Onto a new country....

Our first stop in Chile was Ancud. It is a small, fishing port that has quite a lot of life to it. We booked a hostel (called Mar DE Vista) with a shared bathroom but were pleasantly surprised to be upgraded to a bigger and better room at the same cost by the owner when we arrived. Apparently, no one else had booked, so he gave us a two bedroom with its own bathroom. The balcony outside of our room had a great view of the ocean and was amazing.

Ths sunset from our balcony

Our first day was spent walking around the city trying to get our bearings and doing some shopping for our stay at the hostel. We had been told that Chile is one of the most expensive countries, but were surprised to find that the costs were not too steep. It is more expensive than Argentina, but if you are not out partying and drinking every night it isn´t difficult to get by on spending very little. With that said, we enjoyed some wine that evening on our balcony as the sun was setting...yes, very romantic of us.

The house next to our hostel

The one thing that really surprised me about Chile is that it is not as clean as I expected. The roads are better than Argentina, but the cities in Argentina seemed a bit cleaner and less chaotic. This is what I expected from South America, but after spending the first three weeks of this trip in Argentina, I got used to the more European type cities. There seem to be more people crammed into smaller towns, but to be honest, both Siobhan and I enjoy this change. It makes us feel more like we are traveling in South America and not on a weekend away somewhere in Europe. Also, if I am fair, the cities that we have been visiting in Argentina are very, very touristy. In Ancud, there were only a few other backpackers that we saw. It gave the whole town a more "real" feel to it.

The beach in Ancud

Well, the weather in Ancud was beautiful and we walked around the town for a few days and just lounged and relaxed in the sun baked little town. We did go out for one meal that set us back $2000 Chilean pesos a piece!!! Well, actually that is about US$8 or €6 in total...the meal consisted of a starter and a main course...and we shared a Diet Coke. We cooked for ourselves the other nights and had some wonderful breakfasts supplied by the hostel. Overall, the stop in Ancud was very relaxing and quite enjoyable!

Kid jumping from a cliff at the beach