Monthly Archive for September, 2009

Sep
26

The 3 Amigos travel south

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After 5 days in San Pedro de Attacama it was time to move on. We’d done most of the worthwhile activities: Sand-boarding (very cool!), Sunset at the Luna Valley walk (Wonderful landscape, and quite moonlike!) etc… The only thing we couldn’t do was the Star Tour in the Attacama dessert, and this was partly because of the brilliant full moon that appeared while we were there and also because the agency: SPACE (http://www.spaceobs.com/) who organises the tour was closed for a week either-side of our visit.

So off we went, Sandra, myself and our new found ‘amiga’ Vicky (or Bicky as they say round here!) on a voyage south. Below is a brief summary of our adventures:

La Sarena

Our fist stop was La Sarena. After an overnight bus ride we arrived early in the morning. We found the hostel Residencial Joffrie after a short walk from the bus terminal. It was a very welcoming place and they let us check in immediately and also gave us a good breakfast to settle us in. Refreshed, we took a stroll into town, which seemed very nice, had a look round and booked up on a tour at the Mamalluca observatory for some night time star gazing. The view of the night sky was amazing, and the guide was very informative pointing out the Southern cross and countless other galaxies including the Milky Way and our nearby neighboring planets. Amazing!!

This region across Chile, especially in the Attacama dessert, has the best atmosphere and the skies here are clear from cloud and transparent making it perfect for star gazing and it’s the reason so many observatories choose to have their telescopes here. Indeed at Mamalluca they competed with Hawaii to host the worlds biggest telescope, though they eventually lost out. Though they do have a VLT (that’s a Very Large Telescope to the rest of us!)

Valparaiso

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We left for Valparaiso the next day on a what was a 5 hour bus journey. We decided to stay in the Cerro Concepcion part of town as it sounded the most appealing being on one of the more chilled/bohemian hills (Cerro’s). We really liked Valparaiso, though we met some people who didn’t like it at all. It’s quite a unique town what with all it’s hills, connected by a countless number of fernicular/cable cars (Asuncions), and it’s windy cobble-stoned streets lined with colourful houses and buildings. We stayed at the Hostel Horizonte and it reminded me of the old house I rented in Holloway some years ago. Coco, the owner was very like-able and gave us some good advice, though I’d recommend Cinzano over Mastodonte for Chorrillana (plate of spicy pork sausages with onions and egg, on top of a mountain of chips) any day of the week!

We spent 5 days here just chilling and walking round the town from the wonderful markets and the close by Vino del Mar - billed as the place the Valparisians go to ‘play’!
We saw another football match here in Vino del Mar: Everton Versus Universidad de Catolica (who were top of the league). It was a strange game that suddenly came to life 5 minutes from the end. Everton were winning 1-0 when suddenly the referee sent 2 Everton players off for only-he-knew-what allowing U.Catolica to equalise in the last minute. This really created a bit of tension and the talk of the town over the next few days was of scandal and match fixing. I’ve got to say it looked very suspicious from where we were sitting!

Santiago

Next up we took a short bus ride (1 hour) into Santiago. We went to the Baquedano district and stayed for 7 days at the Hostel Provencia. It wasn’t bad and was full of colourful characters. We celebrated another Independence day celebration here and the Chileans certainly know how to party! The strangest drink so far has got to be the Terramoto - translated it means Earthquake. A potent mixture of ice cream, wine and a liqueur all mixed together. The second one was much better than the first and after that, well, lets just say it was just a bluur!

The Chileans are extremely friendly people and especially welcoming to visitors. In Valparaiso a young group of people on a night out spotted us walking past and immediately called out to us ‘Hey, Welcome to Chile!‘ and here in Santiago a small boy went up to Sandra and said the same ‘Welcome to my country, hope you enjoy your stay!‘.

