Chile

 

Being taken from salt flats in Bolivia to the world’s driest desert in a couple of days was surreal, two contrasting places both amazing in their own right. We spent 4 nights here and to be fair we could have spent much longer as there are endless activities and adventures to be had here..

This small desert town though, as it is remote, is expensive enough..but maybe also we found it pricey due to having spent the past 3 weeks in the cheapest country in South America; Bolivia. We enjoyed this place and made the most of the different tours they had on offer.

 

My recommendation in a previous blog post of carrying a bit of cash in each country’s currency helped us out here, as when we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, the whole bus flocked to the one ATM this town had and in a matter of minutes it was out of order and not getting fixed to the next day. This set panic on some people’s faces as we found only a few places to accept card here, and if they did, they required a minimum spend and/or charged a fee.

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Having just come from the 3 day tour of the salt flats in Bolivia, we quickly noticed that many of the tours offered here (to geysers, lakes, etc) were similar to the sites we had already seen. Wanting to see something different, we strayed away from those tours and opted for sandboarding, stargazing and Valle de la Luna instead. There are also many other activities on offer here, from renting bikes to hiking up mountains or even just floating around the different cafes, this place is suitable for everyone.

 

As tiring as it is having to trek up a steep slope made of sand at high altitude, carrying a board and wearing boots, the exhilarating feeling of zooming down it makes it worthwhile. Having zero experience and still suffering from the effects of the altitude, we loved this activity and had a very fun day! This activity is light on the wallet and it also gives you nice views of the desert, you have plenty of time to take them in when catching your breath after climbing the slope.

 

Stargazing was amazing, there is something peaceful about looking up at the sky and seeing thousands of twinkling stars above you, all whilst you’re very cold and wrapped in a huge blanket.

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We were lucky as we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama on the very last day they were offering the stargazing tours, before stopping them for a week. The laws of the universe meant that at the end of every month, due to the full moon the companies take a break from the tours as the moon shines too bright to be able to see the stars clearly. It makes me eager to go stargazing just after a full moon as I thought the experience was amazing and apparently it wasn’t that great a night for it.

 

We absolutely love a sunset, so when offered the chance to tour about a valley and then watch the sunset behind it, making the mountains turn a shade of purple/red, we were not going to say no.

 

The Valle de la Luna provides different views to what you would expect in a desert, a short walk through caves and across sand dunes and then experiencing the sunset is a perfect way to end any day in this place.

As much as we didn’t mind the long haul buses in South America, we still didn’t fancy the 22 hour trek from San Pedro de Atacama to Santiago. Instead, after a bit of research, we found a cheap flight to Santiago from a coastal city in the north of Chile called Iquique. Arica wasn’t too far from Iquique and we had a couple of days to spare, so we stopped off here for a night.

 

A chilled little beach city, we enjoyed our time here and we were surprisingly excited about seeing a shopping mall (travelling for a month and only seeing a grocery store does take its toll), even though we just window shopped and didn’t make any purchases.

 

A walk around the city and up to the view point with the biggest flag that I’ve ever seen flying in all its glory, is all you need to do here. If you get nice weather and like to relax, then you can spend more time here and you wouldn’t regret it.

We loved Iquique from the moment we caught a glimpse of it from the bus, cascading down to the city which is built on a beach. The views coming in were spectacular and we did not even have great weather to see it in all its glory.

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We had our first Air BnB experience here, which was lovely apart from the growling dog who greeted us with its loud barking and showing off his v sharp teeth. The family could not speak English and of course we couldn’t speak Spanish, but they welcomed us into their home and made us feel very relaxed. Their son even took us on a car ride to the top of the hill for a lovely view out over the city, it’s safe to say they earned the great review we gave them.

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The clouds covering the sky every day still didn’t stop us from enjoying our time on the beach – we were happy we were finally back down to sea level and could breath properly again. The waves were fun to play in, being smashed about makes you forget about the cold quite quickly.

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This is a very relaxing city, which we learned quickly as all the shops close during the day and all day Sundays. So if you want to explore it properly, it is better to do so in the evenings when it livens up a bit. However, we were there coming into the winter season, so maybe at a different time of year they open all day – you will just have to go to find out!

If you are here when the weather is clear and sunny, then I would recommend going paragliding as the views would be beautiful! The weather doesn’t stop the paragliders anyway, as you can see them every day high in the sky – I couldn’t imagine every getting bored of that view.

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If you are into shopping or just like walking around and having a nosey then this is the place for you. With a duty free shopping mall, you can spend the whole day walking around the shops.

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The first proper big city on our travels, Santiago did not disappoint. Staying in an Air BnB, right in the midst of the hustle and bustle of city life, we loved our time spent here. With lots of buildings to see, streets to walk down, barrios (areas) to explore, this equates to many many steps being racked up!

 

We spent 3 full days in this city which was enough to see everything we wanted to, but of course with this being a city and the continent being South America, you could spend weeks here and not get bored.

