Santiago and Valparaiso

Santiago  

We flew back to Santiago for a few days, as although this would be my third visit in as many weeks to the city, including a work trip, we had barely seen any of it.

Santiago

On the day of our arrival we familiarised ourselves with the city by walking and getting lost, and we checked out the Metropolitan Cathedral, and the Santa Lucia Hill. Santa Lucia Hill is right in the middle of the city, and is a park made up of fountains, small plazas, monuments and panoramic viewpoints, or ‘miradors’. 

View over Santiago

We were staying for a couple of nights on busy street called Morande. This district was very nice but it seemed to be more of a commercial area judging by the numerous office blocks there. We were right next to Plaza de Armas, one of the main squares, and so the next day we did our favourite thing…took a free walking tour of course. The tour is daily at 10am and 3pm from outside the Metropolitan Cathedral in the Plaza. This was a great tour – our guide was an actor as well – and as well as finding out about the major landmarks of the city, such as Santa Lucia Hill, the Presidential House, or ‘La Moneda’,and the various museums (public ones were closed due to strikes, all are closed on Monday), we also found out about the best places to go out, to eat, to drink, we learned of life under the dictatorial regime of General Pinochet and the hardships the Chilean people suffered.

Santiago in bloom

We met a couple on the tour who we went for drinks with afterwards in the trendy Bellavista neighbourhood, where the tour finished. As we sat chatting and drinking pisco sours in the sunshine, our friends reached down for their rucksack…which had disappeared. We alerted the bar staff who called the police, and when they checked the CCTV footage, there were 2 guys who had sat at the table just behind us, managing to slyly reach down and whisk the bag away. Our friends were annoyed but when they realised that the only valuable item in the bag was one of their passports, they were relieved. A bit of hanging around the next day at the embassy and they were issued with emergency travel documents. We sunk a few more piscos and then scoured the area checking the bins as we went for any sign of the bag. Funnily enough our friend was a Liverpool FC fan…he was great at bin-dipping.

Bellavista

The next day after switching hostels to a gorgeous area near to Santa Isabel metro, we visited the Museum of Memory and Human Rights to learn more about Pinochet’s dictatorship and the effect it had on the country.

Plaza de Armas

He came to power after the Socialist President Allende was overthrown by a military coup on 11 September 1973, with assistance from the US government which was fearful of the influence the Socialist President Allende may have, and of a potential Communist movement across Latin America. The US President, Nixon, personally authorised up to $1 million to support the right-wing newspaper, El Mercurio, which was full of propaganda and 7 months later authorised another $965,000. In fact payments to the paper went on until mid-1974. The US government also caused blockades so that food was not getting into Chile and this led to the people blaming President Allende and rising up, attacking the Presidential House. When the military stepped in, the President was still in the House and was found to have ‘committed suicide’. Pinochet reluctantly (!) stepped in and his reign lasted until 1990. 

Santiago street art

Pinochet and his henchmen committed many atrocities against anyone they thought had spoken out or were plotting against them or their dictatorial regime. The military in Chile murdered and ‘disappeared’ almost 3,200 citizens and thousands others were tortured, imprisoned or exiled for being perceived as left-wing or communists including writers, university lecturers and musicians. Pinochet also ordered the murder of people just to send a message of fear to others. An example of this was the notorious caravan of death. This was a military death squad which was dispatched in a helicopter to the north of Chile, including Calama and the Atacama desert. This death squad held a list of men who were deemed to have been dissidents of the regime, trouble makers and those in positions of power that could use their power to cause trouble for the regime. Many of these men had no political leanings and obeyed the orders of the military but despite this, they were shot dead.  Today many families are still scouring the Atacama desert for their loved ones, and remains have been found in the Pacific ocean.

When Pinochet called the referendum in 1988 to ask the people if he should remain as President or step down, the result was 56% in favour of him stepping down and although he remained in power for a further 2 years, he was finally ousted. He ended up fleeing to London where he was arrested in 1998 and finally extradited by the Spanish who wanted justice for several Spanish citizens that had been killed by his regime. He was taken back to Chile and although a case was being built against him for tax evasion and corruption, he died on 10 December 2006 before receiving any punishment.

Just across the road from the Museum of Memory and Human Rights is the Natural History Museum, Baby D’s favourite type of museum after train museums…! There we learned about the indigenous animals in Chile, the country’s geography and geology. We headed back to Santa Isabel to meet a Chilean friend we’d met in San Pedro, for dinner and drinks where we finally got to sample the Chilean dish, which they describe as a corn cake called ‘pastel de choclo’. Imagine a cottage pie with mince, onions, chicken, raisins and olives, and on the top, instead of mashed potato, there is mashed corn. It wasn’t my cup of tea as I am not a fan of corn but Baby D loved it.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso

Up bright and early the next day to take the bus to Valparaiso for the day. Valparaiso is a city around an hour and a half, or 115km from Santiago. We were intending to stay over for a couple of days but we were enjoying Santiago too much so we bussed there and back on the same day, arriving just in time for a free walking tour (10am and 3pm at Plaza Anibal Pinto), accompanied by a pack of friendly street dogs. 

