the podcast and headed out. As we were leaving we actually realized how tiny the airport was in Balmaceda. It was TINY tiny. And there was hardly any civilization surrounding it. No gas stations, no mini markets, nothing. We really wanted a drink but there was nowhere to stop so we kept driving. The drive to Puerto Rio Tranquila was through a mountain range and it was the only route to take. The road was rough. Full of potholes and lots of sharp turns. About two hours in we were stopped due to construction and it was pouring rain. We thought it would be quick but after we had sat there for like 30 minutes, we saw someone behind us get out of their car and go talk to the construction worker. On their walk back I got out and asked what was happening and she said that the road was closed every Monday through Friday 1pm-5pm for construction (we got there at 2pm). Then she said in her very broken English that there was cafe and she pointed down the road. I took that as there was a cafe down the road and that we could walk to it. I was starving so we got our rain jackets on and we started walking. When we walked past the construction worker, she gave us a weird look. When we got a little ways away we realized that there wasn’t anything down the road so on our walk back we realized that there was a lady by the construction worker selling coffee. Cafe in Spanish. So I’m an idiot haha we went back to the car and luckily I had downloaded some Boy Meets World episodes on my phone so we just sat and watched those and ate the crackers we had packed for the next 3 hours. Luckily it went by somewhat quickly. Right on the dot at 5, they let us through. We had to follow the cars for the rest of the way. And the car directly in front of me would NOT let me pass them. And they kept randomly slamming on their brakes. It was still pouring rain and the road sucked so it wouldn’t have done me much good to pass them anyway but man it was annoying. After an hour and a half we got to the area of our Airbnb but we didn’t have an exact location. Luckily I had service at this point so I was able to message our host. I hadn’t had service the entire drive so that was very lucky that I had it! Our host said that a man named David would come meet us and take us to the Airbnb so I sent him my location. He eventually found us and we had missed the Airbnb by about 300 meters. There was no way we would’ve seen the turn off because it was a tiny dirt road. David took us to our tiny cabin and showed us around. It was the cutest Airbnb! It was RIGHT on the beach and it had a glass wall looking out onto the lake. The bed was right there so you would look right out onto the water. It had a little wooden hot tub on the porch and David mentioned that he would get that up and running the following day. He gave us the key and left and we dropped our stuff off and went 20 minutes further down the road to town. We were starving. It was a small little town but the drive between our Airbnb and town was BEAUTIFUL. Green hills, super blue water, man it was amazing. In town they used super thick rope across the road as a speed bump. When we got to town we parked right off the main road and walked around basically all of the town. It didn’t take long at all. As we were walking around we were bombarded by like seven tour guides. We told them we needed food first but we would be back. We ended up eating at Arisca’s and we both got the lasagna. These two couples walked in after us and sat by us and they were talking pretty loudly and they made a joke about how they could talk about whatever they want and no one would understand them and I looked up and made eye contact with one of the ladies and I said, I can understand you. And they all laughed haha so we talked to them for a bit. They were from Houston, TX and they told us they were doing a marble cave tour the following day at 8:30am. We said that we were looking to do that same tour and they told us the company they were going with. After we ate, we said bye to them and then we went to book a tour. We didn’t know how to approach the tour guides and we really didn’t want to barter or anything so we went up to a tour guide that had talked to us earlier but he had been on his own and not in the group. He told us about the different options (boat vs kayak) and we said we wanted to kayak so he walked us to the house of the tour operator. On the way he talked to us about the protests and how there wasn’t much rioting happening in Puerto Rio Tranquilo. Once we got to the tour operators (Adventure Travel) house, he said bye and left us there. The wife spoke English and she loved us haha she was talking our ears off about everything haha speaking English, the weather, the nearby glacier, and finally the marble caves. Her husband said to meet at their house the next morning at 8:30am and we would go. They made it seem like we would be the only ones on the tour and we were excited about that! They told us we didn’t have to pay until the next day so we said our goodbyes and we left! We went to the gas station (the only gas station for miles) and we grabbed water, Monsters, and some Fanta. We were very thirsty and we hadn’t had any water in a couple of days ha then we headed back to the Airbnb. When we got there, we decided to drink some water before we went to bed. Come to find out we bought disgusting carbonated water. Man I hate that stuff! I was so mad haha we asked our Airbnb host if we could drink the tap water and he said it wasn’t recommended by maybe if we boiled it? So we tried that. It took forever to boil and when it finally did, we turned off the heat and left it through the night. As we were waiting for it to boil, we ordered breakfast through David. Then we went to bed. 

