A Taste of Chile!

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It took a while to settle, once I arrived in Santiago, as the flight from Auckand over gave me crazily awful jetlag! I didn´t know whether I needed to eat, sleep or cry for about 3 days! Nevertheless, I ploughed on with 2 days of sightseeing within the city centre. Santiago is a lot more cosmopolitan than I had imagined it to be. We were staying in the area of Provedencia, with its little streets of cafes and bars lined with trees. Although the city divides itself into various suburbs, the main ones around the centre feel relaxed, friendly and safe. We spent a whole day walking around the colonial buildings, visiting museums and searching for delicious menu del dias! Some of Santiago´s buildings are simply beautiful. The Plaza de Armas has an unsurprinsing real Spanish holiday feel to it, with artists and performers in their thousands. Though if anyone is currently planning a trip there. just be wary of students trying to sell you poerty! Our initiation into Chilean traditions continued in our hostel, with muchos free pasta and vino, again in a really relaxed atmosphere. The other main highlight of Santiago was taking the trip up by fenicular to the top of San Cristobal. At the top of it, there is a beautiful outside church which looks down over the city of Santiago and for miles on. Very exquisite indeed!
Travelling within Chile was really easy, they have a major network on bus companies that take you across the country and are seriously comfortable. There I was expecting to jump on a chicken bus but actually had films and a reclining chair!! So our first stop was to the coast nearest to Santiago, a 2 hour bus journey to the city of Valpariso. It is famous for its tumbling houses in the hills and for its various murials and grafitti art around the town. Whilst the main city itself was nothing impressive, I immediately fell in love with the winding allyways and treats you could find! The hills are full of quirky cafes, which could easily be used in films and whilst it is a little bit more expensive to say up there, it was well worth it for the atmosphere. We also visited Pablo Neruda´s house, he is probably Chile¨s most well known celebrity particularly in the literature world. His house here completely matched the city, with various nick-nacks within the house including a bar from Marsailles! The only problem we encountered here, were a number of reports of tourist muggings, but luckily we saw none of it and I would still recommend it as a place people should visit.
Depite only having 10 days in Chile, we managed to travel another 250km south of Santiago, out into the countryside of Talca. We managed to find a gorgeous country retreat run by a German couple called Casa Chueca. It had a stunning spot right on the river Licay overlooking the Andes. We stayed here for 4 days, walking to the local markets to buy food and checking out the perhaps more real sense of Chilean llife in contrast to the modern Santiago. We also managed to get out on bicycles to tiny farming villages and to the vineyards to sample the Chilean red wine. Though the highlight by far of the whole 10 days was an 8 hour horse trek through part of the Andes! In order to get there, we had a 2 hour CHICKEN BUS ride with the locals which was an activity in itself and then we were met by our real own huaso (cowboy). He took us up onto the top of part of the mountain range. These horses were amazing, managing to carry us up to 2000m above sea level!! We finished part of our ride overlooking the volcano Depundo which stood magnificently at 4000m high. It is seriously hard to describe the scenery without using words I have thrown around before, but it was just breathtaking. The plateau at the top was made of volcanic bricks, there were hundreds of differing cactus and the mountains surrounding us were the highest I have ever seen. The horses however just took it all in their stride and managed to jump tree roots, bolders and anything else that got in their way! By the time we were down I not only struggled to walk but I looked much more of a local, as I was now covered head to toe in clay dust! It was one of the best things I have done so far on all of this trip. This day got even more memorable when the same evening, we were all sitting around back at ther hostel when we experienced our first earthquake. A seriously weird feeling, not unlike a rollercoaster! Though I was very pleased it was only a small one!
My little taste of Chile has been an excellent way to start our South Americal adventure, it is a gorgeous country (the little of it I have seen) and it is defintely a place I will come and see again.

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Photos

Plaza de Armas
The old post office and town hall.

Santiago
San Cristobal and its view!

Valpariso
Pablo Nerudas house.

Valpairiso
Quirky Cafe no 1!

Valpariso
Wall Art.

Vilches (Talca)
My Huaso and me overlooking the volcano!!

Trekking the Andes
Proof I actually got on the horse!