View over Valparaiso

Valparaiso is a vibrant, youthful city, covered in street art and is built on a hillside with colourful homes dotted across it. Much of the city which is right on the seafront, was constructed on reclaimed land, and there was no city plan when it was built so you’ll find a cemetery on top of a hill instead of expensive houses with views, as would normally be the case in cities with urban plans.

Valparaiso

Valparaiso is well used to forest fires and after devastating fires in 2014, the Mayor told those affected that they would be provided with tents, food and drink the following night. When the people complained saying they needed shelter and food now, especially because of the children, he replied saying – did I ask you to live here? This notorious response is graffitied in the town as a reminder to the people not to vote him in again. 

Walking tour companions

The town has a funicular and at the top is a slide down to a street below which we all had to take. That was a first on a walking tour. The National Congress of Chile is held in Valparaiso rather than Santiago, because Pinochet’s family lived there and he wanted to see more of his family. 

Valparaiso

After the tour we visited the artisanal markets and then headed off to the bus back to Santiago. There were two bus stations easily accessible for us to get to Valparaiso Universidad de Santiago or Pajaritas. The bus was around 16,00 Pesos return for 2 of us. Valparaiso is definitely worth a visit and if we’d have had more time we would have stayed a couple of nights.

#santiago #chile #valparaiso #museumofmemoryandhumanrightssantiago #santaluciahill #bellavista

Bolivia salt flats

Uyuni 

Uyuni graffiti

We were up the next morning at 3am to take a bus to Uyuni in Bolivia to visit the famous salt flats. After 10 hours on the bus, we had time to walk round the town and have some dinner, then we booked a 1 day tour of the flats for the following day, which cost us about $25 USD each.

Lady in typical bowler hat

We went with Blue Line Tours because many other tour agencies tried to charge the same amount, PLUS another $50 USD each for an English-speaking guide. We were with 2 other couples in a 4 x 4 and our guide spoke great English. 

Train cemetery

First stop was the train cemetery. This is where trains that had been set up by the British for mining were left to rust in the 1940s when the mining industry collapsed. 

We went to the small town of Colchani to see how salt is processed and packaged for sale in the region, we strolled around the tourist trap market, and we visited the little salt museum with its statues made of salt, before heading off to salt flats.

Salt flats

The salt flats stretch as far as the eye could see and are just a huge desert of salt that looks like snow. It’s an impressive sight. We had lunch in the salt hotel, then our guide took some perspective photos which were basically us messing around pretending to be chased by a toy dinosaur. 

We drove on to Fish Island, so-called because it apparently has the shape of a fish from a distance. This is an oasis in the middle of the flats – an island made of petrified coral covered in huge cacti, which has quite a nice little trek, taking around 40 minutes.

Fish Island

The final stop on this fantastic tour was to see the sunset. Some of the more expensive tours included use of rain boots (wellies) but ours didn’t and it was a bit annoying because there was quite a bit of water up where the sunset spot was, and most people didn’t get out of the jeep because of it. We risked it and managed not to get soaked. The sunset was beautiful, well worth it. The salt flats are stunning but to get the famous mirror effect, it’s best to go in December or January when there has been some rain to allow for the perfect reflection. 

Salt flats

We were on the bus at 5am the next morning, heading straight back to San Pedro. The bus was really straightforward and we were instructed what to do at the checkpoints and customs. The journey was pretty comfortable but we were glad we had brought our own food as it stopped only once there and back in the same place, just over the border in Bolivia. There is a bit of hanging around as you’d expect at the borders, but overall it was fine, and it was fun to watch the sniffer dog at work on the way back.

 

We got back and dumped our bags and went straight to the pub to meet our astro-photographer friend for a few beers. We stayed out partying with him and several other tour guides until 4am and that put paid to any trips we’d planned to do the following day. 

 

The town of San Pedro is a great little town. It’s fairly touristy but has a lovely relaxed vibe to it. Although it’s pretty small, it had a good selection of bars and eateries, including a row of really cheap local places. The only drawbacks to them were that they closed as soon as the food ran out, so it was hit and miss as to whether we’d make it in time, and they didn’t sell booze. As is the case all over Chile, there are street dogs everywhere, but they are all so friendly. In fact we were told that locals call the town San Perro (perro = dog). We could have stayed longer…you get used to the dry air eventually.

#bolivia #uyuni #saltflats #calchoni  #traincemetery #fishisland

Chile - Elqui Valley and San Pedro de Atacama

Santiago 

Onto Chile – Santiago for one night. We arrive at our hotel at 10.30pm and no one was there to open up for us, so we banged on the door for around 20 minutes. The room was like a prison cell, narrow, dark, boiling hot, made of plywood so could hear everything that was going on in the hotel. Luckily we were there for about 7 hours so we could cope with that.

