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Published: August 27th 2009
We arrived in Santiago around 8am and took the metro to Republica where our guide book suggested some cheaper hostels. These were not to be found, either having closed down or apparently never having existed. After about half an hour of walking with heavy bags we gave up at a ‘residencial’ in the style of a typical English old fashioned B+B. This cost us about $45 a night and didn’t even come with the latter ‘b’. We spent the remainder of the day scouting out ways to get to El Colorado, a nearby ski resort where we would spend my birthday.
El Colorado
At 8am the next morning we were collected by a minibus which took us to our hotel in El Fallerones near El Colorado. It was a nice hotel, quaint and a bit dated but we had a great sunny room and breakfast and dinner included and, for once, we were treated like paying holiday customers rather than ‘bloody backpackers’ which made a nice change. My birthday present from mum and dad...Thanks!
Decent hire equipment was impossible to find although we did manage to improve on our second day (my birthday) as our first set was abysmal.
The first day however had all the fresh powder, the sun was shining and our old, stiff and heavy boards rode powder remarkably well.
We still had good weather on my birthday but the off-piste had a crust and was no fun. James, after wrecking his board by snowboarding into a rock (see photo), decided to give me lessons in doing a 180. Not the best idea apparently as my second attempt, admittedly doing the opposite of what James instructed, left me screaming in agony in the middle of the piste. A pisco sour later and I managed to get myself down to El Fallerones to the doctor who injected my arse with copious amounts of ibuprofen enabling me to go back up the mountain to drink my birthday champagne. Later we had a great dinner with the special wine and birthday cake.
The following day I attempted to snowboard and realised that without an injection in the arse it was hopeless. I sold my lift pass to a very grateful girl and returned to the hostel to rest. We returned to Santiago that evening and stayed in ‘Hostel Sammy,’ a much better value hostel with great breakfasts
and consequently our base for the next 3 weeks.
The next couple of days were largely spent in and out of hospitals. I had an MRI scan, a very strange experience in which I was made to lie flat and my lower body was slid into a large cylindrical machine. I was instructed not to move at all and was given a panic button to press which only resulted in increasing my panic levels dramatically. Everyone then left the room and I was left there with giant headphones, the type pilots wear, to listen to and feel the strange booming and squealing sounds of magnets going through my knees.
Caldera
Several days later we took a 12 hour bus ride North to Caldera, a quaint coastal pueblo in the middle of the Atacama desert. The proximity to both the sea and the desert give it a very unique feel; endless turquoise in one direction, sandy mountainous desert in the other. Our arrival coincided with the last day of a fiesta celebrating the final departure of the ‘Locomotura Copiapu,’ which we took to be a train. All the women were dressed in old fashioned dresses, the men in
tails and top hats. One young boy even had a penny farthing. It was quite a sight to behold in amongst the aforementioned scenery. We joined the celebrations under a warm winter sun, ate empanadas and watched the girls and women skipping rope and eating candy floss in their costumes.
We also took a stroll to the fishing port and were surprised to come across huge sea lions basking in the sun while we were watching the pelicans flying and making spectacular water-ski style landings onto the calm sea. Both the sea lions and pelicans were fascinating to watch and we spent a good while watching and taking far too many photographs of the impressive beasts.
The following day, after being awoken by a substantial tremor (the first I have ever been awake through and thus very exciting for me), we took a collectivo to Bahia Inglesa (English Beach) and spent a pleasant day enjoying the sunshine, the magnificent views and sheltering from the ice cold wind.
Santiago again...
We spent a few more days in Santiago waiting for my test results and to see a doctor. Happily all is well on that front if our traducions
are to be believed. Other activities included a trip to the very steep park in which we took a bus to the top (using the knee as an excuse) and took in the misty drizzly view of Santiago. On a good day I imagine the view would be spectacular but the weather was abysmal. We walked up to the customary statue of the Virgin Mary and then took the funicular back down.
