Chile
1/24/2009
Today we will finally start our journey out of Tierra del Fuego! From Rio Grande, we decided to wash laundry get some food, and hitchhike to Chile! After we finished all our preparations, we headed to the highway, a little late, like 4:00 PM. At the highway, the wind was blowing like 50 mph! And it was cold, not the best weather for hitchiking. We waited for 2 hours 45 mins, and our morale got really low. Finally we were about to give up and then we caught a ride with a guy headed to San Sabastian, a small town on the border of Argentina and Chile. The town was pathetically small. There was one restaraunt/hostel and a gas station. The hostel charged 200 pesos for the room(way too much) so we headed to the gas station to ask if we could camp behind it. He pointed at an old abandoned building next to hostel and said that we could camp behind it. We exchanged looks with each other, and we`re like, “Free? All right!” So we set up our tent in what we called “the Junkyard” an old abandoned machanic shop with alot of junk behind it. At least the building was a good windguard. We bought a nice chicken soup for cheap from the restraunt, and then went to bed for our next large day of hitchiking!
First thing in the morning (after getting ripped off for breakfast), we crossed the border out of Argentina on foot, and put up our sign and stuck out our thumbs. After 2 ½ hours of hitching we were starting to lose faith. We finally saw a bus headed to Punta Arenas, Chile, in the general direction we were heading. Laina went up and asked the cost, which turned out to be cheap, and we bought ourselves some tickets for the last three remaining spots on the bus. I dont think that it was a legitímate trade, because they never asked our names and then when we headed into chile, we got off before everyone else and told the crossing that we were hitching across the border. All said and done, everything worked out great. The bus driver was so accomidating to us, he even got in contact with another bus headed to the town we were headed to (Puerto Natales) and we did a bus switch mid-highway!
Arriving into Puerto Natales, we headed to the Cajero(ATM) and withdrew some money. How much did I withdraw, you ask? 100,000$ Chilean Pesos!!! $100,000! I`m rich! No, I`m not really, the exchange rate is 600 Chilean to 1 Dollar. So if you do the math, it is not really that much money.
We got a nice campground in town for US$5 a night, which is pretty cheap, and got some groceries, made ourselves at home, ate some Chilean Chorizo, and had nice sleep after a long day of traveling.
If you know your geography, you might know we are in the vicinity of National Park Torres Del Paines, one of the Premire parks in South America. While it looks beautiful, it is so expensive to enter, that we decided to skip the park and study spanish instead. We tried to buy tickets to head north, instead of hitchhiking, because hitching here is difficult in the cold wind. The earliest we can leave here will be the 29th of January, so we will be here for 5 days and trek around town, and study spanish.
In our campground we met three more guys from the US, and chatted about Obama and the new administration. For me, it seems so far removed, and far away, and I really enjoyed hearing the news they shared, because it is difficult to keep in touch with US news, the time I spend on the computer is pretty much strictly limited to communication with ya`ll!
So I will have more news as it comes, but know that for the next few days we will be trying to lower our daily expenditure and learn some more spanish, also we will be in Puerto Natales, Chile. Look for it down in the south south of Chile, about 250 km north of Punta Arenas!
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