Right now, we’re back in Santiago airport waiting for our connection to Calama, the airport closest to San Pedro de Atacama. This town [...]]]> Easter Island was incredible, lots of hiking, moais, caves, and petroglyphs – and we of course promise lots of pictures once we get to a stable, fast Internet connection.

Right now, we’re back in Santiago airport waiting for our connection to Calama, the airport closest to San Pedro de Atacama. This town is on the edge of the Atacama, the driest desert on the Earth. It should make quite a change from the subtropic weather we’ve been enjoying!

Santiago is typically used by tourists as a jumping off [...]]]> Matt and I like Santiago. It is beautiful, ringed with mountains, and mild and green even in the dead of winter. I would love to live here, if only to wake up to mountains every morning and eat at a different Chilean restaurant every night.

Santiago is typically used by tourists as a jumping off point to other areas of Chile. There are a few fun tourist stops in the city, but people usually only stay a few days before flying to the ski slopes, wine country, or Patagonia (none of which we are visiting on this trip).

So we planned for two days in the city, and visited six tourist spots yesterday afternoon and today. On the must-see list—Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (the Pre-Columbian Art Museum) and Iglesia, Convento y Museo de San Francisco (the Church and Museum of San Francisco). What can I say—modern art bores me, and I’m sucker for anything over 200 years old.

I put together a slide show of our photos, though only a few places allowed us to take pictures. (We broke the rules at the Museum of San Francisco, where we took a covert photo of a short door.)

Tomorrow: a five-hour flight to Isla de Pascua (Easter Island), and hopefully an afternoon hike.

We are headed to Chile, but stopping through Toronto was not much longer and much cheaper than flying through [...]]]> Matt and I are midway through a five-hour stop at the Toronto Airport. “Didn’t they mention they were headed south?” you might ask. “Why fly through Canada?” It’s a good question—and one the customs agent asked.

We are headed to Chile, but stopping through Toronto was not much longer and much cheaper than flying through a more direct location. Our trip is not close to half way over; we face a 10-hour flight, scheduled to land in Santiago mid-morning tomorrow. It is the second-longest trip (total travel time) I’ve ever taken.

In the meantime, you can’t beat hanging out in another country, and a Canadian airport falls into that category today. Neither Matt nor I have been to Toronto before, and the flight in was beautiful. Add in foreign cell phone brands, a few extra languages, people watching, and staring at the departures board dreaming of trips to Tel Aviv, Dublin, and Beijing, and you have an entertaining evening.

Even if that weren’t the case, when you are overbooked in life for any period of time, 17 hours of forced relaxation is not a bad prospect. I think I could stare at the wall for most of it, but I do have an hour of Internet, a 600-page novel, and laptop power under my chair (how lucky are we to find a plug at an airport). I suspect that I will sleep well tonight, even sitting up straight in a narrow seat.