Chile was a very special country for me because I have been wanting to come here forever and I had extremely high expectations. Before writing this blog I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what to write about Chile- what it is that sums up this country for me....

Punto Arenas was our final destination in Chile and although it is quite a pretty place it was relatively uneventful for us. The main tourist attractions in the city are the penguins and the cheap duty free shopping. Because we had already seen penguins in Perú and by...

As every backpacker knows travelling gypsy style is very different from the normal style and one grows very attached to one's backpack. It's a central part of the journey and gets repacked on almost a daily basis. I bought my backpack about seven years ago in...

The biggest attraction in southern Chile, Torres del Paine, is a Unesco Biosphere reserve and quoted by many as the finest national park in South America. Clearly we had to see what all the fuss is about. We made our way across the border to Puerto Natales, the...

It's amazing how one day you can be in a big city, the next in a colourful favela, then sunbathing on the beach and then all of a sudden you're in Germany...almost. We kept moving south and spent the last five days in the lakes district of Chile, based in the city of...

We were very lucky this weekend because our beautiful muralist friend Trini invited us to her house on the beach in Maitnecillo. There we chilled out, ate delicious seafood, tanned on the beach and attempted to but failed to pluck up the courage to enter the freezing...

After our Santiago Christmas we headed west to the coast for a relaxing couple of days before the big trip south. We spent a day in the harbour city of Valparaiso, famous for its art and favela like feel. The port played a very important role in Chile's history, as it...

So our first destination in Chile was yet another beautiful city surrounded by mountains and one I have been looking forward to seeing for a very long time: Santiago. I remember ages ago watching a documentary about one of my favourite authors, Isabel Allende, as it...

It was the worst border crossing so far. We had to wait for almost two hours at 2am, dying of exhaustion and freezing in the cold while our passports got revised and our bags checked. We also had to stuff our faces with the empanadas Juan so kindly gave us for the...