Puerto Varas

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It was time to say goodbye to ‘Bicky’ as we headed further south to Chiloe, and she went east into Argentina to Mendoza. We took another overnight bus to Puerto Varas where we decided to stay for a few days to break up the long journey. It was a lovely small town with a strong Germanic influence, evident in it’s architecture and local food and beer. It lies on the shore of the Llanquihue Lake, one of the largest natural lakes in South America and is watched over by the active Osorno volcano and the snowcapped peaks of Mt. Calbuco and Mt. Tronador.

We stayed at the aptly named Villa Germana run by 2 sisters who originated from Frankfurt. Ideally we could have spent a bit longer here exploring the surrounding area, especially a trek up to the Volcano and a tour or two of the surrounding Lake district. Our come-back-another-time list is growing as this town, and area, have certainly been added!

Chiloe: Castro

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After a 5 hour bus/one hour ferry crossing we finally made it to Castro, the main city on Chiloe island. At first we were a little disappointed with it as, always, we had built up a different impression of what to expect. Timmy, the Belgium chap we met in Lima & Cusco had tipped us off about the place as he has family here, and was here himself a few weeks before us. And he really sold it to us.

Luckily though we found, or rather Marta found us, a lovely hostel to stay. Marta was waiting at the bus terminal and promptly persuaded us to check out her ‘Hostal Cordillera‘ as she said it was only around the corner from the one we intended to stay at. Indeed it was, and it had such a welcoming and homely feel to it that we decided to stay, and at 15000 Pesos for an ensuite double (admittedly after some of Sandras negotiating skills) was an absolute bargain! We ended up staying for 5 days !!

Marta turned out to be extremely accommodating and we’d heartily recommend a stay at her place if you should find yourself in Castro. So after a ropey start Chiloe was a delightful place to spend some time and the National park was wonderful to see. In hindsight we wished we had stayed at one of the cabins there, or during summer you could pitch up a tent… This too has been added to the list for sure!

After 5 wonderful days we took a bus to Bariloche in Argentina, take your seats for the next round, it gets pretty hairy!

Published
by
lion
on Sep 26 2009
in Chile, Chiloe and Santiago
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Sep
08

The dogs of San Pedro de Attacama

I was loving San Pedro. The warm sunshine, the lovely small town feel, the hammocks in the hostel. It was great to just kick back and enjoy the basics after a full-on-couple-of-months through Peru and Bolivia. Sandra turned up at the Residenial Vilacoya at around 12pm on Sunday 6th and found me exactly as I had been for the last couple of days: Chilling in a hammock! It wasn’t long before she joined me and we caught up with each others adventures.

After a few days in San Pedro the one noticeable thing was the dogs. They’re everywhere. In the day they mostly sleep in the shade, wherever they find it, but at night they kind of stroll around town in big packs, almost like they own the town. Some dogs take up their positions in the doorways of Cafes, Restaurants and shops, kind of like guard dogs, while the others are on the hunt. This normally involved a hungry pack of males fighting for the attention of a surrounded and hounded female. These dogs would be haring around town all night until the victor would claim his prize in front of a full audience, and they weren’t fussy about where the stage was!

In this one, not-isolated, incident it happened to be a small Panaderia (Bakers) and there wasn’t a thing the poor owner could do to stop them. Eventually a bucket of water was produced but that only managed to remove them to just outside her shop entrance. Much later the dogs could be seen resting up by the side of the main street. The ‘top’ dog next to his ‘prize’ and all the other contenders in close proximity. I’ve really never seen anything like this before.
One other thing of note is that all dogs, so far throughout South America, seem to be extremely wary of humans. And the majority carry a limp. Sadly I think it has something to with most dogs getting beaten from a very young age. Here, dogs are just dogs…

Published
by
lion
on Sep 8 2009
in Chile and San Pedro de Attacama
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Sep
05

Stranded at the border

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Having waved goodbye to the rest of the group I was suddenly feeling lonely. For some reason I had a different transfer ticket to the others and to my dismay no-one seemed to have a clue as to when the bus would show. Remembering that I had to get a exit stamp from Bolivia I went into the immigration hut and handed over my passport. It soon became apparent that something was missing, the departure card. I soon realised where it was: with Sandra in our document folder! This seemed to be really important and the army immigration Officer wasn’t looking impressed with my explanation of “No Tengo”. With a shake of his head he disappeared for a few moments to leave me to reflect on my fate but soon returned and said he could give me the exit stamp without the departure card for 50 Bolivianos!

