Chilling in Chile

* Iquique (2nd to 4th April 2016) *

We managed to find the bus company, Trans Salvador that was going from La Paz to Iquique via Arica for the same price as the other companies were going to just Arica, also a sleeper 160 degree Cama bus which departed at 1pm, to arrive at Iquique at 7am. We boarded and was relatively comfortable, we made it to the Bolivia/Chile border to pass through customs and immigration. Shahn was suffering very badly with altitude sickness; severe diarrhoea, cramping, nausea, light headed and disorientation - basically a huge mess! A lovely Chilean man gave her a hot coca tea and that helped immensely. We had to change buses at Arica despite being told that it would be a direct bus. Then an hour later the new bus broke down, we were stopped for two hours stranded in the middle of nowhere until the same bus that left us in Arica to pick us up and take us the rest of way to Iquique.

A nice German guy named Daniel whom was travelling by himself, was also looking for a hostel to stay at but was more organised than we were. He had a couple of addresses for places to stay so we walked with him to the hostel and we booked in there for one night.  Backpackers Iquique was actually a lovely place to stay, they had awesome facilities, good Wi-Fi, activities available and had a great spot right near the beach. We went to the supermarket which was close by too and had a huge breakfast, we cooked all of our meals there and Eak used the charcoal bbq to cook our sausages and large 1kg beef steak, as always he did a great job. 

We walked around the town, which we found quite beautiful - the houses were colonial with brightly painted facades, due to the dry mild climate the buildings are preserved quite well though the fire risk is very high with these buildings.

As always, whenever we are close to the ocean/water, we wandered to the beach and stopped to look at a boat for Eak.

We booked the 11.45pm bus from Iquique direct to San Pedro de Atacama via Calama on a cama night bus, using AndesMar Bus.  The bus was new, clean and the two drivers were very good, the seats were comfortable and we slept very well. We did have to stop somewhere to get our bags x-rayed which was about 1 or 2am, so we were a bit of a state.  The Chilean roads were far more superior to the Bolivian road so we slept most of the way and arrived to San Pedro pretty refreshed and chipper.

* San Pedro de Atacama (5th & 6th April 2016) *

Arriving at San Pedro de Atacama we needed to find the best option to take us back to Calama so we can catch a flight out to Santiago.  We decided that we would prefer to stay an extra night in San Pedro de Atacama rather than in Calama, so a taxi transfer was most logical and the same price as the bus as well as more convenient.  

At the bus terminal we had a lovely breakfast of hot fresh bread and a ham & cheese omelets each. During our breakfast we were serenaded by two nice Chilean men with a guitar.

We wandered around for a good hour before finding a hostel, La Ruca, which we negotiated a decent price for as we found it cheaper using bookings.com, the room was nice with a very comfortable bed and private bathroom with excellent hot water. After dumping our bags we walked down the main street, which feels like a wild western type town with wood cladded exteriors, some with flaking paint and the dusty roads. As with all tourist towns there are many agencies with something to sell but we had checked Trip Advisor prior to our walk so we knew the better agencies from the worse ones. Due to it still being the low season, there wasn't any sold out prior and prices are competitive, many operators closed or are selective of their customers due to tour group sizes so often will cancel their tours or move you to another tour. Eventually, we settled on doing two tours with Whipala Expeditions, we did Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon) in the afternoon and the Laguna Antiplatico tour the following morning. 

The Valley of the Moon tour started at 4pm and finished at 8pm, we had a varied group of nationalities and had a great guide who was very knowledgeable about the geology of the area.

We began with the short drive to the national park, then headed to the Mirador (lookout) which had an incredible difference in geology, a massive sand dune blended against a huge valley with ancient rock from the sea floor embedded with salt, sulphur, lithium and other minerals.

Unique geology with the tectonic plates over millions of years subluxing and causing the volcanoes on either side of the salt flats. We finished off the tour with a beautiful sunset at Mirador de Ckari, a high vantage point sitting on top of sandstone to see the salt river with salt flats in the distance.

We were meant to go on a star gazing tour as well at 10.30pm which unfortunately was cancelled due to cloud cover, though as far as we could see there wasn't a single cloud in the sky.  Unfortunately we did find another tour to do on our last night in San Pedro as its' famous for the clear night sky with no light pollution but out of no where it started raining so that too was cancelled.

