Blogs from Antofagasta, Antofagasta Region, Chile, South America

7 March 2014 – Friday – Iquique to Antofagasta, Chile On the smooth, long bus ride from Iquique to Antofagasta I finished reading Isable Allende’s Of Love and Shadows, a novel set during the Pinochet years in Chile. It is a bit melodramatic and the writing about sex is embarrassingly over-the-top, but the storyline holds together well and the characters are interesting even if they are sometimes mouthpieces for political points of view. The historical and fictional elements blend well. Very enjoyable and Highly Recommended. The 300 kilometre coach journey consisted nearly entirely of dusty brown desert mountains to the left and the sparking blue Pacific Ocean to the right. There were small mining villages about every 60 kilometres or so that consisted of a few dozen temporary shack dwellings and a dirt road into the ... read more

The bus descends down from the hills and drop into Antofagasto which on first impressions is Spanish for 'Ghastly unholy mess' . Oh my giddy aunt. How can i best described it? Even the word Ghastly is in the name somewhere. Imagine waking up one morning following a really good night out. Maybe a really decent curry washed down with Indian beer, or fine dining washed down with an equally impressive wine. You sit on the toilet and you know you are about to evacuate something pretty spectacular.(come on, we have all done it) You then stare into the pan and gaze at your achievements. A battleship royal of a turd lies in the pan Huge and magnificent, one that fills you with pride knowing you have produced a fine healthy specimen. If you had a ... read more

Did you ever have one of those days when you wake up with a spring in your step and that the day ahead was going to be something special? Well today is that day. Well almost. My credit cards are en route from Santiago to me and there is still a nagging within me that Chile Express will let me down. I pen this entry sat on a white beach where the desert meets the sea in a tiny coastal village called Balia Inglesa. Hot sun and little cloud. The South Pacific waves gently lapping the shore. There is hardly a sole about. Some cafes lining the shore are open but for the most part the village is shut for the autumn/winter break. A village of 200 inhabitants during the off season and 6000 during the ... read more

Hola amigos y amigas! Please take a look at my new photos and 3 videos...sorry for sounding like a total valley girl in the video from my friend's balcony...I had a lil vino blanco before at lunch :) MANY more to come as I am reading over what I wrote and realize that I left so much out! Just don't want to overwhelm all at first! xoxo We have officially made it through our first week in Anto. It has been really amazing so far. Getting here was definitely quite a chore as we had 4 flights on 4 different airlines--AND we were routed through Toronto, which is kinda crazy considering we left out of Kansas City! But cheaptickets.com was a cheaper site so it was worth the lengthy trip to save a bit of cash. ... read more

Finally found an internet stop after drying through some of the most barren land I´ve ever seen! We left Santiago on Saturday and have been travelling North through Chile. We initially headed through a tiny little fishing village (which happily had an artisan chocolate maker with a stall!) and ended up in the Elqui valley. We went to the observatory which was absolutely incredible. Apparently it´s the best place in the world for looking at the stars because of the low humidity, low rainfall and lack of cloud. For this reason the Europeans and Americans are funding a range of large telescopes - currently the largest is the VLT (very large telescope ingeniously enough!). Anyway, the one that we went to was for tourists so was a mere 45cm telescope. We got to see some pretty ... read more