We knew the hostel had breakfast (which we have figured out is worth about $3 per person when comparing a hostel that has it to a hostel that doesn´t). But we had no idea the breakfast would be this amazing. Toast, yogurt, cereal, coffee, tea, cookies, JUICE!, the works. We have learned that when a hostel gives you breakfast, take all that you can. So after stuffing ourselves, we wrapped up the remaining toast and cookies and headed to the 8:00 am bus. The bus, a large coach type of bus, led us East. We checked out of Chile at the boarder, drove a few kilometers, and checked in to Argentina. No cost! About 3 hours in to the bus ride, it got very hot and the driver didn´t feel like opening the windows or anything ... read more

Beautiful sunshine and breeze to start the morning on our trek to Mirador del Paine. The first hour and a half turned out to be switchbnack after switchback which gave us plenty of reason to stop and admire the views behind. Reaching the top we turn a corner and are blasted with chilly high winds and start to descend a good 50% of the elevation we´ve just gained (!!) until reaching Refugio 2. We wind through a river valley, a damp forested area, cross a couple of adorable bridges, it´s raining mixed with a little snow, then back to the wind tunnel, we´re sweating, we´re freezing, it´s great. The last hour of the trek is way too steep and we are totally wiped until we reach the summit and can finally decide if it was worth ... read more

Today we awoke to some rainy weather, but by about 10 it was just cloudy. We bought our tickets to head to Isla Magdellena, the island of penguins, which is in the Strait of Magellen. Another mastery of public transit occurred with the "collectivos" (shared taxi´s) to get us to the port. We rode 2 hours out to the island on a large ferry that can hold 200ish people, but we only had 80 or so on the boat. We spent an hour on the island. Incredible. There were hundreds...no thousands of penguins everywhere. They migrate to the island from Brasil and other places to breed. They are there from about October and will be leaving relatively soon I think. The babies have already made their way up North. The teenagers are molting so there are ... read more

Bienvenidos a Santiago! We arrived in Santiago Tuesday morning after a brutally uncomfortable 9 hour flight from Atlanta (I - Matt, slept maybe an hour...but at least Moneyball was ok). Despite the grogginess, we started the trip off with a few great successes. Success 1 - our bags showed up...what a relief. Success 2 - we figured out how to take a bus from the airport to center city using our broken spanish. Successish 3 - we found Hostel de Sammy with only one wrong turn. Failureish 1 - we went to a restaurant for lunch and were barrated by an old gentleman (who we thought was trying to seat us) for trying to take his seat. Oops. His food looked good though and since we couldn´t read the menu we told the waitress ¨we´ll have ... read more