Our last full day in San Pedro de Atacama we went on the Lagunas Antiplanicas tour with Whipala Expeditions, they picked us up from hostel at 7am and transported us to the Lagunas Altiplanicas (lagoons in altitudal plains).  We had a crisp morning of 1°C at 4,200m a.s.l where we saw the beautiful lagoons nestled among the mountains. We had a breakfast at Laguna Miñiques, hot tea & coffee with eggs, bread, avocado, ham & cheese with some biscuits.

We walked around the edge of the largest lagoon in the area, Laguna Miscanti which is under the 5,600 meters high is Miscanti mountain. Aguas Calienetes, the active mountain is the middle mountain, hot springs from volcanic activity.

Socaire village - 300 people live there with the main industries of lithium mining and agriculture (potatoes, quinoa, lima beans and alfalfa). The church is built from volcanic rock and cactus wood, it's over 250 years old. There were woman there selling their wares, while knitting using six pieces of wooden sticks as knitting needles. We told them that it looks difficult and they just laughed saying it wasn't.

Salar de Atacama - the largest salt flats in Chile (third largest in the world?) 2,000 square kilometres in area.

Laguna Chaxa -  Where the flamingos feed on Brine Shrimp that are in large volumes considering the small amount of glacial water available there. The Flamingos live here all year round along with many other birds and lizards.

Toconao - "place of stones" all the rock that the small village (pop 1,000) using.volcanic rock from the Andes to build most of the town. Only place that produces red and white wine over 2,600m as it is such a harsh environment.  The church was built in 1747 from stone and bell tower built from cactus wood, both are a national hertiage. 

The Cactus is protected now as it grows at a rate of 1cm per year so some of the very large cacti are hundreds to thousands of years old!

After returning from the tour we found some lunch at the only vegetarian restaurant in town, had a gigantic mixed vegetable and cheese empanada as well as a soup and lentil hamburger with salad.  After our fill we wandered the street to find further things to do, walked through the market and ended up at the Meteorite Museum, such a well done place by a young guy who had spent his life this far searching the Atacama desert for meteors.  We spent an hour here which was awesome, worth the visit and the CLP$3,500.

We had flights booked from Calama to Santiago using Sky Airlines, we were pumped to fly two hours instead of the long bus journey. Though luck was not on our side, less than 12 hours before our flight I received an email saying our flight had been cancelled and could be rebooked for two days time. Sky Airlines staff were on strike and that grounded their whole fleet nationally for two full days. Frustrated and incredibly annoyed at the prospect of spending 22 hours on an overnight bus to Santiago instead of our well planned flights.

So we cancelled our taxi transfer to Calama airport and trudged to the bus station to sort out the overnight bus required to get to Santiago.

* Santiago - (7th - 9th April 2016)

We arrived in Santiago very unsure about where to stay and what area was safe etc, we got a taxi down to Plaza de Armes as there was an information centre there and figured it would be a good place to start. We got there and found that there was no internet available to use, our Scribd offline lonely planet guide wasn't working and we were in the shit.  We managed to find a cafe that had Wi-Fi, we walked in and the women there were wearing very short skirts and dolled up beautifully, we thought we in a weird place as it was darkly light with only coffee and sandwiches being served. Turns out we had stumbled into a Chilean coffee club that uses "coffee served with legs" to distract people from complaining about how bad the coffee is, once we knew this it explained a lot yes but they were everywhere!!

We decided on a hostel called Chile Pepper Hostel, it was a bit out of town but turned out to be very accessible for us with the subway system, the hostel was a bit weird because it was so quiet, they had breakfast there for us as well so one less meal to think about! 

 We felt like sushi for dinner and found many sushi restaurants, we had a nice dinner but they put cream cheese in all of the sushi instead of avocados, personally we prefer the avocado as a fat component rather than cream cheese, still good though.

 We got involved in the free walking tour which was four hours in duration and we saw a lot of the city that we probably would have missed due to not knowing. Having done a terrible free walking tour in Cusco, Michael wasn't so keen to do it but our guide Omar was awesome, spoke well, gave excellent history and let us stop to buy ice cream at El Rosa.

Santiago was founded by the Spanish conqueror, Pedro de Valdivia on 12th of February 1541. The city was organised initially around the main square now called Plaza de Armas (as many main plazas in South America are called due to their history after the conquistadors executed many local people).

We also posted 7kgs of stuff back to New Zealand as we had bought ourselves; a couple of table cloths, a very heavy rug, beanies and a couple of alpaca & sheep's wool jerseys.  Sorry family haven't for the space to buy presents!!! So it was excellent to post those and rid ourselves of some weight in our packs, though it did cost a bit of money to send it is still cheaper than excess baggage!