Well I’ve got to hand it to him, he put a real good show on of how important this bit of paper was to leave the country, but 50 Bolivianos would make it alright!! It could have been worse really and as luck would have it I had exactly that amount on me. The only thing that annoyed me was I could have got the exit stamp for 20 Bolivianos before starting the tour in Uyuni. Though I didn’t know that at the time and I presume there would have still been an issue with the missing departure card.

All sorted I ventured outside and one look around confirmed that I was the only one left waiting at the border. I’m suddenly transported back to my childhood when I used to be the last kid waiting for his mum! [Don't worry Ma, all's forgiven!].

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I saw a figure looking as stranded as me. I went over and before I reached a voice said “Please tell me you’re going to Chile?” with this we both started laughing, more in relief than anything else, and this is how I met Vicky. It turned out we both had the same transfer ticket and so felt better about waiting at this desolate out-post. Soon though a truck pulled up and the driver went into chat to the immigration officer. After a short time they both came out and started speaking in Spanish to us both. Unfortunately Vicky’s Spanish was as good as mine so it was a bit tricky to make out what they were saying, though this was the jist - “No more buses today but we could hitch a ride in the pickup to San Pedro de Attacama [Chile]“.

After much confusion we both decided to risk it and threw our backpacks into the back and hopped in. 5 minutes down the road we saw a bus coming towards us and on close inspection it was ours! With this the driver pulled over and motioned for us to get out. He didn’t seem to understand my request to kindly drive us back to the Bolivian border! So we had a bit of a hike back but as luck would have it it was our bus, though we’d have to wait while the driver fed the passengers he’d brought who were doing the opposite tour to us. One hour later we were again on our way. We now felt quite privileged as we had a whole bus to ourselves!

The drive was mostly down hill as we descended from Bolivia’s high altitude and as such it started to become much warmer. Just before the border the driver turned around and mentioned that we weren’t allowed to take any Coca leaf or any plants (including souvenirs made from reeds and palms) through into Chile. Well I was OK as I used all my Coca up on the treks (with loads of help from the last guide we had) and I didn’t buy any souvenirs made from reeds or palms but Vicky was looking a bit concerned. She handed one bag of Coca leaves over to the driver, who promptly threw it out the window, handed over a boat made from reeds and palms but she couldn’t remember if she had any more Coca leaves stashed in her backpack! On reaching the Chilean border we got our passports stamped and had to have our bags scanned. Vicky went first and there were no problems, although I did notice the guards weren’t really paying attention. When my bag went through they stopped it, studied the monitor screen, reversed it, had a conversation while glancing over at me, then put it back through the scanner and finally waved me on - no idea what that was about, maybe just for show?? Still we’d finally made it into Chile, and it was hot! On reflection maybe it was me sweating in a big hoody that made them suspicious??

We reached San Pedro de Attacama roughly 15 minutes later and took a short stroll into the center to find a hostel. It didn’t take us long to find Residencial Vilacoyo which seemed charming and within both budgets. We had a room each for 7000 pesos (roughly 980 to the GBP). Mine was a 3 bed dorm all to myself so I could really spread out! After a lovely hot shower I took a stroll around town, which after a month in Bolivia felt like paradise. San Pedro de Attacama looked and felt like a kind of Mediterranean town with it’s sunshine, white buildings, tiny streets and slow pace. Just my kind of town and after checking my emails I would have two more days of doing nothing but swinging in a hammock while waiting for Sandy - it sure is a hard life at times but hey, if someones got to do it, you can count me in!

Published
by
lion
on Sep 5 2009
in Bolivia, Chile and San Pedro de Attacama
. 0 Comments
 
Sep
04

Journey to Salar de Uyuni: Lionel’s version

salt-flats
We both left Potosi early, myself for Uyuni and Sandra for Tupiza. I was a little nervous about taking off on my own as I wasn’t sure how I’d fare with my lack of Spanish and we had both been travelling together for such a long time that it felt like something was missing. Still it would be a good challenge for myself in particular and a part of me was getting excited at the thought!

