Potable Water

Chile is sufficiently 'civilised' to have potable (drinkable) tap water almost everywhere (San Pedro is one of the few exceptions). This means we can save on money and toothpaste by drinking tap water - with a bit of Tang in, of course!.

And save it we need to in Chile. It's noticeably more expensive than Perú and Ecuador. Hotels generally cost us about USD8 a night in the Andean countries further north. Here we usually pay closer to USD12 for the same standard (ie. low!). Of course, the trade off is cleaner streets, potable water, proper supermarkets, fewer beggars and very good buses. Indeed, many of the plazas and shops in Chile could quite easily be found in, say, Spain itself.

Because of the price, we're zooming through Chile pretty quickly. We're going to be heading south in the next few days - we'll cross into Argentina (whose collapsed-economy means that it's now quite a bit cheaper...) in Patagonia at the southernmost point of the continent and head north at a more leisurely pace.