Chile

Land of Contrasts

Chile is a land of contrasts. The Atacama Desert is definitely worth visiting, with it's soft hues, fantastic sunsets, geysers, salt plains and wide expanses. Further south, the Andean Lakes dividing Chile from Argentina, are grandeous and beautiful. Puerto Varas and Chiloe Island would make you think you were in the English countryside whilst Santiago (with all its grafitti) could be a city in any country in the world.

Chile is a beautiful country, but, unfortunately, lacks the olde worlde charm of Peru and Bolivia. During our time in Chile we saw not one person in local costume. You could have been anywhere in the world.

Whilst in the Atacama Desert we stayed in a small village called San Pedro de Atacama, a small oasis in the middle of the nowhere, not far from the Bolivian border. The buildings are all mud brick and, when it rains, which it did a few weeks before we arrived, the town turns to mud!!

From the Atacama Desert we flew to Santiago and south to Puerto Montt, then took a bus to Puerto Varas, a beautiful village nestled on the shores of Lake Llanquihue and facing the Osorno Volcano. From here we took a bus and boat trip to Argentina, crossing the many beautiful lakes that lie in the Andes Mountains. It took quite a long time to first leave Chile and then enter Argentina. This was definitely getting out and in through the back door and the authorities weren't set up for a bus load of tourists. It was a bit of a hassle, but fairly friendly, even when I turned up at the Argentinian border with only one copy of my entry permit - the other copy had been kept by the Chilean authorities who refused to give it back and assured me I wouldn't need it. Interestingly they gave both copies back to everyone else on the bus.

Our destination into Argentina was Bariloche, a German/Swiss type of town famous in South America for its skiing. Even our hotel had a German ring to it - the Hotel Edelweiss.

We caught a bus back to Puerto Varas (Chile) from Bariloche (Argentina). The border crossing was much quicker, though not quite as interesting as the trip over via the lakes. From Puerto Varas we then took a day trip to Chiloe Island which is very lush and colourful, quite a change from the desert to the north of Chile. The island is home to many, many variety of birds, including pelicans and flamingos.

Our next stop was Santiago, where we said goodbye to our travelling companions, Nancy and Stuart. They were returning directly to Australia whilst we were continuing onto Rio de Janeiro, Madrid and South Africa, then home.

Santiago is quite a nice city, except for the graffiti. It would have to be the worse place we have yet seen for this type of vandalism. Every spare space on walls and even road and street signs, were covered with these terrible scrawls.

In Santiago, they have a main street called Avenue de Septembre 11. It's not in memory of the terrorist attack in New York but of the day in 1973 when General Pinnoche, with the backing of the CIA, took down the democratically elected Marxist government. Needless to say, the Chileans are not particularly fond of the United States.