The Last Three Weeks of Our Three-Year Journey in South America

In November 2022, Mark, Maya, and I started our latest adventure by staying at Airbnbs in Cartagena, Colombia, stressing about the arrival of our home on wheels. One rental apartment turned into five different ones, just like the expected one week of waiting turned into five weeks.

All the while, we had no idea if and when we would be reunited with Thirsty Bella as we refreshed the page of the shipping company schedule every hour for updates. Day after day, things went wrong and delays continued. We could not plan or prepare for anything and our stress level went through the roof, as we wasted precious time and money. We almost flew back to Texas and abandoned this journey. I wrote about that giant ordeal here.

Fast forward three years and we found ourselves at an Airbnb in Chile’s capital, Santiago, stressing again, but about different things. Ironically and fittingly (as irony and bad luck keep finding us, the perfect victims of Murphy’s Law), we ended our three years in South America in a similar way as we’d started them.

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

When Mark, Maya, and I handed over our truck camper Thirsty Bella and arrived at our city accommodation for three weeks before flying out of Chile, we had three goals: finally rest up after the stress and commotion of the last months, eat good food at home and in restaurants, and make a plan for 2026. One would think that three weeks would be plenty for this. Of course, we still had to take care of the usual work, living, and dog requirements while being “homeless.”

We splurged a bit more than usually on our Airbnb, picking a modern apartment that had air conditioning and a washing machine. Both were well utilized and appreciated! Unfortunately, buildings in developing nations aren’t built the same as in first-world countries.

Which brings me to our craved rest. Our Murphy bed was extremely creaky each time one of us moved and the mattress was hurting our backs. We usually like hard mattresses, but this one was too much. After a few painful nights, we took the mattress off, stuffed extra duvets between it and the bottom sheet, and stored the frame of the bed in its cabinet. Yup, we paid good money to sleep on the ground, but this change helped our poor backs and ears.

The next issue was the person who lived above us. She (since we heard what sounded like high heels clicking back and forth) was awake every and all night, walking around, moving furniture, frequently dropping items. We heard it all. Even her bathroom movements and toilet flushes. Once we were asleep it didn’t bother us too much, but, when awake, there was no way of dozing off again. The noise also kept Maya up and restless, because she hates stuff “falling” on the ceiling — whether it is in a camper or an apartment. A USB fan we brought from Bella helped create “white noise.” When the pounding was too loud, I used our broomstick to hit the ceiling.

Our kitchen was missing necessary items, but that wasn’t an issue as we’d brought stuff from the camper that were duplicates or gifts. Construction in the hallways happened about half of our days there and every bit of commotion seeped through the thin door, but we did appreciate being on the back side of the building instead of alongside the busy road.

The bathroom had a few quirks. The shower tub was too narrow and curved for both of our feet to be placed next to each other in comfort when showering. The shower head fell out of the holder when limp, the shower curtain was too long and covered the bottom of the tub, which made it even more slippery and dangerous (we pegged it up some, which made our waist area narrower), and the toilet barely had water in the bowl, which we didn’t manage to adjust.

There was supposed to be an accessible common area on the roof to enjoy the outdoors, but we were not allowed to reserve or access it. The dog washing basin, however, came in handy. One of the concierges, constantly drunk on the job, created unpleasant scenes. Once, when I tried to order a pizza for take-out, borrowing his phone, the event turned into a surreal experience.

Our neighborhood was a mixed bag. We chose to stay in Ñuñoa, which is a nicer part of the city. Providencia is our favorite area and where we camped for free, but accommodation there is unaffordable.

We could walk to several restaurants, a decent grocery store, and affordable vegetable markets. Parks and green spaces for Maya were harder to find. In general, we were happy in and with this location.

One event we really looked forward to was a delayed Thanksgiving. Since we were busy selling our vehicle on the actual day at the end of November and since we’d be on a plane on Christmas Day, Mark and I decided to create a food fest combining both of them on an arbitrary Thursday. We bought an American turkey and all the trimmings for a big feast. The only thing missing was cranberry sauce, since we couldn’t find that in Chile. Not even at a Jumbo!

On that particular day, we splurged with a cheese and cured meat platter, fancy bread, upscale wine, and a true Thanksgiving meal. We watched David Byrne and Talking Heads music videos and, yes, we were stuffed by the end of the afternoon.

For longer walks, we searched for parks on Google Maps and took Maya there when we had an hour or longer to spare. Other than that, she joined us on errands or neighborhood walks.

