Photo Essay: Easter Island

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Photo Essay: Easter Island

Ask my family and friends which place I was most looking forward to visit and they'll give you the same answer: Easter Island. I've been fascinated with the place for a while now so when Tyler found a way for us to make it there using miles, I was over the moon. It's been four months now and I still cannot believe we made it there. We spent 5 days exploring all three corners of this triangular shaped island. From visiting countless moai (statues) platforms, both restored and unrestored, both at sunrise and sunset, hiking up and around craters and enjoying lazy afternoons at the beach, we never ran out of things to do.

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San Pedro de Atacama and the Dark Side of Travel

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Leaving Mendoza early our last morning, we hopped on our last Andesmar ride for the scenic trip over the Andes to Santiago, where we planned to catch a bus that night to San Pedro de Atacama. The bus ride was typical of that route - beautiful scenery with an absurdly long wait at the border. We had to have been there at least three hours before we made it through, but other than getting to Santiago a few hours later than expected, all was good...

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Wining it up in Mendoza

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Wining it up in Mendoza

We stayed in Mendoza for 4 days but only ended up venturing out on a tour one of those days. After more than 2 weeks of hiking in Torres del Paine, El Calafate, El Chalten and Bariloche, it was time for some well-deserved rest. And what does one do when resting? Drink wine, of course! There are many companies in town offering tours to the famous wineries of Mendoza but being the travelers we are, we decided to go on our own. It's cheaper and we liked having the freedom to go to the places we were most interested in. After a bit of online research, we decided to try 3 wineries and 1 olive oil factory. We'd heard from people at the hostel that the olive oil factory had weird hours and closed for a few at lunch time so we stopped there first. It was the farthest one too, which worked out well, as we started there then made our way back into town.

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