Chile

3 November 2010

Church designed by M. Eiffel (of Tower fame) in Acri,
Northern Chile (layover between buses)

After a long night bus journey sitting beside a fatty and being woken at 3am to stand in the cold beside my bags whilst Chilean border security decided not to search our bags, I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, a pretty desert town in the northern part of Chile.

I was lucky enough to be met by Anna from Germany who I'd met in Salta, Argentina, who was now working in a hostel in San Pedro. Anna took me on a tour of the town and the bus offices to sort out all my tours and moving on and I went for the most amazing set lunch of soup, salmon and spuds and cake.  It was at this point that I realised that Chile is possibly the most expensive country I've been too (excluding Switzerland of course).

Being hosed down after salt lake.
Sadly not breathing in and looking a bit pale!

I'd managed to book myself a couple of action packed days, starting that afternoon with a trip to some lagoons out on the high plains. We started at a really salty lake where we went for a swim.  It was bloody freezing, but kind of fun floating around. After a hose down with fresh water we were off again to some weird holes in the desert full of water, and then a massive but very shallow lake where we were served a cheeky wee Pisco Sour while the sun set.

Sunset over a shallow salt lake

I woke the next day to a couple of Weegie boys checking in (there's no escape) and the three of us headed into town so I could give them the same tour Anna gave me, and then for lunch at the same place as the previous day on account of it being so good!  The three of us were on an afternoon tour up to the Death and Moon Valleys which were amazingly eerie landscapes. Sadly no Pisco Sours at sundown though.

Death Valley

Me and Scottish bloke Martin at the three Marias rocks
note the diff in skin colour - I DO have a tan!

Sunset

And in the evening I went on the most amazing stargazing tour. Anna, her boss and I (plus 20 or so other people) were driven out to this french guy's house just out of town. We were met by his wife who gave us a brief into to star gazing and set up the 9 or 10 telescopes in the garden to show us Jupiter and 4 of it's moons, the tarantula nebula in (I think) one of the Magellan clouds, the nebula on Orion's belt, some star pairs and all sorts of other bits and pieces. It was really lovely. We were then joined by the French guy himself (he'd been finishing off an earlier tour indoors) and he talked us through more stuff including constellations (and how astrology is absolute nonsense!), about the planets and why they're all on the same plane, about communicating with aliens (it would take hundreds of years, at least, communicating at the speed of light to send a message and the same time for aliens to receive our reply, so it's a little unlikely!) and all sorts of other exciting stuff. I'm interested enough that I might look into OU courses in astronomy when I get back from the 2011 trip.

About 2 hours later I was up and ready for a tour to the geysers. The early start is apparently because you can't see all the steam when the air temperature has heated up. The geysers were pretty cool, but nothing like New Zealand. And the hot springs we were taken to were on the cold side, plus it's not much fun in the desert in your bikini with about 100 tourists standing around watching you!

Bloody freezing at stupid-o'clock am

After a quick change and another lunch in the same place I picked up a night bus to La Serena, just over halfway to Santiago and on the coast. I went there specifically for a tour out to see the penguins, but it was cancelled two days in a row because the wind was apparently too high for the boats (you wouldn't get this health and safety nonsense in Bolivia!) so, after a couple of days of movies and long walks on the beach followed by packs of stray dogs, I, along with 2 English and 2 Irish, gave up and headed down to Valparaiso, also on the coast and very near Santiago. I also went on a stargazing tour in La Serena, but it wasn't nearly as good as the French guy's. And there were two blonde, posh and massively stupid English girls there that came out with such gems as "Oh, so the moon goes round the earth." and "So, to see the meteors I need to look in the sky on Dec 13th.  Is that at night?" The "astronomer" in charge wasn't much better, expressing amazement that the Egyptians built their pyramid directly on the Greenwich meridian. Given the meridian was set a few centuries later, and is completely arbitrary I doubt that was planning on the Egyptians' behalf.

Sam, Roy, Cat and fish and chips in the fish market in La Serena

In Valparaiso me and the Irish went on a walking tour round the town in glorious sunshine.  It was really lovely and ended with a big bowl of Paila Marina which is a shellfish stew and pretty good.  I also went to see Pablo Neruda's house "La Sebastiana" which was interesting in it's own quiet way.

Cat, Roy and me in Valparaiso

La Sebastiana

From Valparaiso I went up to Santiago, arriving just in time to take in another of Pablo Neruda's houses "La Chascona" which was really beautiful, and went up Cerro San Cristobal on a funicular railway for a view out over the smog covered city. I spent my second day there walking all over town, visiting the anthropological museum and heading up another, more beautiful viewpoint called Santa Lucia. And on the third day I met up with the English pair I met in La Serena for a great fish lunch at the market and a wander through town where we happened upon a gay pride parade which was loads of fun! Lots of people have not very nice things to say about Santiago, but I quite liked it. The city is pretty enough, and whilst there's not a lot of touristy things to do, it's not all that fair to judge a city on that (Glasgow is similar in this respect.)

Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal

Mercado Central, Santiago

Sam, a man in a sequinned thong and feathers, and me at Gay Pride

I was clearly missing night buses after a few days without, so hopped on one to Pucon, much further south and in the lake district. The town is dominated by the Villarrica volcano which is a perfect, cone-shaped volcano, covered in snow and puffing out sulphur fumes. Being lazy (and still mourning the loss of my toenail from way back in Panama!) I decided I would skip the 5 hour hike up the snow to the top, and went horseriding with an Aussie called Jarny instead. The countryside was absolutely beautiful, and my horse was pretty feisty, especially as it was being bothered by horseflies so spent much of it's time biting my right knee and bucking which was fun! It also decided at one point to go from a walk to a full gallop at no notice as it spotted some horses in a field and thought it would be a good plan to race them!

Volcan Villarrica, Pucon

Lake near Pucon

The horse was definitely trying to kill me!

Me and Jarny (and her pretty horse) and our attractive half-chaps

And from Pucon I bussed down to the town of Ancud on the island of Chiloe (health and safety not in operation this time as we didn't have to get off the bus when it went on the ferry!) and hiked miles into town discovering on the way the bus terminal was not where it was marked on the Rough Guide map. I'd emailed a hostel and went to that one to see if there was room. The hostel looked nice but had the WEIRDEST girl working on reception who told me there was no space, but would I like a triple room with private bathroom for just US$80 a night? Anyways, found another hostel, checked my internet and they'd confirmed my reservation so I've no idea what the weirdo's problem was!

Chiloe

Ancud is a wee fishing town on the coast, so I got a lovely cheap fish tea and had a walk to the old fort and one of the beaches before bedtime and a trip to see penguins in the morning (to make up for my disappointment at La Serena).  Sadly, it was third time unlucky and the boats out to the penguins were cancelled because of the weather.  Should definitely have Grandad deciding on appropriate weather conditions rather than the scaredy-cat Chilean Armada as it looked fine to me!  So, instead of penguins I got a jeep tour round the island, which looks a lot like Scotland, in the pouring rain and cold, which makes it a lot more like Scotland.  It was pretty enough, but I was so over being cold and wet that I left for a wee resort town called Puerto Varas a little further north. It was also raining there, but I found a great place for sushi so I was relatively happy. They even tempura-d some of the sushi rolls which tasted amazing. I just can't figure out why Scotland hasn't cottoned on to this yet!  They even gave me free tempura icrecream.  Not quite as good.

From there I got the bus up to Bariloche in Argentina.  What apparently is an amazing drive was shrouded in drizzle and rain which was a shame.