![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/the-end.jpg\" "\\"OLYMPUS")
<\/a>Today, Thursday, April 18, we have gone as far south as we will go. \u00a0We drove the Pan American to the end. \u00a0The Pan American ends in southern Chile on the island of Chiloe. \u00a0We took a ferry to the island and drove south until the only option was turn around or wait for the next ferry to the Carretera Austral. \u00a0The ferry to the Carretera Austral is a 12 hour ride and it does not run all the time now that it is going into winter. \u00a0The road south once the ferry takes you across, is 1400 miles further on a gravel road to the very tip. \u00a0The weather here is cold, very windy, rainy and getting more like winter every day. \u00a0We are here out of season and most things are closed, like gas stations and stores.<\/p>\n
We stopped and took a photo and had a little time of\u00a0reminiscing and we came up with some things we have learned on this trip and here they are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Everyone in the entire world eats hot dogs, french fries and drinks Nescafe.<\/li>\n
- People make out everywhere here, old people, teens, in cars, on blankets, on benches – some cities have parks devoted to making out called Love Parks.<\/li>\n
- Freedom is not that important to a lot of people<\/li>\n
- Putamyo has it all wrong. \u00a0Music of the Coffee Lands should include Young Turks, Gangnam Style and Karma Chameleon.<\/li>\n
- Every email address we have gotten in SA has been hotmail<\/li>\n
- People in Colombia do not have window screens<\/li>\n
- While some places look spectacular, most of the places look normal and unremarkable.<\/li>\n
- Sylvia LOVES shish kabobs. \u00a0She has an entire main lesson book featuring crayon drawings of shish kabobs<\/li>\n
- No one in Peru drinks cold drinks, always room-temperature soda and beer.<\/li>\n
- People in Colombia have never seen a camper trailer<\/li>\n
- Musica romanitca is instrumental versions of American songs played on traditional Andean instruments and played\u00a0everywhere<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>The most popular are Dust In the Wind, Hotel California and El Condor Pasa but the list is long (usually 80’s power ballads) and we are bringing back CDs!<\/li>\n
- Tomato sauce in every country includes lots and lots and lots of sugar<\/li>\n
- All the $2 bills and Sacagawea dollars end up in Ecuador. \u00a0Sacagawea looks very much like an Ecuadorian woman with her baby. \u00a0The Sacagawea dollar was coincidentally chosen the same year Ecuador decided to use US money. \u00a0Coincidence? \u00a0We don’t think so. \u00a0See photos below!
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/saca.jpg\" "\\"saca\\"")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/sacaj.jpg\" "\\"sacaj\\"")
<\/a><\/li>\n- Everybody has Facebook<\/li>\n
- Dolls are always white skinned – why?? \u00a0If I had a million dollars, I would open a dark-skinned doll factory.<\/li>\n
- In Colombia, women wore shoes that matched their shirt every day. \u00a0They must have a lot of shoes.<\/li>\n
- You pronounce cuy “kweee” just like the guinea pig sounds<\/li>\n
- In Peru, everyone checks every piece of money for being a\u00a0counterfeit<\/li>\n
- Manjar, oh we have learned so much about manjar. \u00a0We even learned to like it. \u00a0Somewhat. \u00a0Some of us more than others. \u00a0It is everywhere and in everything.<\/li>\n
- Everything comes in a plastic bag, not a bottle or jar. \u00a0Bags of water, ketchup, jelly, mayo, tomato sauce, manjar…<\/li>\n
- There are many species of cavy. \u00a0They are all different and they are actually different species, they do not breed<\/li>\n
- The extreme ingenuity and work ethic of people in Peru, long days, hard work, hardly any pay and people are happy<\/li>\n
- Many words are hard to translate (like, about, too, so)<\/li>\n
- If you wear an outfit like this, it makes you instantly look like a\u00a0fascist.\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/police.jpg\" "\\"police\\"")
<\/a>Chilean Police<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today, Thursday, April 18, we have gone as far south as we will go. \u00a0We drove the Pan American to the end. \u00a0The Pan American ends in southern Chile on the island of Chiloe. \u00a0We took a ferry to the island and drove south until the only option was turn around or wait for the… Continue reading The Beginning of the End<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329,265],"tags":[351,274,79,275],"class_list":["post-2029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alaska-to-patagonia","category-chile","tag-chile","tag-north","tag-south","tag-the-end","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2029"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2046,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2029\/revisions\/2046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebluevan.us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}