Adventure Travel Blog Posts

Jane was having a bad day. She had lost the iPad due to bad behavior and was downright despondent about the boring conditions here. She refused to play Chile’s knockoff equivalent of Jenga, Torre De Madera. Who can resist a Jenga tower though? I set it up on the table and waited ten minutes until […]

When we chose Chile for a year of adventure, one of our reasons was wanting to live in a country where we could explore within it’s national borders. With Covid protocols varying from country to country, we didn’t want to skip around countries, dealing with different restrictions, quarantines, and unexpected requirements.  Chile seemed an ideal […]

Several years ago, I traced my love for adventure back to a childhood infatuation with Indiana Jones. Like Indiana Jones, I’ve developed relationships with hats over the years. Hats often lost and recovered by strokes of good luck. For my latest hat, which I had for sixteen years, it’s adventuring days are over. I purchased […]

Wilson’s hooked on Parque Araucano skatepark. It is a pretty cool facility. I had some hesitancy taking him into the skatepark for the first time. It was a Friday afternoon. Skater teens were all over, and I wasn’t certain how they were going to take to Wilson, who was the only one to show up […]

Wilson, 8 years old, had run out of patience for the history of the Moai. At our last stop, we turned over to him the GoPro to keep him entertained. This is Rona Raraku through his view.

After our visit to Ovahe, we drove all around Rapa Nui. Having our own car and open roads with few tourists made for a relaxing cruise along the coast in our diminutive SUV, a tiny Toyota that makes the RAV4 feel like a Tahoe. We captured some video of the swim at Ovahe and the […]

We woke in the early morning hours on our last day for sunrise with the Moai at Tongariki. We arrived in time for the sunrise, which didn’t disappoint. Though the magic happened behind us as a rainstorm caused a rainbow to appear over the volcanic crater and quarry, Rona Raraku, where the stone for the […]

The kids had choir practice last Saturday morning, and afterwards we attended the “18 in Vitacura” festival in Parque Bicentenario. The family festival is a celebration of Chile’s independence in 1810, a national holiday observed on September 18th. Highlights include the churros, the circus games, and Wilson dominating the potato sack race.

At the suggestion of our guide, we visited the Catholic church and the Christian cemetery in Hanga Roa. It turned out to be an interesting excursion. The Catholic church includes elements of the Moai, Polynesia, and the Birdman cult. The mixture created a space uniquely Rapa Nui.  In the cemetery, we found the grave memorials […]

When the Covid restrictions on the island impacted our expected itinerary, our guide led us on a short hike detour to a “banana cave”. The cave has archeological significance as a former dwelling, and it’s unique in that banana trees grow inside the cave. It was a quick burst of fun for the kids, something […]