Reaching the end of a journey can bring many mixed emotions, and that's what happened to me when we arrived in Puerto Montt, Chile. The city we'd been chasing for the past two weeks was finally there, right before our eyes. We traveled a long way to get there, seeing and experiencing so many great things that our feelings were both joyful and nostalgic. After more than 1,200 kilometers of travel, we had achieved our goal ❤️

We saw so many beautiful things in Chile, but it seemed like there were never enough. It's not for nothing that people say Patagonia is so beautiful: it's full of incredible places. One of them is Puerto Varas, a city we happened upon on our impromptu trip. While we were deciding whether to stay the night there or in Puerto Montt in search of the best rates, we took the opportunity to stroll along the waterfront. And in the background, the imposing Osorno Volcano loomed, somewhat shyly between the clouds ❤️.

Our day had gotten off to an incredible start, but we still had a long way to go. The end of our improvised trip through Chile and the Carretera Austral was approaching, so we had better get moving and stick to our itinerary. Our plan for that day was to travel the more than 200 kilometers that separated Queulat National Park from Chaitén, from where we would continue our journey to Hornopirén. We knew it was going to be a long day with a lot of moving, so we mentally prepared ourselves for it 😃.

One of the things that surprised me about Chile was the number of glaciers we saw along the way. This entire area was once frozen millions of years ago, and their remains still remain, adorning part of the Southern Highway. From a distance, these glaciers looked magnificent, but during the ride, we were able to find one that allowed us to get a closer look. It's the Hanging Glacier, which can be observed from a viewpoint that brings together a multitude of natural elements in one place ❤️.

Finding a campsite that wasn't too expensive was a real challenge: the Southern Highway is incredibly beautiful, and of course everyone knows it, so most of the surrounding land is private. This meant we had to find campsites in certain areas, as there weren't even free spaces to get to the riverbank by car. Another factor to keep in mind was that the campsite had to be relatively nice, since we were paying for it. Luckily, we found one that met those requirements, although we still had some problems.

In the last while I learned a lot of things about how to save money in order to extend your travels even further. The first one was volunteering: exchanging work for hostel accommodation was a deal I liked and used a lot. The second was ‘hitchhiking’: this technique of getting into strangers' cars didn't suit me so well, but I used it on a few occasions nonetheless. And on this last trip I learned another way to save money, and that is to haggle over the prices of things, looking for cheaper rates. Have you ever done it?