If Mr. Miyagi had been a Spanish teacher, he may have sent Daniel-San to Torres del Paine with instructions to say ‘Hola’ to every person he met on the trail. After the first thousand ‘Ho-La’s I began to hear what a complex word it actually is. Chileans tend to pronounce it ‘Hwey-Lá” but you have …

Puerto Natales looked like a smaller more panoramically located version of Punto Arenas. The panorama consisted of a wide azure inlet from the Pacific surrounded by a curtain of dramatic snow-capped mountains – the southern tail of the Andes chain. As we’re now used to, the sun still stubbornly skimmed the horizon though our arrival …

We made our flight from Puerto Montt with some time to spare, despite our difficulties leaving Chiloé. We’d opted to spend a little more (only about $20 per person) to fly instead of spending 32 hours on the bus. Over the next day (including the time that I am currently writing) I have enjoyed pointing …

No matter where you are in Chile, a panting perro wants to be your friend. Look away for a moment and you’ll find a tail-wagging mutt at your heels trotting your direction, whichever way that may be. Some are remarkably healthy, some are a but scruffy, but so far all have seemed friendly and ingratiating. …

Our countryman and fellow New Yorker, Fred, drove us to the bus in our former jalopy. By the end of the short drive we all thought it a shame that we weren’t sharing a ride to the island of Chiloé, since that is where we were all headed next, Fred in our old Geely with …

It was our first night bus in 4 years and it should have been one of the more comfortable ones ever. Full reclining seats, the works. But since we are soft from years of relative comfort, we tossed and turned and got little sleep. We’ll toughen up. When we woke, we were nearing Puerto Varas …

Valparaiso is a series of foothills, rolling downwards from the Chilean Coastal range to the pacific. If Santiago is a sprawling flat metropolis punctuated by hills and the occasional skyscraper, Valparaiso is all hills punctuated by an occasional flatness. It is a city of funiculars, leading from the largest port in Chile up into the …

The stress of preparation behind us, a raging case of pink-eye subsiding, we landed in Santiago, Chile on the eve of the new year. 1st stop was the booth to pay a “reciprocity fee” of $160. This seems to be in response to the United States charging something similar for Chileans. The only other countries …

We’re high over the United States of Mexico. Its midnight and the only indication we’re over land are surprisingly regular wedges of light – electric pueblos dotting the black landscape below us. We’ve just begun the last day of 2012 which has proved a better year than 2011. 2013 is shaping up pretty well, given …