Page 6 of Will and Alex Travel Blog Posts


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Will and Alex
April 14th 2012

From Caldera, the next jump is up to San Pedro de Atacama, deep inland not far from the Chile-Argentina-Bolivia border. The struggle to get two tickets to get us there shows just how popular our next destination is. A tiny oasis town in the middle of the Atacama Desert, San Pedro is a minute, almost insignificant blip on the landscape. But oh, what a landscape! And this is why visitors to Chile flock to San Pedro de Atacama in their thousands. It's hot, it's dry, it's high up - the 2,400 metre altitude doesn't agree with everyone - but this little town of barely 5,000 inhabitants is surrounded by some of the most astonishing scenery in Chile. Again, here, the pictures will do most of the talking. We spent a delightful four days here, visiting the ... read more



Pisco in Pisco

Published: April 14th 2012South America » Chile » Coquimbo Region » Pisco Elqui
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Will and Alex
April 14th 2012

To the north of Valparaíso begins El Norte. As in the south of Chile, such is the extent of this stretched-out region that it needs subdividing: Norte Chico (the little north), giving way to the Norte Grande (the big north), with some people even referring to a Norte Extremo even further up. We've definitely been dawdling. Such has been the attraction of the south that we've almost forgotten than there's a whole other half-Chile waiting to be disovered beyond Santiago. On arrival in the far south we were given a standard 90-day stamp in our passports, of which we've spent over 60 already. This leaves us barely a month to cover the two thousand kilometres which separate Valparaíso from Arica, Chile's most northerly town, almost sitting on the Peruvian border. A slight upping of the pace ... read more



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Will and Alex
March 19th 2012

The "end of summer" sensation didn't last long. After a surprisingly sound night's sleep on the bus from Pucón, we step out into a very sunny Santiago. A taxi ride from the terminal to our hostel - the dubiously named but in fact utterly brilliant Happy House Hostel - is a bit of a jarring shock. Wide avenues, cars, cars, cars, people, people, people. Santiago is a big city - nearly a third of Chile's entire population lives in the city and its suburbs. We spend only a couple of days in the capital. It's not a particularly engaging place - certainly less so than Buenos Aires - and it's very, very hot. Wedged right up against the Andes in a geographic bowl, Santiago suffers from terrible air pollution. From a high viewpoint in a pretty ... read more



In Hot Water

Published: March 19th 2012South America » Chile » Araucanía » Pucón
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Will and Alex
March 16th 2012

Our four furry friends having led us back to the safety of Anticura, we head back to Osorno - a rather drab city even by Chilean drab city standards - where we spend the night in order to catch a bus to Pucón, located in the next province along, Region IX or Araucanía. Everybody in Chile knows about Pucón. Arriving in town by bus it seems that everybody in Chile is in Pucón. After weeks - nay, months - in the wilds of Patagonia, it comes as something of a surprise to see streets bustling with people and dozens of restaurants, coffee-houses and tour agencies competing for your attention. Pucón has been compared to Queenstown in New Zealand, and it's true that it is similar in some ways - lakeside, upmarket and an absolute magnet for ... read more



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Will and Alex
March 15th 2012

Our fantastic trekking guide to Patagonia includes a hike we've had our eye on for months, in Parque Nacional Puyehue, a few hours north of Puerto Varas and straddling the border between Region XIV Los Ríos and Region X Los Lagos. There's only one problem: the trail passes almost under the nose of the volcanic eruption which has been spewing ash over Argentina's Lake District and causing global havoc - the eruption disrupted air traffic in Australia for several days, so we're not talking about an insignificant planet-fart here - since June 2011. We've seen for ourselves the state of Villa La Angostura, the small Argentine town which bore the brunt of the ash - can there be any hope for a hiking trail a few kilometres away from the source of said ash? After a ... read more



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Will and Alex
March 13th 2012

All neoprened-out from our active few days in Puerto Varas, it up to Valdivia a few hours north in the Province of Los Ríos (newly-created four years ago and numbered XIV, thereby completely messing up the lovely neat provincial numbering system). We stay for only one night in a lovely old house run by a charming English, French, Swedish and (of course) Spanish-speaking lady who looks after us very well (even cooking us a slap-up breakfast, an indescribable rarity in Chile, where desayuno incluido usually means instant coffee and a bread roll). Valvidia is a pleasant riverside city with a bustling and vibrant fish market right on the banks of the Río Calle-Calle. Visitors flock to the market not to buy fish and shellfish - of which there is a mind-boggling variety...there are at least four ... read more



Neoprene Fun!

Published: March 13th 2012South America » Chile » Los Lagos » Puerto Varas
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Will and Alex
March 13th 2012

January and February are high summer in Chile, when Chileans escape in droves from their cities - smoggy, sweltering Santiago in particular - to enjoy their country's extraordinary natural wealth: its lakes, its rivers, its mountains, its beaches.We'd never have guessed as much over the past 6 weeks, however:so out of the way is the Carretera Austral that only a relatively small handful of people make it there. Chiloé, with its (not altogether unearned) reputation as a place of endless rain, also escapes the summer hordes despite its accessibility. And so we have been lulled into a dangerously false sense of security. Our plan for after Chiloé is to visit regions X and IX - Los Lagos and Araucanía respectively - just when tens of thousands of Chileans are doing so as well. There really isn't ... read more



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Will and Alex
March 13th 2012

A Sky Airline Boeing plucks us from the boondocks of Aysén and drop us in Puerto Montt, capital of Los Lagos region (number X for those of you who have been following). And what a shock it is! For one, there is transport! Buses, real buses...like, every hour! Every 30 minutes even! Like, to everywhere! To use the vernacular: OMG. Will we survive the excitement? On the Carretera Austral, one of the first things you have to do on arriving somewhere is find out - immediately - when the outbound buses leave. It's not unusual for a bus between A and B to leave only on a Monday and a Thursday - making arriving on a Friday something of a pain if place A only has enough to hold your attention for a day, one dingy ... read more



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Will and Alex
February 29th 2012

As far as the inhabitants of Chile's Aysén Province are concerned, they don't really live in Chile at all. "Acá no es Chile. Es Patagonia.", they say. How very true that statement would turn out to be. Over four thousand kilometres long, with its capital city more or less slap bang in the middle, with its southern tip within striking distance of Antarctica and its northern one in the rainless desert of the altiplano, nudging Peru, it's no wonder that Chile's more peripheral regions feel, well, rather far-flung. As a result of Chile's utterly bizarre geography, a crazy beanpole of a country if ever there was one, its provinces are numbered as well as named - from number I in the north to number XII in the case of Magallanes, far in the south. Aysén is ... read more



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Will and Alex
December 31st 2011

And so to Chile. We've been in Argentina so long that it feels strange to be crossing the border. How on Earth will we adapt? A bus from El Calafate zips us across the border at Río Turbio, a (yet another) dull, windy, workaday town, and into Puerto Natales. Located on the shore of Seno Ultima Esperanza (Last Hope Sound) in Magallanes, Chile's southernmost (and that's saying something) province, Puerto Natales - not a city I'd write home about - is well known as the entry point for a place whose reputation worldwide is nothing short of Legendary. Torres del Paine National Park is, pretty much everyone agrees, the reason you come to this ever-so-distant part of Patagonia. Well, much as I hate to disappoint, this blog entry stops here. The day we arrived in Puerto ... read more






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