Vino

A drop of the good stuff

From Valparaiso next stop was Santiago. Not the most exciting capital city we have ever visited, but pretty nice for a mooch around, shopping, parks and eating of course. I had some really great Sushi – first Japanese restaurant of the trip and it was very welcomed. And we ventured out of town a couple of times. Once to a giant shopping centre - with a Top Shop, happy days! Second outing was via a local bus to the Maipu Valley and the Undurraga vineyard for our first wine tour of the trip. No, one is not enough! Especially when a fellow wine lover (my mum) is due to visit! We drank some truly delicious wine and learnt a lot about the process, the history of the vineyard and the amount of damage this year’s 8.8 earthquake caused. Three containers holding over 100,000 litres of wine each broke and flooded the vineyard – an almost incomprehensible amount of wine.

Mmm what else? We also managed to meet up for dinner with Carlos one of the lovely Chilean’s we had met on our way to Chile from Bolivia. It was very interesting hearing about what Santiago was like to live under Pinochet’s dictatorship and how Chile is now. And we drank more wine, of course. Delicious.

Santiago's skyline

Where is the sun?

Valparaiso Graffiti

After a couple of days in San Pedro it was time to head south and we took a fancy Chilean (i.e. not 100 year old Bolivian) bus for 12 hours to a little town called Caldera. The scenery was desert, desert, desert and not much else! But the movies were entertaining and as I had a stinking cold a comfy bus wasn’t the worse place to be dozing for the day.

The Atacama desert...boring after about a minute.

Having read in the Lonely Planet that the sun shone all year round in Bahia de Inglesa and the sand was white and water turquoise we quickly decided this was where we needed to be. We asked the driver to drop us off at the nearest town, Caldera. He checked we were sure about this about five times. And as we were left by the side of a large dusty road in the dark we started to wonder if we should have taken the hint! We trundled down the road and found a motel with some big lorries outside and tentatively asked for accommodation. Luxurious it was not, but it was relatively cheap and with pretty nice food (and the only option).

Next morning the weather didn’t look promising but we persevered and headed to Bahia. Mmmm, this weather necessitated gloves and a hat – not quite the beach wear we had imagined. Still we had a nice, quiet time there. Hired a little apartment and walked along the beach, cooked pasta and, of course, drank some good wine.

Our deserted beach at Bahia Inglesa

We gave up on any chance of getting the swim suits out and moved a little further south to a town called La Serena. Again, where is the sun?! Especially upsetting as news of scorching sun in the UK started filtering through! We layered up – something we have been getting skilled at - and headed in to the Elqui Valley for an evening. Why? To visit the famous Mamalluca Observatory. Apparently Chile is one of the few places in the world, alongside Namibia that are dry enough to give amazing views of the night sky. For this reason a lot of other countries invest heavily in the observatories there. Lucky for us.

The drive itself out to the observatory at sun set was beautiful. The valley is full of orchards and vineyards and the colours were amazing. As soon as the sun was down we realised why we had been told to wear layers. It was absolutely freezing! But the two hours we spent learning about the stars, planets and ideas for the survival of mankind were incredible. We saw Saturn – so clearly it looked like someone had just stuck a picture on a sticker over the lense of the telescope! You could see the rings around it and its moon. Apparently it is a viable option alongside Mars for humans to move to in a few million years! Mars has a couple of atmospheric issues that apparently we could solve by polluting the atmosphere to trap oxygen! All fascinating stuff from a really lovely guy who clearly new his stuff and was passionate about it.

Mamalluca Observatory

Next stop, and still hoping for a little sun, was Valparaiso. We had heard lots about the beauty of Valparaiso and it’s similarity to Venice. Having never been to Venice we couldn’t vouch for that, we doubted it was quite in the same league but it certainly had charm. First meal we headed off in search of the famous seafood, we thought we had found the place a bustling restaurant next to the local fish market. But I think we ordered badly! The local speciality is paila – turns out this is like seafood porridge. Stodge is the only word for it!

Valparaiso's cool trolley buses

Us about to enjoy one of the better meals in Valparaiso

"Once" our favorite Chilean afternoon tradition, a bit like afternoon tea with ice cream, pancakes, tea and sarnies....mm wonder why we liked it so much!

We also visited Pablo Neruda’s house (eccentric and very famous Chilean poet) which was great – fully furnished with a wonderful collection of furniture and art. We visited the outdoor art museum, we were a bit slow on the uptake to start with looking for the ‘Museo a Cielo Abierto’, which translates to ‘museum under the open sky’ and finally figuring out it was right in front of us on all of the walls that we had been walking past. You take a short walking route and the art is painted on the sides of houses, shops etc with plaques to explain it. Very cool.

Art work on the walls

More cool art work

Every wall was decorated..

Amazing graffiti again..

Our favorite Valpo Graffiti

The very colourful houses in Valparaiso

From one extreme to another...

San Pedro De Atacama's inglesia

Our journey to Chile was almost as scenic and adventurous as our tour of southern Bolivia! In order to avoid a several day long bus journey we opted for another jeep ride. This jeep left Uyuni at 6pm and was due to arrive in San Pedro de Atacama, northern Chile lunch time the next day. The journey didn’t get off to a flying start due to a flat tyre in the middle of the desert, at night! We stopped at a very very basic ‘hostal’ and had fried egg and rice for dinner – one of the least imaginative meals we’ve had in Bolivia, maybe not the least nutritious though. We shared our meal with several Chilieans and that proved to be a real pleasure. They were all absolutely lovely and keen to give us lots of information about their country and their contact details should we need anything else.