Our online time also involved looking for suitable campers (hours every day) and figuring out what was next, in the interim. We played with the idea of staying at a family member’s home in Aruba (already spoken for by other family members over the winter), Grenada (where my best friend lives) or another Caribbean island (too expensive), more affordable Caribbean destinations like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (we wanted a break from Latino culture and the Spanish language), and focused on the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula.

A friend of ours was renting a house long-term in southern Spain and had invited us to stay, and my parents would spend their winter escape in the Algarve of Portugal. These two factors nudged us towards that area. If you haven’t noticed already: Mark and I hate the cold and wanted to be somewhere warmer during the northern hemisphere’s winter.

A plan started to hatch, but what about the Schengen Shuffle? Americans can only stay in Schengen countries for 90 days in each 180-day period. Once we would have a camper, we had something in mind that looked like this: Western Europe in the fall for three months, Morocco for the winter, Scandinavia for the spring, and the UK for the summer, alternating Schengen countries with non-Schengen ones.

But without our own vehicle and with a dog, how could we pull this off? If we spent three months in southern Spain and Portugal, we couldn’t then spend three months in Belgium, where we had a free place to live and which would be the perfect base to find a camper. And we didn’t want to start in Belgium, because of the chilly and rainy winter weather.

Then, Mark stumbled across a blog post that led to a lot of research and, eventually, an incredible revelation. For us anyway. He discovered that, as an American married to a Belgian, he could spend 90 days in each country of the Schengen region, as long as he was with me. Except in Belgium. The official directive is called “Freedom of Movement.” We’d take it and the Portugal/Spain plan was hatched. More about that in a future blog.

One of our tasks in Santiago was to get a new international health permit for Maya. First, we needed to visit a local vet. Like in Mendoza, we stumbled upon one that had no idea how to fill out one of these certificates. Maya uses a Seresto collar and heartworm medicines for potential internal and external parasites; a requirement for the Chilean authorities that issue her export permit. This man did not want to put those brands on the form and preferred to administer a local brand. Except, his office had run out of the external parasite pill.

We had brought a little capsule that the last vet in Argentina gave us, so I suggested using that, despite the fact that she didn’t need anything else than the Seresto collar. But we needed to get the paperwork done, so he applied the drops and rubbed them in the fur on Maya’s neck.

With the form filled out, I could take the metro to the agriculture department in the center of the city and request the international permit, basically a form with information that already existed and was registered on other forms. The kicker was that the US didn’t need anything special for Maya to arrive, but Chile required an exit permit!!

While in that area of the city, I explored Quinta Normal Park and visited the Museum of Memory and Human Rights (which documents the atrocities of the Pinochet regime), before returning home. A week later, I went back to pick up the official international health permit, which cost us a lot of time and money for no good reason. I had hoped to bring my companions, but that was not to be…

But back to Maya. Two days after our frustrating vet visit, she developed an excruciating pain in her neck. I wrote about that episode in my last expense blog here. Neither the vet in Santiago nor our vet in Massachusetts could diagnose what the cause was for her pain, so we now wonder if it has to do with the smelly, chemical drops that were rubbed into her neck… Maybe it caused a rash and burning feeling? Maybe it clashed with her Seresto collar?

Whatever the case — or the cause — Maya was in pain, needed an emergency vet visit, shots and other pain meds, developed diarrhea, went on a salmon-only diet, and wasn’t allowed to move. This ruined our last week at the Airbnb. We cancelled restaurant plans, excursions, walks, and a fancy Christmas Eve lunch, never returned to any of the parks, and stressed hugely about not making our flights to the US on December 25th. Maya’s mystery ordeal set us back $500; the cost of owning a pet.

Mark stayed home with her when I joined friends for lunch at a vegan restaurant, and we both watched our dog closely, treading with care when taking her on potty breaks and cuddling.

In between, we finished eating our food, purged our belongings, and packed our bags.

Maya needed different meds to get her diarrhea under control and, against all odds and after an extra portion of bad luck and stress, we caught our American Airlines flight from Santiago de Chile to Boston, Massachusetts, USA, swapping 90-degree weather (30°C) for 16-degree temperatures (-9°C). Welcome to New England in the winter. Maybe we could rest up and charge our batteries here!?

Next up: Our annual expense report for 2025.

Curious about a previous ten-year chapter in our nomadic lives, which includes eight years aboard a 35-foot sailboat in the tropics with dogs? Check out my compelling, inspiring, and refreshingly honest travel memoir: