I’m travelling solo this time and currently on a group tour with G Adventures. It started in Peru. Those posts can be found here: My South American journey begins with 2 days in Lima and A week in Cuzco, Ollantaytambo, Sacred Valley, Aguas Callientes and Machu Picchu

Then into Bolivia. Those posts can be found here: Beautiful Bolivia! 2 Days in La Paz and 2 days in Sucre and More Bolivia! Salar de Uyuni, a 3 day tour of the salt flats

NOW we’re heading into Chile!! ATACAMA DESERT

Once we finally make it over the border in the middle of nowhere from Bolivia into Chile, we immediately noticed a difference. For one, paved roads.

We’d been at altidude for over a week and now started to descend. It happened so rapidly my ears plugged as if landing in a plane.

We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama and settled into our hostel. The town is small so it didn’t take long to figure out where things were and we finished the day with a nice dinner at Baros’

April 4, 2023

Neither my debit or credit card wanted to give me money in San Pedro, even using a Scotia bank ATM. UGH. Good thing my room mate Davindar had been successful so I could borrow money from her. We enjoyed wandering the town and eating a leisurely breakfast before meeting the others for our trip into the desert yet again. It’s different here. There’s a salt flat but it too is completely different from Bolivia. There are lots of hills and dunes and it was fun to climb them without having to deal with the effects of altitude.

Wednesday April 5

SANTIAGO

Bright and early we headed to the airport in Calama. Davindar and I had picked up empanadas the day before to eat for breakfast. They’re better hot so don’t do that. There’s food at the airport. There’s your advice of the day

In Santiago we checked into the Ibis Budget Providencia. It’s the smallest room I’d ever seen. The beds were even more narrow than a regular twin sized bed. and there was no room around to spare. Good thing we don’t spend a lot of time there.

JC took us on a quick tour starting with the subway to the centre of the city. It was packed and fun to manoever with a group of 14 people! Dinner was salmon. I’m eating fish every day while this close to the coast.

Thursday April 6

The hotel breakfast was good enough to keep us going for several hours. Chloe, Davindar and I called an uber to take us to the central plaza rather than take the metro. It wasn’t much more for the 3 of us and we needed to be there at 10 for a free walking tour. We learned a LOT of history of which I retained maybe 10%. After coffee together we split up. Davindar and I set off to find the funicular and cable car. That ended up being perfect as we walked maybe 30 minutes to get to it. The funicular got us to the top where we spent some time and the cable car came down the other side, not far from our hotel in Providencia. We got back in time to join the meet up with the new group. We said good bye to the 10 members of the group leaving and 4 of us joined the next group that goes as far as Buenos Aires.

Valparaiso

We did another tour of the city with this group, again riding the subway. This time we got to see the changing of the guards in front of the President’s residence. He doesn’t live there any more but just works there. It was a pretty elaborate ceremony and well worth your time.

Back at the hotel we stored most of us luggage, taking just enough for one night and loaded up a mini bus that took us to a public bus station where we boarded the bus to Valparaiso.

We spent the night in an old, unique hotel called the Reina Victoria. On the way to dinner we took a funicular up a hill. Valpairaso has many hills and several funiulars.

Saturday. Davindar and I decided to spend the morning just wandering. The walking tour we’d booked ended up being a no show so we got lost on our own. The graffiti and wall art is great fun to see and there’s lots of shops to peruse.

On the way back to Santiago we visited a winery. Casa Blanca in Santa Rosa is a “boutique” winery as they only produce about a million bottles of wine per year. Apparently that’s not much according to Chilean wine producers.

Back in Santiago we found some dinner then prepared for the night bus to Pucon. So much fun. The bus is more comfortable than a plane but you still don’t get much sleep.

Sunday, April 9

Pucon

There’s a lot to do in this town and we won’t be able to do it all. It’s also VERY expensive.

Patrice from a local tour agency came and gave us a bunch of options for our short time in Pucon. All were VERY expensive. Some of us decided that hiking a volcano tired after no sleep on a night bus was a good idea. He said it was an easy hike if you’re used to hiking. Well. Maybe if you’re used to hiking in Chile?? None of of us found it easy. The first 3 km were uphill, sometimes scrabbling up volcanic rock and occasionally having to almost go on all 4’s. Maybe “technical” is the correct word? We couldn’t go higher as the volcano has been misbehaving and there was potential for major eruption. It often spews lava. We came down through the forest where there was still lots of up and downs over roots and rocks so I still had to watch my feet the whole way. It was a nice hike though and our guide provided lots of info about the volcano and the town.

April 10

Brendan, Brigitte and I decided to go out on our own and ordered an uber to take us to the Parque Ojos del Caburgua. There are a few waterfalls there and a nice walk. Then we walked to the Bellevista water fall, about 3 km further. The walk was nice along gravel roads with practically no traffic. There was nobody there to collect money and the gate was open so we enjoyed the views free of charge. From there we kept going towards Caburgua Lake. The roads were nice but a LOT of uphill and several aggressive dogs that we decided would be pumas when we told stories about it. (hehe) We reached the highway to be faced with a sign with a truck on a steep grade. Lovely. So we sat in the bus stop and had a snack in preparation. It turned out to be not as bad as the hills we had been climbing. In Caburgua the beach looks lovely but it was deserted. All the shops appeared closed. While looking for a restaurant for lunch we saw the bus to Pucon sitting there so hopped on that instead and made it back without incident.

Since we had time we joined the tour to visit Rosaria, a Mapuche woman who described her culture and the way of life when she was young. She fed us some traditional foods which for me was enough for dinner.

April 11

There was lots of time to putz around this morning so I ate a leisurely breakfast then explored the town for a bit before we boarded the bus destined for San Martin, Argentina. It was supposed to take 5 hours. The border slowed us down. Everyone on the 2 decker bus had to disembark, line up and get our passports stamped out of Chile. Then back IN the bus, cross no man’s land into Argentina where we again lined up. Thankfully they didn’t do an intense search of the bags. Apparently their cursury check sufficed. Back in the bus the journey was slow as the road was terrible and the bridge we crossed did NOT look like it was strong enough to hold a big bus. Looks can be deceiving as I’m alive.

The slow journey made it easy to view the interesting scenery of hills covered in the strange looking monkey puzzle trees. Finally we got to good roads but still got into San Martin 2 hours late.

There we were met by a private van and our hostess handed out empanadas. I’m sure they were delicious when they were hot. It was starting to get dark by this point which was very unfortunate as the scenery was gorgeous. We got to do the tour of the beautiful 7 lakes ….. in the dark.

Argentina is the next post!