Chile (July 2003)

This is where it all began ... I went down to visit Ben in Santiago that summer while I was in the process of changing jobs and moving to the west coast. We hit the road with no particular plan ... we just hopped in that 1981 Toyota Land Cruiser and headed north into the desert. We ended up traveling about 2,500 miles through the Chilean desert over about 10 days. We had some nice adventures in addition to the flat tire which spawned the Goodyear hat bet ... camping at 12,000 ft. next to some geysers in the Andes mountains; a welcomed 'gringo' nite at the Holiday Inn Express in Antofagasta; seeing the Southern Cross for the first time; watching the water in the toilet swirl backwards; chasing down guanacos in the mountains.