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Chilie
Budgets

$20 a day will be plenty in Chile.  Most hostels run about $10 in Santiago/Valparaiso, and $6-7 elsewhere. You can surely eat on $5 a day, which leaves you $5+ for museum/park entry, wine (mmm Gato Negro in a box), etc. Bus transport around the country is pretty cheap, too.

I was in Argentina just before the peso collapsed, so it was pretty expensive then. I would guess it's still more expensive than Chile but probably not by too much anymore.

Where to go

I loved Chile. They speak some messed up Spanish but are generally pretty friendly.

If you're going for a few months this (Northern Hemisphere) summer, realize that the southern half of the country where a lot of the spectacular national parks are, will be snow-covered and very hard to travel in. If you're planning a longer-term visit, start in Bolivia and Peru and work your way to the south as it gets warmer. The North was nice, but the real highlights are in the South.

Depending on how long you'll be there, you should certainly plan to spend some time in Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru when you're down there.

At the end of March/beginning of April things begin to close down for the winter.Things open up again in October.  In the far south, be sure to go to Torres del Paine National Park. The Argentina side of Tierra del Fuego is supposed to be nice; on the Chile side there isn't much there.

The Easter Island airfare is$600 which amounts to a month of travelling money.

The Salar is amazingly beautiful. What's more, it is a truly one-of-a-kind place; the weird landscapes of the desert and the salar with an inch of water on it are really mind-blowing- they look like they couldn't be real. It is true that there's nothing there but tourists, but they're all there because it's something you won't see anywhere else.

If you're only going to Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, it would be interesting to go to La Paz, because it really isn't like any other city in those countries (or the US). There are some museums and churches, but for a city it's size, there's not a lot to *do*. So it depends on how much time you like to spend wandering around, soaking in the atmosphere and people-watching. The stuff near La Paz is great, though: Beautiful mountains plummeting into the jungle to the north, and Lake Titicaca is only an hour or two west by bus; the islands there are probably the best place to see some Inca ruins unless you want to head all the way into Peru.

The other thing about the Salar is that if you cross into Bolivia there, the only way back out is through the Salar again, which is only serviced by the tour companies. You could go in through the Salar and then over to Sucre and Potosi, where there are a few actual Bolivians, then down into Argentina.

The political situtation in Bolivia is perpetually iffy. You can surely avoid problems in the cities with a little common sense.  There have been some travel difficulties when protestors put roadblocks on all the highways in and out of La Paz. Stay flexible and talk with other travellers.  The news won't tell you anything useful, unless there's another major riot in La Paz.

Don't worry too much about theft. Most travelers take overnight buses all over and never have anything stolen. Doesn't mean it couldn't happen though.  Always kept your truly valuable items with you in a daypack (passport , camera, film, journal).

Torres del Paine - Spend 5 days hiking the "W" there. If you're outdoorsy at all, It's a must-do. There are "huts" that are more like hostels than they are like Appalachian Trail huts, so you don't need to carry a tent. Explore Patagonia, especially the Fitzroys.

Camino Austral is beautiful but after 30 hours on a bus, it's hard to enjoy it much.

National Parks

In Chile: Torres, Villarica, Vicent Perez Rosalez, La Campana (near Valparaiso), Isluga.

In Argentina: Moreno Glacier, Nahuel Huapi, near San Martin

All the parks in the lake district are great.  If you do the Salar tour to or from San Pedro de Atacama, you'll probably see flamingos there.

The trouble with the parks, like in the US, is that often you need a car to get to them. The ones that are really famous or near tourist areas (i.e. patagonia, the lake district) will have bus service. But, for example, going Angol with the intent of seeing the nearby national park (Nahuelbuta), only to find that buses went out there once a week, and Angol certainly wasn't worth hanging out in for four days waiting for a bus to the park.