Chile Redux

We figured a 13 hour flight to Australia would be a good opportunity to recap our time in Chile: the good, the bad and the surprising.

Favorite thing about Chile
Brook: The trout.
Erin: Los Chilenos! They may be the friendliest and just plain nicest group of people I've met traveling. And, yes, I've been to Ireland.

Most dis-liked thing about Chile
Brook: Trash. Everywhere. After a while you learn to look past it, but it's just sad in such a beautiful country.
Erin: Throwing toilet paper in the trash cans. At first I thought it was just a hostel with old plumbing, but it turns out that the whole country can't flush toilet paper. I know, it'll seem luxurious when we're in Mongolia.

Best moment in Chile
Brook: Watching Erin catch a king salmon on her first real fishing trip. Maybe we'll convert her to a fly-fisherwoman.
Erin: Seeing the Valle Encantado in Torres del Paine for the first time. It's one of the most beautiful, untouched places I've been to and how I imagine Yosemite looked before they built a road through it.

Worst moment in Chile
Brook: When the woman at the Avis counter told us that the super-cheap car rental we booked months ahead of time was an impossible price and refused to rent us a car.
Erin: Coming back from a 15-mile hike exhausted and ready to have a beer to celebrate finishing the circuit only to find our tent pole snapped and rain fly shredded by the Patagonian wind.

Thing that was most like home
Brook: $160 "reciprocity fee" charged to all Americans when they enter Chile. Fair, because the U.S. charges the same fee to all Chileans.
Erin: The music, which was not always a good thing. Especially when we sat down to one of our few nicer dinners and spent two hours listening to a medley of 30-second clips from the 80's and 90's.

Biggest surprise:
Brook: How crowded the circuit hike was, and being able to buy beer in the backcountry of Torres Del Paine.
Erin: Internet and cell service nearly everywhere. Turns out they passed a law mandating cell phone service to communities throughout Chile, which means that the goatherd we met after a 2-hour horseback ride through shrubby desert had cell phone service, and could get internet.

Would you go back?
Brook: Yes, but I'd spend most of my time in Patagonia hiking and fishing.
Erin: Yes, but I'd want to stay a while in one place, practice my Spanish and go to all the hard to get to places we missed along the way.