Santiago and northern Chile

So, we are in South America. We have been here for four weeks now and thought it was about time to sit down and update our blog.

We arrived in Santiago direct from Auckland. It was quite strange as we left Auckland at 16:00 on January 11 and arrived at 12:00 on January 11. Whilst I had always thought jet lag was a bit of a joke, the time change had both of our body clocks completely baffled. The cure was not too stressful however - we spent the next four days lounging by the pool at our hostel, La Casa Roja.

After four days of doing nothing, we booked with Pachamama - a tourist transport company - to do a loop of northern Chile. While Pachamama itself turned out to be pretty rubbish, particularly our guide (who was a fat lazy bastard), the route and some of the places we visited along the way still made our foray into the north of Chile very worthwhile.

First stop was the small beachside village of Pichidangui. A favourite amongst Santiago holiday makers, it is clear why it is so popular. A large sandy beach and a small village with a very relaxed feel to it. The only down side was that we couldn't spend more time there. We then continued on to La Serena for the night. Again, La Serena had a brilliant white sand beach and the town itself seemed quite decent. Like Pichidangui, we could happily have spent more time here but as the focus was to get up into the Atacama desert for the more uniquely Chilean travel experiences, the bus pushed on early the next morning.

Day two took us to Punta de Choros and Isla Damas in Parque Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt. We took a boat ride around the islands, hoping to spot penguins, sea lions and a variety of birds. We certainly weren't disappointed - in addition to spotting these in the hundreds, we were also lucky enough to have a pod of fin whales (about 20 metres long each), just off the side of our boat. We tried to capture the moment with our camera but unfortunately couldn't do it justice. In addition to the whales, we also attracted a pod of dolphins who accompanied us for part of our trip around the islands. True to form, our guide decided to stay in the van rather than accompany us to the islands, which would have been a bit of an issue had there not been a Spanish speaker in our group to translate the information provided by the crew.

After a brief stop in Copiapo (the closest town to where the Chilean miners were trapped and a complete and utter hole), we continued to Bahia Inglesa. Billed as one of the most beautiful beaches in Chile, we had high expectations. Our expectations were somewhat dampened by spending an hour at the gate to the camp site whilst they apparently tried to find the cabin keys (we suspect that our guide had failed to book ahead) and dampened further when we saw the beach in front of the camp site. Strewn with rotting seaweed and rubbish, it was possibly the worst beach I have ever been to. Fortunately, the beautiful beach did exist, about a 15 minute walk away, although the Humboldt current (ice cold water swept straight up the Chilean coast from Antartica) made swimming for more than about 10 seconds unbearable. It was however a nice setting to stop for a day after driving over 1000km in the previous two days. Whilst at Bahia Inglesa, we made a short day trip to Caldera, a cute fishing port nearby. Although Caldera was very pretty in its own right, the highlight of the visit was definitely Empanadopolis, a restaurant selling 36 different varieties of empanada. We only managed four varieties.

The next day, we had anothere big drive, heading to Antofagasta. On the way, we stopped at Mano del Desierto (the hand of the desert). It was sculpted by a Chilean artist and mirrored by another hand built in Uruguay, the hands are supposed to be symbolic of the hands of Pachamama (goddess of the earth) holding South America. They are also intended to remind people of our duty to protect the earth for future generations. If nothing else, the site of a giant concrete hand in the middle of the desert was mildly fascinating.

Antofagasta itself is a particularly unremarkable town. Once the suicide capital of Chile, we were told that it has since had a major facelift to make it a less depressing place to live. Whilst the sea side boulevard was nice, the rest of the city still left a fair bit to be desired. The one worthwhile sight, about 8 km north of the city was "La Portada", a hole-in-the-rock type formation off the coast. Even this however was pretty but not necessarily worth a side trip to see it.

The next two days took us into the northern half of the Atacama desert and included some of the best sights and activities of the trip to date.

The train "graveyard" in Baquedano was quite unique and very eerie. Full of abandoned steam trains, the train yard has not been used since the nitrate mining days of the 1940s and, due to the rapid decline of nitrate mining following the production of synthetic nitrate by Germany, feels like all the people simply disappeared one day.

The Atacama salt flats were initially a tad disappointing due to the fact that unlike Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (where the salt flats are pure white) the Atacama salt flats are brown. This initial disappointment aside, the Atacama salt flats are still quite a spectacle. We all took the stereotypical tourist photos where one person looks tiny and another giant and held enormous salt crystals above our heads - all of us had a great time apart from one girl who decided to distinguish herself by being the only tourist to ever visit the salt flats without getting photos (she didn´t want the same pictures that everyone else has). I bit my tongue and held off pointing out that she may as well not take any pictures of any key places in the entire of South America. The crystal clear pools at Peine oasis,
San Pedro de Atacama, floating in the salt lakes in Salar de Atacama (like the Dead Sea) and flamingo spotting in Reserva Nacional Los Flamencos were other key highlights - although the pervy Chilean men at Peine taking photos of the girls in bikinis were a bit creepy.

From San Pedro we began the long return trip (over 1000km) to Santiago. The trip south included a couple of mammoth drive days and, to be perfectly honest, a couple of pretty mediocre sights. Chacabuco, a ruined nitrate mining town was mildly interesting but in significant disrepair and the local guide (formerly the sole inhabitant of the town) had died several months previously so the piles of rubble were lacking the context needed to make it more meaningful. Pan de Azucar National Park is a relatively new national park that was formed to protect a type of cactus which does not grow anywhere else in the world. When in flower, the cactus is supposedly beautiful but when not in flower (when we were there) it most closely resembles a pile of prickly sheep dung. As such Pan de Azucar is not exactly a tourist mecca.

The trip south was not entirely without highlights however. Prior to returning to Santiago, we spent two nights in the Elqui Valley, famous for pisco (a South American spirit) and star gazing. Based in Vicuna, we visited the Capel Distillery and after a tour spent an hour pisco tasting, followed immediately by pisco purchasing, followed a bit later on by pisco drinking. Very good fun. We also made a trip to the Mamalluca Observatory and had turns trying out the enormous telescopes and identifying the various constellations. My inner geek was quite satisfied.