April 19

Just a little update on our travel plans as this month is coming to an end. We intend on spending the rest of this month in our apartment in La Serena, and than head to the Elqui Valley, a region in Chile just north/east of here. The Elqui Valley is known for having the clearest skies in the world, and is supposed to be a gorgeous place. We want to spend about 4 nights there and then spend the rest of the month making our way through the north of Chile (through the Atacama desert) and southern Peru, stopping along the way in a few cities for a few days at a time. We’ve not booked hostels or decided exactly which cities we’ll be staying in at this point. We are planning to arrive in Cusco for the 28th of May, so we can acclimatize ourselves before we begin our ascent into the Andes towards Machu Picchu on the 4th of June. We will fill everyone in on the details of our itinerary once we know for sure.

We are looking forward to a tour we’ve booked for this Thursday, April 22! We’ll be going by boat to Isla Damas (an island just off of Chile) where we will spend the day sighting Penguins, Sea lions, and Dolphins. Should be pretty cool. The island looks really beautiful so we hope for nice weather!

Spanish fort.

Giant dead squid on beach!

This is a motorized car, way cooler than power wheels!! This kid drove back and forth on the beach for like 3 hours and made all the kids on bikes very jealous!