Friday, November 29

David brought breakfast to us around 7:30am. I got yogurt with fruit and dry oatmeal on top and it was actually really good. Jeff got a ham and cheese sandwich and he liked it. Then we got ready and we met at the tour operators house. They had an Australian shepherd and it was the cutest thing!! It loved us. While we were inside, another Chilean couple showed up and the tour operators wife told us that we would be going with this other couple and another company. The other company showed up in their van to get us and as we were getting into the van, we saw the two couples from dinner the night before! What are the odds! Right when we got on they said, look it’s Utah! Haha the drive to the kayaks was about 20 minutes down the road. We had to drive down this way tiny, windy road to get to the water’s edge and then we got out and suited up. We got the skirts and life jackets on. The Houston couples were jealous that we got to wear our hiking boots. Their tour company made them change into these wet suit shoe/sock things haha these couples were super funny ha they claimed the only two double kayaks and they were giving me crap about having to go by myself and we joked about how I’d get lost or something. When we finally got on the water they were actually really impressed with how decent I was at kayaking haha it was absolutely freezing on the water. I forgot to wear gloves so my hands were completely numb ha once everyone was in the water, we headed to the marble caves. They weren’t far but we had to go against the wind which sucked. My kayak kept leaning to the right ha eventually we got there and the wind died down. Our tour guide Avi told us about the marble caves and how people get married there and how the marble was created. We were on Chemenko Lake and it’s the second largest lake in Latin America. It starts in Argentina and ends in Chile. It’s completely filled with glacier water and the color is an incredible blue. We rode around and through the marble caves. They weren’t what we expected but it was still cool. At one point one of the Houston couples went off on their own and Avi was calling to them to come over to where we were and the other Houston couple started yelling to them. Drew (the husband) was hilarious haha he was yelling stuff like, you guys aren’t supposed to be over there, she’s coming to yell at you, don’t be a gringo. And it was hilarious ha Drew kept calling us Utites haha he looks like Billy Bob Thornton to me. After we went through the “caves”, we headed back. The weather was beautiful while we were out there. The sun came out and the wind died down. After we got back we went to the van. The Houston couples were telling us about their travels and how they go on major trips together every other year and then smaller trips on the years between. I want to be them when I’m their age. I hope we can find a couple that we love to travel with. They were telling us about South Africa and it sounded amazing. Once we had taken all of the gear off, we loaded up and headed back to town. We got dropped off at Adventure Travel and we went inside to pay and then we went to find food. We ate at one of the few places that was open. I got chicken and fries and Jeff got salmon and fries. It was a pretty good meal! Jeff and I were loving the dogs everywhere. At one point I opened my car door and one of the dogs came and stuck it’s head on my lap and just chilled there for a minute ha after we ate we stopped at the gas station again to get real water and then we went back to the Airbnb. We stopped and took pictures at a couple of overlooks on our way back. It was only 2pm at this point and we had no other plans for the day so we messaged David to see if he was still planning on setting up the hot tub. Right after I messaged him he came to our cabin and said that they were having problems with the hot tub on our patio and he wanted us to use the one next door. We were one of two cabins being occupied and the other people were like five cabins away so we were totally fine with that. David was happy about that and as he was leaving he said, I’ll go start the fire. And immediately after he left I watched him drive over to the neighboring cabin and start a fire in this metal container in the hot tub. This is when I learned that he had to set the hot tub up by filling the wooden tub with a faucet and then use a fire to heat it. We laid on the bed for a little while and we ended up falling asleep for about an hour. Around 5pm we woke up and realized that David still wasn’t done with the hot tub. We felt horrible. We didn’t realize how long it would take and how much work it actually was. We snuck a look out the window and could see David stirring the water with this giant paddle. We didn’t know how to make him stop. He had already put so much work into it. We kept saying that he had to be close but he still wasn’t. At 7pm he came to our cabin and asked us to check the water. He looked absolutely exhausted ha so Jeff went out to feel the water and it was like a warm bath temperature. Jeff said it was good because we didn’t want the torture to continue. And then we had no choice but to change into our swimsuits and get in the hot tub in the cold weather. We tipped David because we felt so bad and then he drove off. Writing it out makes us sound like horrible people but we had no idea how much work needed to go into it and David had said he would set it up! I don’t even love hot tubbing so I felt extra bad ha so we sat in there for 30-45 minutes wondering how long we needed to sit in there to make it worth the work that David did ha then we had to get out because it was freezing and we were starving. So we quickly ran inside and changed and then we went to dinner. We ate at the Burger Schop. The guy highly recommended the lamb burger so we both got that. It was decent but I don’t think I like the taste of lamb. I’ve never really enjoyed it much. After dinner we FaceTimed my mom and then we went back to the Airbnb, watched some Boy Meets World, ordered breakfast again, and then went to bed. 

