Blogs from Chile, South America

Woke up at 6:30 to get ready for our trip to the coast, the Pacific Coast. Had a bit more leisurely breakfast as we were ready sooner than normal. I really have to teach the people of South America to make scrambled eggs. They put way to much liquid in them and zero seasoning of any kind. We did learn a good tip from a British couple, at the omelet station just have them cook you eggs any style. The man looked like he had the perfect over easy egg. After breakfast, it was off to the car for our 90-minute drive to the coast. Traffic was a bit heavy getting out of Santiago, but once on the autopista you can drive 75 miles an hour. Not that everyone else isn’t driving more like 100. I ... read more

Another early travel day, well not 4 am early, but still up by 6 so we could make our 11 am flight to Santiago. We did have time for a quick breakfast before we were in the cab at 8. Travel Tip, if your flying to another country out of Buenos Aires, you do need to allow extra time, getting through immigration is not a quick process. We were fortunate as our hotel concierge made sure we had a taxi at 8 so we had plenty of time to get to the airport (the in city airport), immigration and customs. Once through security, immigration and custom we still had 90 minutes before our flight. This is only because we got to the airport earlier. If we would arrived 30 minutes later, we would barely have made ... read more

Chile is an extremely long country, apparently as far from top to bottom as from Scotland to Nigeria (thanks Barney), so before we faced another long bus journey, we decided to take it easy with a short hop to Valparaiso. The city was an important port during the Gold Rush, used by European and American ships on the route from Cape Horn to California, but fell out of favor and fell into disrepair early in the last century. However, the city has now been revived as the cultural capital of the country and is certainly a unique place, with 42 cerros (hills) surrounding the city center and port area, full of colorful houses and beautiful restored mansions, with chaos still in between. dilapidated.We forgot that it is also the second largest city in Chile, so when ... read more

How do you take a vacation that includes a lot of things you've always wanted to do but never expected to be able to do even better...? Do another one!Convinced by the author of Footprints Chile that we really shouldn't miss it and Lan Chile is a good deal, we decided to go back more than 4000 km. From the Pacific Ocean to Easter Island (Isla de Pascua as the Chileans know it). I didn't even realize it was Chilean territory until recently.As a tourist destination it is quite a remote place...nearest neighbor is the Pitcairn Islands about 2000 km away...how would a Polynesian or European explorer ever find this that place (not the idea of ​​going back home) is incomprehensible to me.I imagined since I was a child that I would see this place one ... read more

The last few days of the cruise were relatively uneventful - as we headed north among the fjords on the Chilean coast, the weather steadily warmed to a comfortable 20C which allowed everyone to lounge outside in the sun and fresh air. The sea conditions were somewhat rough with some large swells but by now we were used to it. The one change due to the higher than usual waves was that we could not port at San Antonio and, instead, headed for Valparaiso. I will start with a short review of the cruise itself. The boat itself, the Sapphire Princess, is a large and fairly modern ship. The rooms were relatively large compared to other cruise ships and comfortable. We did not have a balcony, however, it was really not necessary. We were only one ... read more