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21st April-9th May 2009
After a eleven hour flight from Auckland we were pretty amazed by our first glimpse of Chile, you don't get much more of an impressive descent than flying through the Andes to then land in Santiago, Chile.
It was a bit of a culture shock to find it difficult to understand what was being said (after four months of most people understanding us!) and that nobody really understood what we were saying...our phrase book was going to come in pretty handy.
After a few days in Santiago (where we braved the fenicular and small wobbly cable car to get to the Cerro San Cristobel) we headed South to San Clemente to stay with Rach's second cousin Andy and his partner Cecilia. We had a very relaxing few days and were spoilt with good food, good wine and our first trip into the Andes.
A quick stint back in Santiago saw us booking a Northern Chile tour, so with a few days to spare we headed west to Valparaiso. Whilst there we saw some amazing grafitti, colourful houses, lots of dog poo and learned how play 'Chinese Bonkers' and consume more cheap but tasty Chinean
vino!
On our way back to our hostel in Santiago we encountered the end of the May day demonstrations, apparently these are quite common. It was quite an experience (funny in hindsight) to be walking through almost totally empty streets with the exception of many, many Chilean police and army officers...all armed with rather large looking guns...
An early(ish) start and we were off with our group (12 of us altogether) heading into Northern Chile. We decided to take a tour so that we could see some of the sights which are off the one main road which runs up to Arica (and the Chilean peruvian border). Our tour was called the 'Pachamama by Bus', the Ancient Incas of Peru believed that Pachamama was a goddess who personified the Earth.
We headed north to La Serena with a few stops to admire the sea and then desert views. The second day was slightly busier with a three hour boat tour around the Penguino Nacional Park, where we saw; bottle nose dolphins, sea lions, humbolt penguins, turkey vultures, pelicans, cormorants, star fish and a variety of other birds. Our tour culminated in a picnic on Isla Damas, it
In San Clemente
Rach, Cecelia, Andy and the dogs was a very beautiful island from where we watched more dolphins playing in the sea. On our way to Bahia Inglesa we did a huge group shop (for ingredients for fajitas, pisco sour and more Chilean red wine) in preperation for our huge group dinner. The next day was a relaxed visit into Caldera, where we were impressed by the murials in the local catholic church followed by Chiles best empanadas (we had better when in San Clemete!). Rach was pleased with her Spanish interpretation of the menu until her 'peach juice' turned out to actually be a dessert of peach halves...it did seem strange that the waiter kept asking if she wanted cream with her drink!
Crossing the driest part of the Atacama Desert, where there has been no rain recorded for over 50 years, we passed two cyclists who were heading from the southern part of Argentina up to Colombia...it was hard enough work crossing the desert in the bus! As we approached Antofagasta we had a few photo stops (these became a major part of our trip..almost like photo shoots!). The first was an old cemetary which used to serve a community of nitrate miners, where
some skulls and bones were visible. On a more light hearted photo call we were able to sit and have a 'read' on a sofa in the middle of the Atacama. Finally, we were able to get up close to a sculpture of a huge hand in the desert (Mano del Desertio) made by Mario Irarrazabal in 1992. On arrival into Antofagasta we made our way to 'La Portada' cliffs where we marvelled at the landforms, one of which looked quite like a detached Durdle Door, and the absolutely huge waves crashing onto the beach. That night the group were all craving chinese food so we all ventured to a Spanish, non English speaking, Chinese restaurant where we all managed to somehow order exactly what we wanted!
On our final day of travelling we... visited an old nitrate mining train cemetary, they all looked rather like Thomas the Tank Engine, we were half expecting the fat controller to come out and tell us to stop clambering on the engines! The engines are still in pretty good condition due to the lack of moisture in the air and therefore there has not been much corrosion. After standing, sitting and stepping
on the 'Tropic of Capricorn' headed towards the Atacama Salt Flat (the largest in Chile) where we once again had great fun taking many photos. From here we could see many volcanoes and across to Bolivia. The Atacama Salt Flat (Salar de Atacama) was orginally under the sea but now is always free of water and full of salt (obviously) and minerals, it is also the second largest salt flat in the world. Our last stop of the day was the Natural Reserve Los Flamencos, Laguna Chaxa where we watched the sunset and the flamencos eating their dinner.
We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, our base for the next few days and the last destination of our Northern Chile trip, and headed out for a quiet evening. This obviously didn't happen and all 10 of us ended up in a local bar drinking Mojitos (with what looked like pond weed in them), Mexican (Chilean) waving with the locals (thanks to Teresa and Ginny for their expert translations of the conversations, both on this night and throughout the week), piggy back riding home (due to Rach proclaiming to be an expert piggy back carrier) to finish off the large
quantities of Chilean red wine ...which really had to be drank before we left for Bolivia and a spot of curtain pole dancing. It was a hilarious but not quiet night!
The next morning we all dragged ourselves out of bed (much to Luce's dismay) to go sandboarding in Death Valley. It was pretty hard going walking up to the top of the giant sand dunes but was well worth it for the ride(s) down. In the afternoon we had our last excursion to see salt caves and Valley de Luna (Moon Valley), where we watched the sun set and marvelled at the amazing surroundings, these included volcanoes, giant sanddunes, crazy rock formations and a very large moon (not either of our botties).
Early the next morning half of our group disappeared off back down to Santiago as we continued with our final adventures in Chile. Luce and Daz decided to embark on a South American style horse riding afternoon through the desert. Rach opted for a more inanimate form of transport and fun, another session of sandboarding with James, Ludi and Jan. Whilst surfing the dune the sandboarders watched Luce and Daz galloping expertly and gracefully through
the Valley of Death, until Daz's horse decided that it had an itchy back and subsequently dropped and rolled onto the valley floor, with Daz still attached, luckily she managed to hop off but was very disturbed by the fact that the horse then galloped away with her wallet! Oh, by the way, she was okay and Luce (Napolean Dynamite style) chased the horse (plus wallet) and saved the day! That evening we said our goodbyes to Ludi and James, threatening to meet with them again when in La Paz, and settled down for an early night, so as to be ready for the start of our Bolivian antics...
We would just like to thank Emma, Arron and Daz for bailing us out a number of times whilst travelling up through Chile when our Nationwide card randomly decided to stop working at what seemed like regular intervals! Without them we would possibly still be stuck in San Pedro, washing dishes to earn our keep!
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michelle
non-member comment
cool, wow, amazing
hey luce and rach your latest blog sounds fab, especially the horse riding antics, 7 weeks, wow, where is next? x