Saturday, November 30

David brought breakfast at 7am. He probably hates us at this point ha we got the same breakfast as the day before. We ate and got ready and headed out. Jeff drove this time and his drive was much better than mine was. The sun was shining and there were hardly any cars on the road. We got stopped randomly for construction but it never took long. There were zero gas stations on the way back so we couldn’t fill the car up again. The drive was about three and a half hours. We got to the airport, took the rental keys to the counter, and went through security. My water bottle was almost completely full and they let us through ha I cannot believe how chill the airports are here. There were two gates at this airport. Same seating area. We went to the little store and got ham and cheese sandwiches (which were actually really good) and this little mini torta by Nevares (which was delicious!) and some Orange Crush. Then we boarded the flight and I lucked out again. I was in the middle but no one sat in the window seat. Jeff didn’t get so lucky and his row was full. The flight was almost two hours. We were heading back to Santiago again. Our last little hopper flight! They are pretty efficient at the boarding process. As the previous plane de-boards, the new passengers are already lined up on the jet bridge ready to board. They have the back rows line up first. It’s pretty fast to board! After we landed we went to Chilean Rent a Car to pick up our car. The guy at the counter was the nicest! And he spoke great English. He explained everything to us and told us what to expect in Valparaíso. He said that people will try to get you to pull over by telling you your tire is flat or something and then they rob you. After he gave us our contract, we took the shuttle to the rental cars and another guy gave us our car. It was a tiny little manual car. It wasn’t a great car. When you accelerated it sounded like the car was going to explode ha the drive to our hotel was a little over an hour. We were actually staying in Viña Del Mar which is right by Valparaíso. Our hotel was WAY nice haha I booked it with some hotel points so I kind of splurged and I’m so glad I did. They had underground guarded parking and valet took our car there and our room was massive with a view of the bay. It was awesome! We chilled in the room for a little bit and then we went and walked along the water. There were a ton of people selling things but I liked it because you could look at everything and no one was in your face trying to sell you stuff. They just let you look and if you asked how much they would tell you. We also saw a lot of performers. We saw a girl dancing, a guy doing a puppet show, another guy building amazing things in the sand (a squid for example), and a clown. We walked down to the beach which was CRAZY crowded. We went and touched the water and it was pretty cold and then we went off to find food. We ate at an Italian restaurant and I got gnocchi and bolognesa sauce. It was delicious! The road that we ate on gave a very Myrtle Beach vibe. At dinner I found a graffiti workshop tour that we wanted to do so I emailed the company and they said we could join the tour the next day so we had something to do! After we ate we went back to the hotel and explored the hotel for a bit and then we went to our room and tried to watch tv but failed at finding something (we should’ve caught on at this point that nothing was in English but you never know haha) and then we went to bed. 

