Pan American highway back to Santiago

We headed our rental car back south armed with cash to pay all the tolls we learned about on our way north. I asked about tolls when we rented and was told there were only 2 toll spots. Ha! More like 6!! 900k driving cost 25,000 chilean pesos total $50. Good experience though. Glad we did it. We stopped half way to overnight at Los Vilos. What a gem!!! Super hostal on the beach with wonderful hosts who tried to learn English while teaching us Spanish. Excellent overnight spot we never would have found if we had been on the bus or flying. They welcomed us with a couple glasses of wine and I drank red, yes, this is another first for me. Quesos (cheese) and crackers accompanied the wine then they called a restaurant to tell them to stay open for us. Great prices, view of the surf, excellent food and we were the only ones in the restaurant. They laid a path of newspapers to help us find the way. Another cat was available for me to pay attention to and the street dogs were starved for affection.
Every street dog we have encountered has been well mannered. They sleep if they are fed well and go away if you tell them to. Of course, I never tell them to go away. I always have some food. They took my dried dog and cat food away at the airport because they are very anal about food products, so I have to save food from our meals.
We decided to pay the extra cost to stay at the Santiago airport tonight. We booked our flights while in La Serena. We went to the LAN Chile office and bought the following flights. It cost us less for the whole package than buying online for one flight to Cuzco, so we have gone back to our original plan of going to San Pedro de Atacama.
16 july Santiago 0515 (yikes! reason for the airport hotel)
Calama 0725 (bus to San Pedro de Atacama. very excited!)
5 nights there. I'm still working on the hostal there. I sent an email to Hotel Solor and am waiting for a response.
21 july Calama 2245 to Santiago 0050
overnight IN the airport
22 July Santiago 0655 to Lima 0940
22 July Lima 1205 Cuzco 1325
Waiting for an email response from Casa de Campo to stay for 4 nights. We plan to book an excursion to the Amazon while in Cuzco and of course we will take an excursion to Machu Pichu etc while in Cuzco.
3 Aug Cuzco 1105 to Lima 1230
And then thanks to points we will be staying at the Sheraton in Lima for 2 nights
Hope to update soon, but we may not have internet access.
Having a great time, wish you were all here with us.