I soon got myself booked on a bus that was to leave Potosi at 11am. It actually left at 12pm as it waited to fill up. The bus company were really quite cheeky in that they had a big luxury bus parked outside their office to which I thought I had bought a ticket. 10 minutes before it was supposed to leave a driver came and drove the empty bus away and replaced it with a smaller and much more basic bus! The luggage went on top and I squeezed on with the rest of the passengers. I had to move from my allocated seat, although not fully understanding why. It seemed that a local guy needed my seat for his spare wheel that he was carrying… quite odd! Eventually the bus left on what was a long 6 hour journey across a very bumpy and dusty road.

Getting off the bus in Uyuni we were greeted by a few tour agencies offering tours into the Salar. Most were 3 day tours but you could also do a day trip. After talking to 3 of the agencies I decided to go for the company that offered me a hotel for the night in Uyuni, the 3 day tour through the Salar and also a transfer into Chile at the end. I also got her to throw in a sleeping bag for 700 Bolivianos. It seemed a fare price at the time, although I was to find out some people got the tour for 550 Bolivianos, including a transfer to Chile.

After spending the night in an extremely cold Uyuni I made my way to the office and waited for the agency to pick me up. I must have waited for 45 minutes and was just getting worried when the lady I bought the ticket from turned up in a taxi. She handed me my transfer to Chile ticket and put me in the taxi which took me to another agency that was just over the road from the hotel I had stayed in! I soon realised that it really doesn’t matter who you book with, you still get lumped together in any group that needs filling! My advice is to just go for the cheapest. Although all the tour agencies go to great pains to tell you of the importance of booking with their tour company, in reality they are just a tour agency and you end up going through one central company and get put in any group and any 4×4 to make up the numbers…

The adventure started and I was with 5 others: two Irish girls, two New Zealand boys and a Scottish lad. They had all been travelling together for a couple of months so it helped when we kind of joined another group at the hotel in the evenings, I was less of an outsider!

First stop was an old Train Cemetery. Quite surreal. There were a few long trains and countless other carriages and engines all rusting in the dessert where they last stopped. It looked like one of the trains came to a halt as it ran off the tracks and into the sand.
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Straight after this it was into the Salar itself. The landscape now turned from the baron rocky desert to a brilliant white salty flat void. Spread out at various places there were mounds of salt awaiting to be taken away for processing. It’s hard to explain this part of the world, it really is magnificent. There appears to be nothing except volcanoes and mountains on the distant horizon in all directions. The salt beneath our feet is set in a cracked looking pentagonal pattern that stretches for miles. I’ll let the pictures explain!

The first night we stayed in a salt hotel. It was built from bricks made of salt and had cactus wood furniture inside. It was very cold at night here, but thankfully the group that arrived before us had been out to get some booze so we were able to get our beer coats on and stave off the cold!
Taking pictures outside at sunset it suddenly made sense that this whole area used to be covered by water. It was obvious from the coral and reef like plants and rocks.

The next day we were up early and out the door by 4:30am. It was absolutely freezing! The day was full of lakes, flamingo’s and volcanoes. We stopped off at the Salvador Dali inspired rock formations. I was a little disappointed with this part, I thought they would be slightly different having seen Dalis paintings ;) but then he did have a fantastic imagination right?!
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At night we had a kind of party, mainly to stave of the cold again but it was all good. Felt a bit rough in the morning as we had another really early start to get to the geysers for sunrise. After it was a quick stop at the thermal pool to warm up from the extreme cold, then a quick look at Lago Verde surrounded by live volcanoes then off to the Bolivian border to end the tour and cross over into Chile. Exhausting but a fascinating few days.

Check out the gallery here »

Published
by
lion
on Sep 4 2009
in Bolivia and Uyuni
. 0 Comments