 

Santa Lucia is a nice park in the middle of the city, lovely to walk around and refreshing to get away from high rise buildings and car fumes. San Cristobal is a place where you can get an unbelievable view of the whole city; you get on a funicular up and there is also a zoo to explore on the way as well. This isn’t a place you spend 5 minutes looking at the views and getting a picture, we spent 2 hours up here walking around and relaxing.

 

With a love for good views, Santiago is home to Sky Costanera which is the biggest building in South America at 300m. You can get a speedy lift up to the top floor here for a reasonable price, to take in views of not only the city below, but you capture the snow capped Andes mountains in the background as well. Not only is the trip to this building worthwhile for the scenery, but it is also located beside a massive shopping centre so you could spend a whole day there afterwards looking around the shops.

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Santiago, being the capital of Chile, comes with many museums to explore and Parliamentary buildings to look at. As mentioned before, I am not really a person for museums, but I do enjoy looking at a spectacular building.

 

You don’t have to walk far down a street before smelling the mouth watering aroma of sugar coated peanuts being roasted. Every time we walked past a seller we felt inclined to buy a packet, not only did the smell reel us in, but the taste of them were delicious and unfortunately we’ve not found better sugar coated peanuts than those in Santiago.

 

We had our first South American steak here in this city at Las Vacas Gordas restaurant. From backpacker style travelling, we maybe were a bit too excited for the complimentary bread rolls and mistakenly said ‘mas’ when we thought they were asking if we were finished. Regardless, we were not too full for our steak and this place served a lovely meal. 

 

This is the portside city, covered in colourful graffiti and where you casually jump on a funicular to get to your accommodation. Just an hour or so outside Santiago, you’re quickly away from the big city life and are thrown into the chilled, artsy vibe of Valparaiso.

One thing we learned though on our travels, was not to trust the google images that showed up on a search of the city – as cool as this city is, of course the walls were never going to be as contrasted as the edited images on the internet portray. 

 

All over South America, there are free city walking tours to avail of – taking you to the main sights whilst also telling you stories along the way. Yes, the word free is correct and means what you think it does, however if you feel that the guide was worthy at the end, a tip was appreciated.

The walking tour in Valparaiso was really good, we were taken through nooks and cranny’s we were never going to find on our own and we also got our first taste of Alfajores; a local delicacy which is 2 shortbread biscuits sandwiched with dulce de leche in the middle. In essence, it is heaven in a bite! The ones we had on this tour were so good that we went back the next day on our own and got more.

 

On the walking tour, we learned of Pablo Neruda; a Chilean poet-diplomat and politican, who had a cool house in Valparaiso which is now turned into a museum. What is special about this house is that is it 4 floors with each floor being provided with 360 degree views over Valparaiso. Neruda used to watch the New Year’s eve fireworks from his living room, lighting the sky up in all sorts of colour. We then went on a tour of this house which I would highly recommend doing. It is interesting to hear of his background and stories and also to see the furniture still as it was when he lived there.

 

Another South American delicacy which we discovered here are empanadas. These are a baked pasty, usually filled with meat, potatoes and egg, however with anything these days, you can get them with all sorts of fillings inside. In Valparaiso there is a special empanada shop which sells 80 varieties!

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This is a small town, 15 minutes on the local bus outside Valparaiso. We spent a night here, but in hindsight, we should have taken a day trip here from Valparaiso as accommodation is more expensive in Vina del Mar and there is less to see.

 

In the nice summer weather, crowds flock here for the beach and so I would expect it would be lovely as it does have a great sunset. We were here when it was coming into winter, so we didn’t experience the warmth of the beach, but of course we enjoyed a nice sunset over the water.

 

There is also a walking tour to avail of, which I would recommend doing as this takes you to places in the city you would not get to see if you explored on your own. Also worth doing the walking tour if you do not have much time here and want to see the best bits Vina del Mar has to offer.

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These 3 places are down in the Patagonia region. To save this post from being too long and also because Patagonia deserves it, I will post a separate page to describe our travels through this region. Read on and stay tuned for how two inexperienced hikers survived the Patagonian ways.

We got on a night bus from Valparaiso which took us to Mendoza in Argentina. This was our first border crossing using public transport and not a tour guide, but it couldn’t have been easier. We arrived at the border in the middle of the night, got woken by the driver to go and get our passports stamped out of Chile and into Argentina. This process took a mere 20 minutes, then we got back on the bus and got given a nice snack box.

Being very tired, I went straight to sleep, fell into a deep sleep for hours and woke to see that we had not moved an inch. The overall journey time between Valparaiso and Mendoza is less than 6 hours, but it took the entire night bus as we sat in a queue. This was fine by us though as we ended up getting a full night’s sleep and we arrived in Mendoza at a perfect time in the morning so we could check in to our hostel straight away and avail of the breakfast they provided!