Chile

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Overview

Quick summary of Chile for you although I don't really know how to wrap it up. Chile is a strange shaped country – long and thin – bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes on the east so it has an very diverse landscape.

We didn't go south because it’s winter here and super cold – alsowe have just come from two months of mountains and lakes and glaciers in New Zealand. Anyway, it gives me an excuse to come back.

The north of Chile, and the Atacama desert is absolutely fascinating – an almost space like landscape – warm enough in the day but cold at night.

From the limited amount we actually saw of such an amazing country, San Pedro and the whole Atacama experience has to be my favourite.

The Chileans are friendly enough, but they do seem to swallow most of their words and until we visited Argentina I just assumed it was me not being able to make anything out.

Outside of Santiago, probably actually more specifically outside the Barrio Bellavista, the food wasn’t anything to exciting – not bad by but nothing to write home about. Bellavista on the other hand had too much choice of inexpensive but delicious food – tapas, Italian, fresh fish, you name – and the service was the most attentive I’ve ever come across.

16 September

•   Just arrived back in Santiago today, after a long and uneventful bus jourey (no drugs busts this time)

•   Tomorrow we're off to Peru and I’m in the process of booking the Inca trail, so hopefully we should be in or near Macchu Picchu for my birthday.

•   Talking of birthdays, I am afraid Dad is going to have to wait until I get home for his pressie - not only would it probably not arrive in time now, but I don’t really want to have to try to post it.

•   Not much other news and as it's almost time for dinner I’ll be off for now.

2 September

•   The stargazing didn't quite work out as planned, they drove us all the way to the observatory (an hour and a bit from where we were) to tell us it was cloudy and they weren't running the tour that day! I couldn't believe it - they have 300 clear days a year but not on the day I wanted to go. At least I got to see the Northern Lights in Canada the previous week, and the stars you could see with the naked eyefrom the desert were pretty impressive too.

•   Then, we had a fun journey to San Pedro, the leaping off point for the Atacama desert - the bus broke down in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert and a 13 hour journey suddenly took about 18.

•   We arrived tired and dusty and never quite shook off all that dust in the days that followed. Though that shouldn’t be surprising, as we were in the driest desert in the world. It's not really a desert like you'd imagine - no huge sand dunes as far as the eye can see – but it's still got to be one of the most fascinating places I've ever been. Mile upon mile of rock desert, dust, dust, and more dust. Hot springs, lagoons in the most amazing scenery, salt lakes including Salar de Atacama, the third largest in the world, which is homeflamingos, which were very very cool. Volcanoes which are so high – approx 4000m above sea level – that there's snow on top of them in the middle of the desert. I’m afraid I am running our of adjectives ans superlatives but it is truly incredible.

•   San Pedro itself is a dusty and sleepy little town, which looks like something out of a western but it felt like I'd finally arrived in the "real" Chile, as I had imagined it would be. Both Valparaiso and La Serena are almost the same size as Bristol, and apart from some obvious differences, could have been cities just about anywhere in the world.

•  Because so many people we've met have been raving about Argentina – Igauzu Falls and Buenos Aires particularly – we decided to make an impromptu visit to Argentina for a few days. Also, I don’t have enough visa stamps in my passport although I hope nobody gets suspicious as I will have been in and out of Chile several times in the last few weeks by the time we finally move on to Peru

27 August

•   We left Santiago, and our friendly little hostel (and all the crazy drinkers that went with it) on Monday and headed north to Valparaiso. There wasn’t a whole lot there, but I think Catherine was glad to be out of Santiago at last - not that she hadn’t enjoyed itbut just that she had been there two weeks already and that’s the longest we’ve stopped anywhere.

•   Valparaiso is a ramshackle jumble of houses on a hillside, and was pretty cute - especially the Open Sky museum which is an area of town where the "graffitti" is in fact works of art by the local art students. Not quite my cup of tea, but an interesting concept all the same. Then we went to Pablo Neruda´s – Chilean poet & writer – house which was also pretty funky - built on four or five floors in the hills and designed to look like a ship.

•   Arrived in La Serena this afternoon, which is another cute town - loads of churches and old colonial buildings around, but we’ve not really had time to exploredyet. Tomorrow night, we’re off to a local observatory to gaze at some stars - supposedly some of the best star gazing in the country.

22 August

•   Safely back but shattered.

•   Flying into Santiago as the sun rises over the mountains was spectacular unfortunately I had no film in the camera.

•   Catherine fine and still here. She’s just making me tea so I’d better go and catch up with her.

•   Not much to tell about Chile yet, except that it´s COLD.

14 August

•   Update from Canada - 24 hours to get from Santiago to Edmonton via Miami and Denver. Catherine says she has settled in and may know some Spanish by the time we meet up again next week

12 August

•   I’ve just dropped Catherine off at Spanish school but they messed up the arrangements and put her in a class with a bunch of people who have studied Spanish before despite the fact we told them when we booked that she is an absolute beginner. She is now having private lessons instead and very nervous. Much as I´m looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow, I feel rotten "leaving" her on her own.