Luckily, we crossed the Straight of Magellan on a calm day because we had heard stories of people being stranded for many hours at a time waiting for either the winds or the waves to abate. Our crossing was very nice and I enjoyed riding at the bow even though it was a little cold. After the crossing, we continued for another 12 hours before we arrived in Ushuaia (the Southern-most city in the world).The city was originally founded as a penal colony, which would ...

My reason for traveling to the end of the world was as much for the mystery it held in my mind as the rare, few, intriguing photos that I had seen, In order to acquaint myself with this place, I picked up a copy of Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia; where he details in both fact and fiction his journey through this vast and barren land on his ultimate quest to replace a piece of Mylodon skin (an extinct giant sloth), which he had been given as a child. Parts of the bo...

Troubled by the poor reviews and seemingly disdain from both foreigners and locals about Santiago, we resolved to spend the majority of our time in Valparaiso and only one full day in Santiago. However, I feel that the reviews from foreigners came from a desire for something different than whar they experienced at home, and the locals desired places that were also unlike where they resided. In my short time, I found Santiago to be a very intriguing city with a...

Arriving early in the morning to Valparaiso on a cloudy day after a 23 hour bus ride, one would expect that my first impression of the city would not be favorable. However, once we decided that we wanted to stay on one of the many hills which provide the backdrop for the city, we hopped in a cab and began driving down fabulous palm lined boulevards, passing european style monuments, and weaving our way up the steep hills into the brightly colored, corrugated meta...

Bolivia, the first Great Adventure! It began in the small desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, where there are a number of outfitters that run trips across the Bolivian border to the Salar de Uyuni or Uyuni Salt Flat. The town as mentioned in previous stories was filled with other travelers, and the architecture was more reminiscent of the adobe buildings in North Africa such as Timbuktu than what one would expect of Chile. However, the town was pleasant minus th...