We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas from Chile! We hope everyone enjoys lots of great food and laughter with the people they love! We will be spending our day at the pool:) which is always a bit strange when you are from Canada. We miss everyone and send big hugs for the holidays! xo
We have arrived safe and sound at our condo on the coast in Renaca. The building is great it has an indoor and outdoor pool and gym that all look over the ocean it's a pretty great view! The apartment is close to a grocery store which has been so great as we have been able to cook some great meals that we have been missing. We are happy to have our own space for a couple weeks. They say that the fire works on new years are supposed to be the best in South America and we will be able to see them from our apartment! It's good we have time to sit and relax in the sun and finish planning the rest of our journey. We hope everyone is gearing up for a nice well deserved break over the holidays! Can't believe Christmas is a week away. We miss u guys and will talk soon!
Well we survived our 16hr bus ride! It was a bonus they played snow white and the huntsman as well as rock of ages both in English! That helped kill a few hours and the rest of the time we were able to sleep. It's crazy we have another 6hr bus ride to Vina Del Mar where we have rented a condo for Christmas and new years and we will only be half way down the country! The city we are in right now is the second oldest in Chile. It's been great that they have some big supermarkets where we have been able to stock up on some of our familiar brands of toiletries and stuff! They have a place called Lider that is essentially Walmart but 3 times the size of anyone we have at home, it was insane. We even got our laundry done at the jumbo supermarket! Tonight we are going to go see the hobbit, Glenn is super excited there is a movie theatre right around the corner:) The weather has been great so we are looking forward to spending Christmas day in our bathing suits at the pool! Hope everyone is ready for Christmas! talk soon! xxx
Pics: the lookout at the cross built for the new millennium.
Well we were spoiled on our 12 hr bus ride we bought the cama seats and were able to sleep the whole 12 hrs! The seats recline twice as much as an airplane, you have a foot rest and they give you a pillow and blanket! So tonight we have a 16 hr bus down to la serena and we booked the fancy seats again so cross our fingers we can sleep! The last couple days we have been in the desert the landscape here in San Pedro has been very unique. We did 2 tours the first one we went to the salt lake lagoons one of the ones we swam in has 60% more salt then in the ocean! You couldn't sink if you wanted to you were so buoyant you could float above the water! One of the flats had 3" of water above the salt it was very strange to walk on. The other tour was to the moon valley it is called that because it is the closest resemblance to the surface of the moon. We went to the 3 Maria's and through salt caves before watching the sun set which was very nice. We are here in San Pedro till 4:45pm when we will catch our next bus! Hope all is well! Chow for now:)
Well we are officially in our 9th country on our Latin American tour! We were quite happy that our $30 dollar flights we booked were actually legit! Only thing was someone stole our Canada flag name tags off our back packs, who does that? we thought Glenn's may have just fallen off but when mine was gone to... it was too big of a coincident, so there is some Peruvians pretending to be Canadians:) Once we arrived in Tacna we took a taxi to the bus terminal where we caught a colectivo which is a sedan packed with 6 people that we took over the border. Good thing we read ahead of time that the driver takes your passport cause it does seem quite sketchy when he asks for it and disappeared for half an hour! But we made it to Arica, yesterday we wandered around town and walked up to point El morro which had great views of the city. Today we are going to go to the beach and get some sun and tonight we take a 12hr bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama ouch! We paid a little extra and got the cama seats which almost lie down so hopefully we can sleep:) All in all we are good it's weird here we are on the ocean but the landscape is desert! San Pedro is supposed to be the driest desert in the world so should be interesting! That's all for now!
We never really thought altitude sickness would affect us so much but when you hike up stair after stair and can't get enough air, I get it why people buy those oxygen tanks. You could walk the same hill at home and feel nothing! Yesterday we took the train from cusco to aguas caliente and spent the night at a bed and breakfast so we could get an early bus and try to miss some of the crowds. We caught a bus at 7am and had a tour guide take us around the ruins, cause to be honest if you don't have a story behind it they all start to kinda look the same:) We lucked out and had a beautiful sunny morning and were able to get some great pictures! It has very cool views! Definitely something to see in your life time we can now check it off our bucket list! We head back to cusco for 2 more nights and then fly Cusco to Arequipa and then to Tacna where we will take a taxi over the border into Arica Chile, so tuesday will be a busy travel day! Can't believe Christmas is around the corner! Hope everyone is well and has atleast started there shopping:)
