As overlanders, Mark and I are not city people. Being camped in nature without any human presence or noises is our happy place. Yet, the three of us spent a full two weeks in Santiago de Chile, a capital city of 7 million! This was our all-time “stationary” boondocking record after a year and a half in South America. Jardin, Colombia, is now the runner-up at nine nights. What happened?

Well, this lifestyle is full of surprises. Bad ones and good ones. It had been a while since fate smiled down upon us, but Santiago – which is expensive and not even an interesting tourist destination – ticked some of our required boxes. With ease. We were quite happy there. Read on to learn why…

Why back to Chile?

If you’ve been following our blog, you might have noticed that some hardships were encountered in Northern Argentina. Nothing disastrous, really, but after getting tired of similar issues in Peru and Bolivia, mostly regarding loose, aggressive dogs, dusty and dirty surroundings, and third-world living conditions, we had hoped for a reprieve of those in Argentina, especially after finding cleanliness and modernity in Northern Chile. When not finding that quite yet, we opted to return to Chile for a bit.

Another consideration was Maya’s international health certificate we obtained in Chile, the end of February. It was valid for sixty days, allowing free entries and exits for our dog between Argentina and Chile until the end of April. We figured we’d take advantage of that permit again, three weeks before it expired.

But the most important reason for our little sojourn back into Chile was truck maintenance. Imported parts are much cheaper there than in Argentina, as we realized when buying our first set of two new tires in Iquique a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, we didn’t purchase four at the time.

That being said, we chose Santiago to replace the other two tires, install a new battery, and do another oil change. Yeah, our expense report for April won’t be pretty again…

Our fantastic camping spot

The biggest surprise that greeted us in Santiago was the place we opted to wild camp at, based on reviews in iOverlander. It was easy to see why every overlander seemed to flock here!

(As always, hover over or click on photos in galleries to read their captions.)

Continue reading