Chile is an incredible country and I wish that I had more time for it. It is beautiful. I recommend that anyone wanting to come to South America come to see this wonderful place. We wound in and out of Chile and Argentina for a few weeks, but more time would have been great.
Our first stop was San Pedro de Atacama, a cute little town that happened to be overrun by tourists at the time. The streets were mainly made from dirt and the shops were mainly touristy, but the feel of civilisation (after Bolivia) without being a big built-up concrete jungle of a town had an huge effect of the feel of the town. It felt good being there, it felt happy. On our first day there was visited the Salt Mountains (actual mountains made from salt) and the Moon Valley. It was an interesting experience, we walked (crawled) through caves made of salt, we wandered up hills covered in sand like the dessert, and we perched on a rock cliff watching the sun go down. It was hot and cold at the same time. It was great.
That evening we went star gazing. We met a Canadian who lived there now and he gave us a talk about the night sky and what we were seeing, what people through history had thought that they were seeing, and then took us over to some (very) big telescopes to look at some pre-determined stars and points in the sky. If anyone has not seen a star cluster before – we highly recommend that you get to your local observatory and ask to see one – they are absolutely beautiful.
Our next foray into Chile was to Santiago, the capital city. We were told to remember that to the Chilean people, Santiago is not Chile – but for me it is, it so completely is. On our first (and only) morning a friend and I were walking down the street to join the free walking tour when a street vendor’s stand fell over. A man walking past stopped to help the vendor pick up the fallen items. A bit further down I saw an old woman (wearing completely impractical platform shoes – yes they are very much back in fashion in Chile) fall over. Two younger people helped her up and set her on her feet. Then even further down the street, I managed to drop my phone and have it separate into bits on the ground. A man helped me pick up the bits and put my phone back together (it still works and the screen did not break!!!). The people in the street were friendly and helpful – we had not seen this for quite some time in South America. The walking tour was great, we snuck off to a café just before the end and ate some delicious food and a very strong cocktail – Laurence joined us there. From there we went to a wine tasting restaurant that I had booked us into. While Joann and I tried 20 different Chilean wines between us, Laurence had found his favourite Whiskey and the free bread. That night we treated ourselves to Sushi and it was delicious.
Pucon, located in the Chilean lakes district, was a beautiful town that reminded me of Queenstown. We had some relaxing planned for this town and that suited us well. We ate BBQ, cheese, crackers, and drank wine and cider in the evenings. One of the days, I went horse riding to see the four volcanoes in the area (there were even condors flying above my head at the top). But the rest of the time, just relaxing in this beautiful town.
Our last stop in Chile was the Torres del Paine National Park. A beautiful area with loads of lakes, glaciers, and mountains. A number of people we were travelling with were doing a 4-5 day walk. Having already completed our allocated South America hike (the Inca trail) we merely relaxed in nature (killing the little biting bugs) and walked to and from the food tent. We did do a couple of short trips/walks to see what everyone was talking about. Overall, it was a great ending to our Chile experience, definitely a place that I want to spend a lot more time in going forward!