La Serena

We took an Uber to the airport the next morning to go to La Serena in the Elqui Valley. Baby D was wearing his police cap from Colombia and the Uber driver drove off when he approached the car as Uber is not allowed in Santiago! The next Uber driver tried to dump us at the airport cargo terminal instead of passenger terminal, so not a great advert for them in Santiago.

Elqui Valley

When we got to La Serena, again there was no one in at the hostel so we walked around town for a while until we could get in. Starting to sense a theme in Chile...

We visited the completely random but stunning Japanese botanic gardens in La Serena, a social enterprise initiative called Kokoro No Niwa, then we booked a stargazing tour for that night.

Kokoro No Niwa

 

The astronomy tour was to the Mamalluca observatory in the next town, Vicuña. We paid 16,000 Pesos each, although if you can get to the observatory yourself it’s only 7,000. The last local bus back to La Serena is at around 9pm so you would need a car. 

Telescop at Mamalluca

This area of Chile is the best stargazing spot in the world because of its clear skies (approximately 200 cloudless nights per year), and its ultra-dry climate being sheltered by the Andes and although it’s next to the Pacific, its high altitude keeps it arid. Our guide for the evening had worked in astronomy since the 80s and he was refreshingly enthusiastic about it. We saw Saturn through the telescope, as well as binary stars and far off galaxies such as Andromeda, and he pointed out planets, constellations and nebula visible with the naked eye. I would definitely recommend this tour to anyone going there; it really gives you a sense of how vast the world is and how insignificant we are.

Pisco Elqui church

The next day we took a bus to a teeny little town called Pisco Elqui, famous for its pisco making. Brits will know what pisco is of course (!?), bearing in mind that the pisqueria (pisco brewery) we visited, ABA, which has been around since 1921, exports 60% of its produce to the UK. Anyway it’s a spirit made from muscat grapes, double distilled in copper pots and then matured for between 12 and 24 months when it is mixed with water to dilute it to 40%, and it is the most popular alcoholic drink in Chile. It can be drunk with fruit juices or tonics, and we were told, never with coke. Try telling the rest of Chile that, the nation’s favourite drink is Piscola. We had a free pisco tasting and tour, and ended up buying some delicious pisco and mango juice, making the mistake of drinking it like it was beer, before remembering how strong it was. 

ABA Pisqueria

We headed into Vicuna for a cheap supermarket picnic and then realising that it was Monday and yet again, all museums were closed. The main one we wanted to visit was the Gabriela Mistral museum. She was a Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and humanist from the Elqui Valley but we missed out on learning any more about her. 

San Pedro de Atacama

Church in San Pedro

After our day out, we prepared ourselves for a 15 hour bus ride to Calama in the north, eventually arriving in a small town in the Andes, San Pedro de Atacama, set in the driest desert in the world, with 5% humidity and you could feel it. I suffered with a few nosebleeds due to a combination of the dryness and the altitude which is 2408m.

Salt lakes

We met a couple of fellow travellers on the bus who we knocked around with for the next few days including taking bikes and cycling to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley). It was 11km to the entrance of the national park, and then another 11km to the end from the entrance. We made it to the salt cavern about 5km in, before turning round and heading back to town. We had to get the bikes back anyway, but it was ridiculously hot and we had run out of water. 

Moon Valley

I was astounded that you couldn’t buy water anywhere in the national park. They are definitely missing a trick. You need probably 3 litres each if cycling. There were people there that had run out of water that were on proper bus tours, and were filling water bottles from the tap in the toilet even though they were told the water was undrinkable. 

Desert

The Valle de la Luna is pretty awesome (what we saw of it anyway); it’s like being on the moon. The salt cavern was a natural geological cave formation formed from quartz and other rock, and we were able to walk through it for around 10 minutes, then climb over it to get back to the main road.

Vicuna

The following day we were off on a full day tour to see the ‘piedras rojas’ or the red stones, which were situated next to a beautiful salt lagoon. We firstly stopped for breakfast in a charming little town called Toconao where we visited a shop selling llama and sheep wool products, and saw the llama, sheep and goat living in the garden. 

We also saw wild donkeys and vicuna, which look something like a cross between deer and llamas and are related to llamas.

Wild donkeys

We visited a number of other lagoons in Los Flamencos National Reserve, including the Miniques Lagoon which was 1.5 km long, the Miscanti Lagoon and the Chaxa Lagoon, replete with pink flamingos. We stopped for lunch on the way back in Toconao (all included in the price of the tour). 

We had also seen another activity we were interested in, astro-photography, but because the photographer needed a minimum number of people in order to make it viable for him, we ended up paying him a bit less and just having a photo-shoot of us under the stars looking up at the milky way, sharing a bottle of wine. 

Stargazing

#chile #sanpedrodeatacama mamalluca 

stargazing #laserena #pisco #abapisqueria #chaxa #miniques #miscanti #toconao #flamencosnational reserve #piedrasrojas #valledelaluna #elqui valley #astrophotography