Advertisement
Published: June 27th 2006
Santiago Skyline
The view from Cerro Santa LuciaApologies to everyone following the blog, but not enough time or activity to justify individual entries for Chile. Thus follows a condensed summary of my time in Chile.
The Chilean border was closed the day before we left Mendoza (20th May) but chanced it and borded the bus for Santiago.... luckily the border was open but long delays at immigration meant it was 10 hours before we arrived in Santiago.
Santiago is a modern looking city, thanks in part to earthquakes destroying many older buildings, which have sadly been replaced with high rise towers. The city suffers from terrible pollution resulting in a heavy smog; ruining visibilty of The Andes and hard on the lungs. There wasnt much to do in Santiago during the day, but evenings were eventful. Stayed in the Barrio Brasil a nice area, but bars were expensive and not much was going on, so the following night ventured into Bellavista which was much more lively! Beer was cheap and apart from a few crazy hobos thought nothing of the fact we were the only gringos in the packed local bars. An all out bar brawl closed the last bar we were in a brought an end to
Spot The Andes
Again from Cerro Santa Lucia... gives an idea of how smog and low cloud ruin visibility the evening.... Bar brawls aside Bellavista is definately the place to go out in Santiago to meet locals if you can avoid trouble.
Valpraiso is a coastal town 2 hours North West of Santiago. The town is pretty built up with buildings all the way up the side of the mountain. Vina Del Mar along the coast taking a short train ride has the beaches Valpraiso doesn´t, but seems very Americanised and lacks the vibe Valpraiso seemed to have. A good night out was enjoyed in La Mascara night club, with a mix of 80´s and 90´s mainly British music videos played on a large screen on the dancefloor.
From Valpraiso moved up the coast to La Serena and arrived shortly after crowd trouble following a La Serena football match. La Serena is a small town and being off season was fairly quiet. However we did witness student demonstrations (which were nationwide) in which the students threw rocks at the police who in return used water cannons on kids as young as 13 from what I saw. As a result of the demonstrations some shop windows got smashed and looting took place, along with other acts of vandalism.
Plaza De Armas
With a view of the cathedral Whilst in La Serena I watched the football team training and visited a local zoo, which was pretty awful, the worst site being two caged condors.
The final destination in Chile was San Pedro De Atacama. From this frontier town we ventured into the desert and visited Valle de Luna (Valley of the moon), Valle de Muerta (Death Valley) where I went sandboarding on the dunes, El Tiato Geysers where I almost froze to death after swimming in the hotsprings at 9am in the morning.... yes I was the only idiot at altitude wearing shorts!!
If anyone wants more on the Chile blog let me know.... I am woefully behind on the blogs, so apologies if things are brief.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.037s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
