No problema (I can speak a little Spanish) getting through customs etc, the airport was kind of quiet behind the secure area. I had told Surilda (she was coming a half hour later) that I would wait by the information desk for here but I had to go to the Bano (Spanish again) and had to leave the secure area. Pandemonium prevailed just outside in arrival area. Hundreds of people waiting for people. tour guides picking up clients, cab drivers and tour people hawking their services. Wow. Surilda arrived about an hour and a half later.
We changed some money (about twenty US cents to the Peso) and took a bus to the city where we caught the Metro to about three blocks from our hotel. Temperature is now about ninety. Well three blocks if you know where your going or can ask someone directions and understand them. We could not do either. I had a loaded back pack, a duffel bag, and my computer brief case. Surilda had three bags, one of them a roller. We had a hard time going up stairs/downstairs, in and out of trains. Fortunately the Chilean people are friendly and helpful. At one time a gentleman carried Surilda's roller bag up a long stairway, while a lady helped her with another bag. After many false starts we finally reached our hotel. Guess what? Four flights up and no elevator was our room. We settled in and went out for something to eat.
Surilda wanted to explore (she flew first class and had a good nights sleep/I had none), I wanted to sleep. She explored, I went to sleep. We reconnected about seven o'clock and then went back out to see the town and have dinner. What a busy town. Santiago has a population of over six million and they were all out going somewhere. What an alive town! Traffic, people on pedestrian walk ways, street vendors, shops selling everything and anything. People laughing, visiting, just enjoying life.
We walked around taking it all in. Saw some wonderful cathedrals, government buildings, and high rise modern skyscrapers. We went to a park in the central part of the town where there was a castle but it was closed for the night. We finally found a wonderful restaurant where I had a steak that was in a tasty gravy and topped with cheese, rice and salad. We got back to the hotel at about eleven thirty.
Next morning, after a wonderful sleep, I had to have my coffee so we went to Dunkin Donuts, where else? Actually it was the need for brewed coffee rather than something familiar. Unless its espresso, most of the coffee in Chile is good old Nescafe instant, so you can understand my point. We then walked all over the city. Took in the Cerro Santa Lucia (a castle/fortress that protected the fledgling city back in the 1500s), the Museum of Fine Arts, walked around the central square, La Plaza de Armas, where there is a lovely cathedral, (I even went inside and it is still standing) government buildings, We saw the river that flows through the city, and then went back on the Metro to the other side of town to some dive restaurant that was touted as great in the guide book. It was ok as far as the food went but a nice place to visit with the locals. Got back to the hotel at 11:00.
The next morning we headed over to a hostel in the La Plaza de Armas where we were planning on spending the last two days before heading to the Falklands to stow some luggage. This time we used a taxi to lug our bags and although it could not get right up to the hostel it was far less a hassle to get the bags in. Dumping our bags at our hostel, we again hit the Metro to the bus station to get to Valparaiso.
Valparaiso is the major seaport of Chile. A beautiful city, from a distance, with a wonderful bay. A lot of the Chilean war for independence took place in or around the city and Bay. It has many hills surrounding the bay and most of the residential areas are in these hills. We took the Valparaiso Metro to where the Chilean Navy has its headquarters, a beautiful building built to mimic the Hotel Ville in Paris.
We then went to find a funicular, a type of cable car that were built to help the residences ascend and descend the steep hills, to get to the National Museum of Maritime history and to enjoy the spectacular view of the city and the bay. The funicular we needed to take was not operating contrary to the guide book, hasn't been for years, a long story. We did catch a bus to the top and it was well worth it. Beautiful views and the Museum was very nice. We did walk down via a narrow street and walkway.
Then on to a beer at the Inglais Bar, an old pub where English sailors used to raise hell at the turn of the century, 20th that is. We had dinner at the Cinzano Restaurant, a tourist trap but the food was good. Back to the hostel and bed. We had booked a room at the Latinoamericano Hostel, the night before in kind of desperation as there was no other place, reasonable, available. It was not all that nice. In fact you might call it a dive. No it was a dive. We had a small room with two beds, a shared bath (with all the other guests) down the hall. No toilet paper, no hot water at the sinks, and a real bad shower. We were totally disappointed but made due.
The next morning Surilda and I took the Metro to Vina del Mar, a smaller, beach town just north of Valparaiso, with a beach and many resorts. We went just to check it out. Nice town full of flowers, grass and treed avenues. Much cleaner than Valparaiso and much nicer. We walked the beach, went to a Natural History Museum, which featured the ancient and current fauna and flora, the paleo Indians, and a big display of Easter Island. Some of the displays were in English but most were in Spanish but still it was interesting. We had a nice lunch of fish and headed back to Valparaiso. Surilda did a little more exploring I went back to the dive and worked on pictures and the blog
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The next morning we hopped a bus, north to La Serena, happy to leave the dive behind. La Serena is another seaside town about 400 km north of Valparaiso. It took about seven hours but they did serve us a lunch.
