Santiago, Sand & Salt

We arrived in Chile before we left New Zealand, due to crossing the international dateline, gaining a day! We both had the worst jetlag we've both ever had, so spent the first week in Santiago recovering, planning the next few weeks and seeing as much of the city as we could. We appreciated the chilled out feeling of Santiago with a very European vibe.

A bit of Santiago culture

We did a walking tour of the city, which gave us a great overview of the city. Our guide also explained the history of the city, the German influence on the food, which was a surprise to us! And about the stray dogs roaming the city. Locals viewing them as the owners of the city rather than a nuisance. People feed them, and there are even kennels for them in the parks, threrefore the dogs are very friendly.After that, we spent quite a bit of time in the bohemian area of the city which has some cool bars and restaurants. We took the fernicular railway up to the top of the mountain, which has an enourmous statue of the Virgin Mary and great views of the city, and the snow-capped Andean mountains. The central square was cool, with some lovely old colonial buildings. We also discovered the local drink - Picso Sour - which tastes great but is pretty lethal...

Old & new side by side

Presidential Palace

Keeping watch over the city

Liz wasn't smiling the next morning!

We visited about Pablo Neruda houses, Chile's most important poet and diplomat, who lived in exile for a time before his death, and who is now a national icon. His houses are known as extremely quirky, so we visited both of them to absorb a bit of the local culture. One is in Santiago, and the other one is in Valparaiso, a town a couple of hours outside the city. This was a quaint little place, with old Victorian style houses in all sorts of bright colours perched on the side of a hill overlooking the sea and ancient trolley-buses whizzing around. Like in Santiago, these were in various states of disrepair and many were covered in very artistic graffiti, adding to the character of the place.

Valparaiso main square

Lovely old colonial architecture

...and crazy modern design - Pablo Neruda's house

Liz and Pablo

Typical Valpo graffiti

San Pedro de Atacama was next. We flew to avoid the 18 hour bus ride. It's a small dusty town in the middle of the Atacama desert, but is beautiful nonetheless, with loads of little whitewashed buildings and the bluest sky imagineable. The town the square has a large adobe (mud-built) church, and most of the other buildings are also made of mud - a great place to watch the world go by. There are lovely craft shops and pretty little restaurants serving great food, despite being in the middle of the dessert. It only rains 5 days a year, but due to the altitude, it never gets too hot either - the perfect climate! A true oasis in the middle of the desert!

Lovely adobe church

Main square, San Perdo de Atacama

San Pedro main street

 Our first excursion was to Valley of the Moon, a sandy and barren landscape like it's name sake. We walked through a small canyon, with towering cliffs either side. It's a little scary to hear the cliffs cracking overhead, as the silica in them expands and contracts in the sun. We finished our trip at a view-point overlooking the mountains and volanoes to watch the sun set, which lit up the volcanoes red.

Vally of the Moon

A seat with a view

Full moon rising over Valley of the Moon at Sunset. Very special!

Our next trip was to the salt flats and salt lakes where we saw pink flamingoes feeding and the mountains reflecting perfectly in the still salt water.

Salt flat with flamingoes in background

Salt lake

As we climed highter to the altiplano (high plane) we got our first experience of high altitude at 4,400m (nearly 3 miles) up! We passed above the snowline, reaching a high altitude lake taking in the bright blue lake surrounded by snow capped volcanos. It was a beautiful sight. But we felt like 80 year olds as we tryed to walk back up the hill. Altitude sickness, makes you feel like someones sitting on your chest making us short of breath. We had headaches and our throats felt like a trainee sword-swallower's. What a truly breathtaking experience in more ways than one!

4400m up. Breathtaking!

Our final trip was sand-boarding. Here we witnessed more stunning scenery from the top of the dune. Boarding down was much slower than boarding on snow, but lots of fun. Although, climbing back up following each descent is not for the fait hearted...With no chairlifts, we had to trudge up the dune in the heat, carrying our boards. Our throats felt like we'd been gargling the sand! The beer after the last run down was very well deserved!

Ready for action

Carvin it up

If only it was this easy going up

Sad to leave the Atacama, but excited about Argentina awaiting us across the other side of the Andes we spent an eternity at the dusty border post. On the 10 hour bus ride over the mountains, were we saw llamas, vicunias (like a llama crossed with a deer), giant cactii and more salt flats. Oh it was just like the wild west :) We were slightly disconcerted to see two overturned car transporters by the side of the road in the space of an hour, where they had lost control on the steep, twisty mountain bends. Perhaps the drivers were distracted by the amazing colours of the landscape or dizzy from the height of the mountain passes!

A couple of locals we met