All Good Things...

As they say "all good things must come to an end", and as I sit writing our final blog post in a b&b room in Santiago, two hours away from taking a taxi to the airport to go back home, we can't help but reminisce on what an amazing experience we've had.

Travelling really can give you a fresh perspective on life (ask anyone who's ever done it, they'll tell you). To go and visit other countries, cultures and people can open your eyes to the world as a whole, sometimes it's easy to forget that there's a lot more to this planet than your own little corner of it.

By simplifying your life down to what you can carry on your back (or in a Subaru Legacy!) and heading out into the world, it seems you obtain a new clarity as to what's important in life. For us family, friends and doing the things you love as often as you can seem like the big one's after which all others should fall into place.

Both Mai and I have each been to 40 different countries around the world now and it continues to blow me away when I think back of all the amazing places, great experiences and awesome people we've met along the way. I can't help but feel like that's a far better lifetime achievement than driving a flashy car or working sixty hours a week for your entire life.

As for South America? What an incredible awe inspiring place. We've spent six months here and feel like we've barely scratched the surface of things to see and do. We've met countless people who've gone out of their way to help us, not for profit but just out of kindness. Contrary to popular opinion we've found it to be extremely safe and haven't felt threatened once in our trip. Of course that's not to say that we've never felt outside of our comfort zone at any point, but if you ask me, outside of your comfort zone is where you'll find life at it's best!

I'll finish with a quote, it's one you see a lot whilst travelling, but it's a good one and I find myself thinking about it more and more the older I get.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Surf Side Nicaragua

We wanted to spend the remainder of our time in Nicaragua surfing on the Pacific coast. While we were a bit unlucky that the waves were quite small all week, it was still nice to get in the water each day and there was always something to surf on the higher tide.

It was a bit of a strange area where we stayed, no real town just a few tourist resorts ranging quite differently in price from one to another. This seemed to be one place we've been on our trip where the majority of business's are run by foreigners, we definitely would have liked to see more local business's about, but it seems like it must be hard for locals to compete with outsiders wealth which is a real shame.

We did actually meet some really great people where we were staying though and were glad to have such a nice crew to hang out with. Most days were spent surfing, on the beach, or doing yoga at the incredible studio nearby high up on the hill overlooking the ocean. We also did a day trip to the really beautiful nearby town of Granada which was well worth the hour and a half taxi ride.

Unfortunately while surfing one day Mai nose dived and went head first into the sand and has gained a black eye for her troubles. I'm sure everyone will be proud to know that she took it in her stride and wanted to get back out there straight away (she's tough my wife!).

Little Slice of Paradise

As we couldn't finish our trip in the car, we thought why not go somewhere for our final two weeks that we never would have dreamed of going on this trip otherwise, so we decided on Nicaragua because of it's potential for great diving and surf.

We started off in Little Corn Island on the East coast. Little Corn is a tiny tropical island in the Caribbean sea. It's so small in fact that there's no roads or cars just a few footpaths for people to walk or ride a bike around the island. Due to this fact, things are pretty chilled out on Little Corn and it's a really nice place to hang out and share stories with other travellers.

We were here for a week and took advantage of the very reasonable price to do the PADI Open Water diving course at the local dive shop to become qualified divers. We had lots of fun learning to dive, we did a night dive, and saw lots of marine life including a nurse shark, a reef shark, sting rays, an octopus, lion fish, turtles and many types of other fish and coral.

During our shallow water dives practicing our newly learned skills, there were LOADS of small jelly fish swimming around and stinging us. Unfortunately Mai had a bad allergic reaction to the stings and was uncomfortable for more than a week. Like any good, devoted husband, I kindly offered to wee on her (to relieve her pain), however to my surprise she declined my generous offer in favour of rubbing vinegar into her wounds!

Due to the Caribbean influence, the food on Little Corn was really good and also cheap! As our accommodation had no kitchen so we were eating out all the time, but would probably only spend as much in an entire day as we would on a single meal in most of South America.

The Way to Santiago

Travelling with a surfboard can be tricky at times, travelling with three surfboards, camping equipment and everything that goes with it can be even trickier. However, undeterred we continued our journey North with x2 small backpacks, x2 large backpacks, x 1 large duffle bag and x1 large surfboard bag.

In order to get from Chile Chico to Santiago we had to take two ferries and two buses, but it actually worked out being a lot easier with so much luggage than we thought it'd be.

We passed through some pretty amazing countryside along the way, and while it wasn't part of our plan, we were glad to take the ferries through the scenic Northern Patagonian fjords.

We stopped at the picturesque Puerto Varas for a couple of days to check out the views of the lake and volcano and have a few beers and a nice meal for my birthday.

After Puerto Varas it was back to Santiago where we could leave some of our luggage and continue to our next destination Nicaragua!

In Patagonia Part IV

While we had originally planned on driving all the way up the Carreterra Austral from Lago General Carrera, hampered by our car situation, we were happy to still go a little way along it to visit the incredible marble caves near Rio Tranquilo.

The day before leaving to take the 5hr bus trip to Rio Tranquilo, we were stoked to bump into our Aussie pals Tarunya and Adam who we'd originally met at Torres del Paine. We ended up going to Rio Tranquilo together with them, two swedish girls (Malin and Sandra) and one Brazilian guy (Eduardo). 

We all chipped in to rent out a cabana for two nights and had an awesome time visiting the caves on Tarunya's birthday, eating birthday cake (nice work Adam!) and generally having a few drinks and hanging out.

The caves have been formed by windswell waves breaking on the rock, eroding and polishing it over the course of thousands of years. It's a really incredible, beautiful place and we were all pretty excited to realise that it doesn't seem to be very touristy. Can't help but think that in 5-10 years you're not going to be able to move around this area for all the tourists flocking here.  

End of the Road

Mas problemas with the car. While on our way to the extremely remote Cuevas de los Manos in Argentina we realised the car was making some pretty bad noises. We turned around giving up on the caves in favour of getting back across the border to Chile and not breaking down in the absolute middle of nowhere.

After driving through some of the most remote landscapes in Chile and Argentina for three days straight I can't help but think we were fairly lucky to break down in the little town where we were headed, 2mins walk from a campsite and two different mechanics.

The first mechanic didn't even want to touch the car telling us it was only good for the scrapyard. The second mechanic said to fix it, it would be basically more than half the car was worth. So unfortunately it was time to say goodbye to the car.

Trying to sell a car that's pretty wrecked in a tiny isolated little town in Patagonia seemed like a bit of a daunting process. However, luckily enough for us the second mechanic Bruno liked to collect old bangers (he certainly had enough sitting around his yard) and we managed to agree on a pretty good price.

We've certainly had our fair share of problems with the car, but neither of us regret buying it for a second. Whether surfing the huge coastline of Chile or navigating the vast expanse of Patagonia, the car has taken us to some incredible places along the way that a lot of travellers just don't get to see (including plenty of mechanics and regristro civils!!:-).

So while we're both a bit gutted not to be finishing our trip in the way we wanted. Maybe it's not such a bad thing, because it looks like we may be able to go somewhere else instead that we never thought we'd get to on this trip...