We checked into the El Cid Hotel, run by a crusty Scotsman named John and his Chilean wife. Crusty but nice and helpful, just seemed kind of cynical. The hotel was nice. Much, much better than the dump in Valparaiso. We settled in and then went for our initial walk-about. La Serena is a pretty nice town although a little shabby
The next day, Monday, we rented a car to go into the Andes to explore, see the towns of Vicuna and Pisco Elqui. I was the driver and a bit apprehensive about driving among the local Chileans, they are somewhat, shall we say aggressive, in their driving but I was able to draw upon my earlier experience as a Boston cab driver and did ok. Vicuna was a cute little town but not much going on. It is the birthplace to Chile's first Nobel Prize winner, a poet named Gabriela Mistral, who was also a government minister and overall hero to the Chilean people. We visited the Plaza de Armas and the church and were on our way. We were way into the Andes by now but not too high up. The valleys around this area are very, very deep. The peaks must rise several thousand feet from the valley floors.
Our next stop was the Pisco Elqui Valley. The heart of the vineyards for growing the grapes for the national drink, pisco. A brandy. The area was originally named something else but the government changed it to Pisco Elqui to promote the brandy. There is a major rivalry between Chile and Peru about who makes the best and who invented it. Might be cause for war. We saw hundreds upon hundreds of acres of vineyards all up this beautiful, deep, dry valley. The road was very narrow and curvy. We made it up to the town of Pisco Elqui and were going to take a tour of the distillation process but the tour was in Spanish only, so we passed and just had a taste instead.
I was really surprised at the dryness of this part of Chile. It is mid-summer here but I was not expecting such dry hills and valleys. There are rolling hills coming off the ocean then into a Central Valley with the Andes to the east. The hills are dried up grass with very little other vegetation except sparsely growing desert plants, cactus, etc. Even in the higher elevations of the Andes it remains quite dry. We could from time to time see some snow on the real high peaks but could not distinguish any forested areas, even higher up.
Done with Pisco Elqui we decided to head toward the Argentine border. We drove about another 100 km till we came to a border check station still about 70 km from the border but because the actual border is at about 13,000 feet they put the check station way down. We had to check in and we told them we wanted to go on to the border. They told us we could not (don't know why) but we were welcome to drive another 30 km up to a mountain reservoir to take in the scenery and some pictures. It was four PM and they told us to be back by six. They took our passports to ensure we did. The drive was spectacular, with extremely high peaks all around us, still dry but I thought is was really nice. Surilda did not care for it but I thought it was pretty awesome.
We went to the lake, La Laguna, took some pictures and headed back. Surilda was ready to see some Alpacas and Vicunas but all we saw were goats, domestic goats. We made it back at six, recovered our passports and headed back to La Serena. We arrived at close to eight PM and the town was mad with traffic. Surilda wanted to eat on the beach but it was so crowded and busy we lost interest. The Chileans do not eat till late and they were all out in force. We finally settled for a restaurant close to the hotel that John had recommended. We turned in about 11:00 PM.
We kept the rental another day and headed out for Pichasca Natural Monument, part of the Chilean National Park System. We Googled directions and I jotted them down thinking that it would be a piece of cake to get there. Only 97 km to the Southeast. Wrong. First; of all the highways in Chile are not marked very well, some not at all. Second; do not, I repeat DO NOT trust Google to give you the best route to a place in Chile. Google gave us what seemed like the most direct route. We went to the town of Andacollo and were supposed to take Route 447 out of there. Well we did, and soon it turned to gravel, then started to climb, then got narrow, climbed some more and got narrower. No towns, no houses, a few goat farms was all. The side of the road dropped several thousand feet into dry valleys. We traveled about 30 miles without seeing another vehicle. Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot? Hot, dry, and dusty. It was quite an adventure. Fun, but I got a little nervous.
We finally dropped down from the high mountains onto a nicely paved road which brought us right to the park. A little longer than the route Google suggested, but about two hours quicker. It was the route we should have taken in the first place. I repeat don't trust Google in Chile. The park contained fossil dinosaur bones, some petrified wood, and an early man site. We hiked the two mile trail and saw the displays. Nice but not the best. We headed back to La Serena and arrived about seven PM. Surilda wanted some alone time so we did our own things for dinner.
The next morning we turned in the car, caught a bus to Santiago to do a little more sightseeing there till we flew out to the Falklands on the 25th to start our main adventure.
Some thoughts on Chile; The people are pretty friendly and always helpful, especially in Santiago. Several times we were looking at a map trying figure out where we were and where we wanted to go and someone would walk up and ask if they could help. Some could speak English and, besides wanting to help they also wanted to practice their English. Few people in Chile speak English. They seem to be happy and enjoying life. The cities get going in the evenings about 7:00 PM. The streets get filled up with people out strolling, shopping, eating. Families, lovers, friends, etc. It can get real busy till about 10:30 then starts to quiet down. All is quiet by about 12:00 midnight.
Every place we went there were the street dogs. Stray dogs that can be everywhere, sleeping in the shade during the day and roam about in the evening. They are docile and really do not bother anybody. They rely on the people for handouts and get into the large amounts of garbage that is generated daily and piled in the streets for pick up during the night. They all seem well fed and healthy.
The main part of Santiago seems to be one big shopping mall, with pedestrian streets interspersed with vehicular streets. There is an enormous amount of little shops, restaurants, cafes, and drug stores. Yep, go figure drug stores. It is quite a mixture of beautiful old buildings and modern skyscrapers. There is some graffiti on most buildings and a lot of trash. From our experiences in Chile I can tell that they did not put their best engineers on toilets, traffic control, and the signing of highways. But over all it is a wonderful place.
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