Sunday, December 1

We slept in hard. We won’t up a little after 11am and we went down for breakfast. Then we went back up to the room and relaxed some more. We heard Valparaíso was worse than Santiago with the rioting so we wanted to be careful and we didn’t really feel like going to the overly crowded beach. So we got an Uber to Valparaíso like 45 minutes before our tour started. Just on the drive there I knew we had made the right decision not going earlier. It was a pretty sketchy area ha we got dropped off at the square in the middle of the city and we immediately felt weird. The buildings were super run down and we were getting so many weird looks. There was a super market right by the square so we got some Oreo looking snacks and a drink and then we just sat in the square waiting because we didn’t feel safe wandering around. A little before 4pm there was a guy and two girls sitting close to us and the guy had a clip board so we thought maybe he was our tour guide and he eventually stood up and came over to us and asked if we were a part of a graffiti tour and we said yes. His name was Diego and he was pretty cool! We started walking around and he was teaching us about graffiti and murals. It was crazy how much safer we felt with a local present ha we learned that graffiti was started by the Romans and the big bubble looking graffiti started in Philly. There was graffiti EVERYWHERE in Valpo. Almost every wall was either covered in graffiti, tagging, or murals. As we walked around there was a stray dog following us everywhere we went. We were loving it. When we would stop to learn about a certain mural the dog would lay down. And then when we’d go on he would get up and follow us ha as we were walking around my phone buzzed so I looked at it and it was an email from the tour company. It said that Eddie was our tour guide and he was waiting for us in the square. My heart sank. I showed Jeff and we thought we had been scammed by Diego. But when I emailed the company back and told them we were on a tour already with Diego, Diego got a call and he was like, you guys are doing a workshop not this tour haha Eddie is coming to get you. I was so relieved haha they were with the same company! But we were actually painting graffiti at the end of the tour and Diego’s tour wasn’t doing that. So Eddie came and got us and we went with him. Eddie was super smart. He knew a ton of history. He also paints a lot of murals. He showed us some of his work around the city. Eddie had another stray dog that followed him around so we had two dogs with us ha some of the murals we saw were about the recent protests and riots in Chile and they were really sad. People with an eye missing, a black dog with a red bandana is a symbol of the riots and it means they’ll always be there. They drew the police as poop with eyes and Mother Nature in a pool of blood. It was sad. Eddie had actually just come from a protest with the Valpo futbol team. They had won the championship but didn’t move up in the rankings. We actually saw the protest on our tour. They were walking the streets chanting, decked out in their futbol attire. When we stopped where we were going to paint, Eddie had to teach us what to do if a riot started coming towards us. If it was a march, go in the direction they are going. If it was a riot, go in to opposite direction because they are probably going towards the police. He mimicked the sound of what tear gas being shot out sounds like. It made us kind of nervous ha we had to leave all of the spray paint bottles in his backpack just in case we had to clean up in a hurry. He said all spray paint stores are on strike until the people get what they want. The garbage guys were also on strike so there was trash everywhere. Jeff painted J-STRUT on the wall and I painted MOON GECKO. Graffiti is hard. I’m not going at it at all. Eddie had to help me do basically everything. But it was so fun learning! After we finished our designs, the tour was over. We paid Eddie and then he showed us the piano stairs and a good overlook of the city and then he left. We wandered around for a second and then went back to the square. We called an Uber and he showed up in like 30 seconds ha we got dropped off at our hotel and we walked to McDonald’s. McDonald’s was CRAZY. So many people!! Eventually we got our food and took it back to our hotel room and ate while watching Harry Potter in Spanish. We also watched some Tangled in Spanish ha then we watched some Boy Meets World and went to bed. 

Monday, December 2

We slept in again. We went and ate breakfast around 10am and then we went back to our room and chilled. We got late check out until 2pm so at 1:30pm we packed our bags for the last time and then we headed out at 2pm. We drove straight to the airport because we didn’t really have anything else that we wanted to do. We got to the airport at 3:30pm and our flight wasn’t until 9:50pm ha and by some miracle there happened to be a Delta Sky Club! So we hung out in there and snacked. It wasn’t very filling though so we left around 8pm and went to Subway. Then we boarded our 9 hour flight to Atlanta! I fell asleep pretty quickly and slept for six hours. I woke up just to walk around for a second and then fell asleep again. They gave us breakfast an hour before we landed and then we were there! The flight was frigid. I had to wear my winter coat ha 

Tuesday, December 3

We got to Atlanta at like 5am. Boarded our flight to San Francisco at 7:30am. Then we went from San Fran to SLC. We landed at like 5pm and then drove home. Such a long travel day haha but we loved our trip!