Riots in Chile

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Well Chile was a bit short lived really.

We came over the border from Argentina by the skihn of our teeth as the day before it had been closed with snow... it is at over 10,000 feet high though.

We started off in Santiago, where we met an american guy, Zach in our hostel. There was not too much to see really in Santiago, as the pictures I have will testify (but they will have to come later). We had some fun nights out before heading away, with our american traveller, from the smog and and to the coast to a place called Valpariso. This place was really nice with brightly coloured building disappearingh up the hillsides (often it was foggy here). We had a trip to a nearby beach resort, Vina del Mar, but it was out of season and not many people were on the beach. Something that did happen to me here was that I was cursed by a Chillean gypsy. We were sitting by the waterfront and she came up to ask us for some money. We didn´t give her any so she pointed at me and looked up into the sky and crossed here chest... crazy old women! So far nothing bad has happened!

We then moved further up the coast to La Serena. Another beach resort and again kind of dead. One thing that did happen here though was riots! The student population of Chile were protesting about the student card benefits. We first saw lots of kids (about 14 to 16 year olds) outside the education department chanting and raising thier arms. It all seemed peaceful. We made our way to the main plaza to have some lunch and then all the students turned up. Minutes later there was a loud bang and lots of people started running. Then we saw the police driving around the plaza with a water cannon spraying it at the students! Also there were police on motorbikes driving throught the crowds to split them up. We walked through the town to avoid the crush the all the stuidents again seemed to follow us. We saw some rip down a road sign and lights fires in the street. When we walked back down through the main shopping street we saw windows had been smashed in town and some shops looted.

That night we left for the San Pedro in the Atacama desert. We have been here for a few days and done lots of different tours. Including visting the Valle de la Luna for see sunset, geyers in the morning at an altitude of 5000 m, leaving at 4.30 am, and sand boarding down dunes! Oh yes and it also rained while we were here.... Can you believe it? The Atacama desert is the driest place on earth, and it rains when we are here!

The next few days will be spent in a 4x4 travelling to Bolivia.

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Photos

Valparaiso
Colourful buildings going up the hills

Student protests at La Serena
This was before the rioting...

La Serena
The main plaza in La Serena

Valle de la Luna
The easy path to watch the sunset

Red skies
Sunset at valle de la luna

Tatio geysers
We had to get up at 4-30 am to get here for sunset. That is when the geysers are at there highest

Cooking breakfast
The guide cooked our breakfast, eggs and heated milk and hot chocolate in the hot pools by the geysers, at about 83 degrees celsius

Smells nice
The sulphur from the geysers smelt like a bad banos

Swimming in the hot springs
Why did we do this. It was freezing when we got out, litterly.

Sand boarding in Death Valley
It was really hard work climbing back to the top each time. We asked at the shop for fast boards, then waxed then up too. My nexk and back agreed that they were fast.

Comments

[Sharon]

Rain in the desert
Hi Gary, I didn't get rain in the Atacama desert, but we did get it in the Uyuni salt plains, and it was the first rains in about 100 years - maybe we took it from the UK?!

[Macaya]

Hi
Hi, I love chile. I love snowboarding and I wanna doing Sand boarding! Bye, from Spain