Back from a vacation in South America. It was great! I went to an area that experiences frequent earthquakes and didn't feel one. Weird, but good!
It was definitely an odd experience spending Christmas there. I was there several years ago and noticed how Americanized it's become there since then.
I hope that everyone had a great Christmas and will enjoy toasting the New Year with you all.
Hugs to all that need one!
Quoting: a Dude, not THE Dude Dude, South America is my dream trip! I've had it all mapped out for years, just need about 4 months off of work and/or win the lottery and I'm there! I likely will have to end up doing an abbreviated version of this trip that wouldn't take so long - I have that mapped out too. I would love to know where all you went and what your favorite places were. I'm also very curious to know where you were that was americanized?? I've never heard of anywhere in S. America referred to as "americanized", unless maybe it's a place where there's a lot of Ex-Pats. But even those locations are still very Latino.
Anyway, I'd love to hear more about this if you feel like sharing. Feel free to PM me if you don't want to blast it on the thread.
Quoting: KickinIt Thanks for the welcome back, everyone! (Sorry I didn't mass quote all the welcomes).
If you speak Spanish, you could get temporary work down there as an English teacher or translator and pay part of your way that way.
I went to Chile with a brief jaunt into Argentina. I didn't go to most of the really cool stuff, like the ancient runes. The more Americanized place we visited was La Serena. We stayed in Coquimbo. Both La Serena and Coquimbo have decent populations of people from different nations (a lot of which retired there). In most of Chile, women wearing shorts is very very rare, but in La Serena it was a lot more common, even among the native population. The stores and restaurants contribute to the Americanization. There are 3 Wal-Marts in the area for crying out loud. English is becoming MUCH more common there.
We went on a whale watch that also visited the Pingüino de Humboldt National Reserve and saw a lot of penguins, sea lions, otters and other birds. We went to Vicuña and visited a vineyard that was also the Centro Astronomico Alfa Aldea. They had a planetarium and good telescope. We also got some good views of the surface of the sun.
We visited the beach and the mountains around the Embalse la Laguna. Those mountains have so many different colors. It's gorgeous.
It was the start of Summer there and the weather was absolutely beautiful. It stayed in the 70's during the day (at the warmest near the Pacific, the lower 80's in Vicuña) and dropped to the mid-50's at night.
The desert was still green because they recently had record levels of rainfall, so the landscape was gorgeous.
The food was really good and the fruit was much better quality (and fresher) than what most of the States get.
One thing to be cautious of is that Chilean culture is very different in that stealing is very common. VERY common. The general outlook seems to be "If I can take it and get away with it, it's okay." (Argentina even has signs about Chilean thievery and that it's their culture.) Watch your wallets!
On another trip, my wife went to Macchu Pichu, but sadly we didn't have time or money to go there this time.
Other than the cost of the plane tickets, the prices were very reasonable and the money exchange rate is good.
Breakfast hasn't caught on much there. Typically it's a light meal consisting of some bread and fruit late in the morning. (they like to sleep late and stay up late)
About 2-3 is typical lunch-time and that's the big meal of the day. If you can find restaurants open later than 7 PM, it's surprising as most eat a light dinner at home around 9 PM. A lot of the towns have a vibrant night life into the wee hours of the night.