Chiloe
A night bus took us to Puerto Montt from where we took a bus and ferry to the island of Chiloe which was rightly recommended by Annie as being one of the most beautiful places in Chile, although, it has to be said, very similar in appearance to South West England. Still, a reminder of England’s beauty is always nice when travelling.
Ancud was our first port of call. We stayed in a hostel on the waterfront which unfortunately only had luke warm water (Chiloe is very cold in winter) and spent the day strolling around the town and looking at the Chiloate artisans.
The next day we headed to the island’s capital, Castro where we spent two nights. Castro, a bit bigger,
has some spectacular views. The houses or palifitos are raised on stilts, presumably to avoid flooding, and are brightly coloured which makes for very picturesque views. Again, our hostel had luke warm showers.
From there we took a bus to Delaque where we spent some time wondering around the Sunday market before taking a ferry over to Isla Quinchao. We managed to board a bus while on the ferry which took us to Achao. Unfortunately, due to heavy rain, all we really got to see of Achao was a sea fronted restaurant before heading back through Castro to Chonchi where we were to stay that night.
I had found what I thought would be a great hostel there, the owner had his own fish farm and took guests out fishing and reputably cooked up seafood feasts for his guests. However, after letting ourselves into the place and waiting around for about half an hour for a sign of life we gave up and went to a hotel instead (there is not much in Chonchi) and ate a dinner of stale crisps and biscuits.
We spent our final full day in Chiloe in the national park accompanied
by a very friendly black dog who showed us the way round. Again, the views were sensational, as we have come to expect from Chiloe and our walks took us through maze like hedgerows into great expanses of grassland and then across marsh land and sand dunes to a rough sea. We took an early afternoon bus from the national park back to Castro for our last night.
We got to Puerto Montt earlish the next morning in the hope of booking a ‘cama premium’ (full bed) bus back to Santiago as a treat for our last big bus trip in the Americas. We didn’t manage a full bed but booked the next best thing (at a far better price) and then went off to explore Puerto Montt. From there we planned to hop straight onto another bus to Valpariso, a couple of hours north of Santiago.
We rook a stroll down the waterfront on which the bus station is happily situated and there found a ferry (remarkably similar to the Salcombe ferry) across to Isla Tenglo where we ambled for an hour or so. Back on the mainland we enjoyed a wonderfully cheap and filling fish, rice and
salad washed down with a remarkably good tumbler of white wine.
The rest of the day was passed looking at the various plazas and with the customary litres of Escudo beer and dominos.
Valparaiso
The journey to Santiago and then on to Valparaiso was as smooth as to be expected. We found a great hostel and then spent the day wondering around the seaside town. The weather in Valparaiso was surprisingly warm and the town, through much bigger than expected, picturesque. It is very ‘artsy’ with brightly coloured houses and graffitied walls, hills abound accessed by rickety ‘ascensors’ similar to short, single carriaged funiculars.
Our last full day in Latin America was half spent in Vina del Mar, the seaside resort next to Valpariso. It is built up, rather ugly and ridiculously overpriced. We had a disgusting meal of reheated fish and chips there before returning to Valparaiso to catch a bus back to Santiago.
Our final day was spent doing odd jobs, collecting washing, emailing, buying cheap Chilean wine to take with us to NZ etc. We decided to go for a final meal in a posh restaurant in Bario Brasil and were typically disappointed,
particularly with the abysmal service and then the request for a tip. We consoled ourselves with the fact that this had been our experience of posh restaurants throughout most of Latin America and thus that this was a perfect end and toasted to lessons learnt.
We then headed back to the hostel, polished off a small carton of wine and then headed to the airport to leave the continent for good.
Hasta la proxima vez America!
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Cags
non-member comment
great photos!
Hi Loz, James Much enjoyed this latest entry - and you can't take too many boat pics as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for bringing Chile 'alive' for us xx