After filling our guidebooks with notes we all hit the sack, for about four hours – alarms went at 3.30am! Not the earliest start of the trip but certainly one of the coldest. We were straight back on the ‘road’ (read rough track in the pitch black). Then the snow started, then the insides of the windows froze. It was actually quite fun but fairly long – four or so hours later we arrived at a little pit stop next to a lake, lit a fire and phoned ahead to the frontera (border) to check the weather. Whereupon we were informed that they weren’t sure if they could open the border due to the weather and there was a real danger of us staying in the middle of nowhere with no food for the rest of the day/night! Oh dear. We started wondering which pieces of furniture we could burn. Turns out it was a false alarm, the sun came out and off we went. The border crossing was fairly informal at the Bolivia side, a quick passport stamp and then a bus to a tarmac road – wooohooo – off to Chile.

The frozen window of our jeep

The x-ray machines at the customs office were the first indication that we were now in a far more advanced country! San Pedro de Atacama turned out to be a lovely, if somewhat expensive, town in the Atacama desert (driest place in the world). With dusty streets and a remote location it was a surprise to discover this is a major tourist destination in Chile and there were plenty of restaurants and bars to show for it. A lovely surprise when compared to our fried egg dinner for our last night in Chile, but our budget was going to need to be revised!

Although still very cold at night, San Pedro was lovely and sunny during the day and that combined with the food, and great wine (right at the top of our list of course) meant Chile immediately felt like an extremely different destination to Bolivia. We had inadvertently chosen to travel from the poorest to the richest country in South America. Monkeys it may not have, but Chile promised to deliver a whole new adventure.

San Pedro's impressive backdrop

Mind blowing!

The Lonely Planet guide book's favourite superlative is 'mind blowing' which makes us chuckle. But when it came to the very south of Bolivia we just couldn't stop the words 'mind blowing' from popping out of our mouths! Literally every five minutes!

That and "it's sodding freezing!"

To travel across the south of Bolivia you hire a jeep (or buy seats in a jeep) that comes with a driver and a cook. We shared our jeep with the lovely Simone from Derby, and Andrea from Bergamo (northern Italy). They made for the perfect travel companions, not least because of Andrea's entertaining English, our entertaining Spanish, and Simone's supply of chocolate, biscuits, rum and enthusiasm!

Scenery on the first stop

Lots of huge open spaces with Llamas before we got too high for anything living

The journey was bumpy. I am not sure that covers it actually! No roads - and some very skilled driving across constantly changing and challenging landscape.

Around geysers at 5000 meters

We went from 3000 to 5000 meters and down again, across rivers, ice, dried up lakes and over small mountains.

Each lake we visited was a different colour due to the different mineral contents, the scenery constantly changed and amazed us.

Beautiful lakes

Stunning flamingos

And the ubiquitous llamas

The accommodation for each night was basic. Basic was fine, but it was also absolutely freezing! No heating, no insulation, one night no window and minus temperatures! We slept fully dressed, including thermals and hats, under as many layers as we could find. The warmest night was the last night where the entire hotel was made of salt - the floor, bed, walls, tables, chairs - everything!

Three days later we arrived at the Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats. Twelve thousand square kilometers of salt, at an altitude of 3600 meters. Once upon a time the entire area was ocean, but a volcanic eruption (and the subsequent lava flow) trapped a section of the ocean between the Andes and the lava. The heat eventually caused the ocean to evaporate and just leave salt behind. The sight is phenomenal. You have to constantly remind yourself that you aren't looking at snow! We got up at five am (pretty much the norm on this trip) and were on the salt flats in time to watch the sunrise - the change in colours was amazing.

Taking a million photos before sunrise

Me flying

After breakfast at an 'island' in the salt flats - a beautiful place covered in Cacti that were 500 to 1000 years old, we headed to the middle of the flats for the traditional silly photo taking session.

On the way to our final stop Uyuni we stopped at the train cemetery. Train lovers (i.e. Dad and Richard) may want to avert their eyes now! Lots of dead trains.

And so, having started our almost 1000 kilometer journey four days before, we arrived at Uyuni. Totally exhausted, rather dirty, and pretty much in the same clothes (it had been too cold to ever take anything off)!

Our lovely tour companions

A small community in the middle of nowhere, snowy, windy and dependent on Llamas

A Tamale, delicious hot snack. Well it wouldn't be the same without at least one food mention!

Some of my favourite scenery, just a bit inhospitable

Yet another beautiful lake

The rock formations created by volcanic eruptions

Our one opportunity to get clean!

From bikes to horses

Whilst I was in monkey heaven Gio decided to finally get some mountain biking done. we have been trying to organise biking throughout three different countries and up until Bolivia it hadn't panned out. It was a little more hard core than Gio anticipated... he fell of three times (from his downhill Kona), once in to a stream! Twice over the handlebars - but luckily not down the giant drop on the side of the tracks...

Mountain biking with actual mountains!

He survived...

The impressive scenery along the way.

The kamikaze guide

Sadly we finally left La Senda Verde. We enjoyed a night at the nearest town, home of the best restaurant in Bolivia (not a very hard title to win) - a very unassuming outdoor place that served great French food.

Next stop was La Paz once more, for some last minute shopping and then it was time to really get moving through Bolivia. The next journey was a 12 hour night bus to Sucre. A lovely city which made you forget you were in Bolivia - simply because it was so affluent. Sucre was once the capital of Bolivia and has held on to the judicial system and the cash!

We liked Sucre a lot, lovely to wonder around, a great central market and a couple of great chocolate shops...yes a bit of a theme there! We were, however, very lazy whilst there and spent a lot of time not doing much. We blame the 20 year old from Belgium who took us out on our first night in Sucre. We ended up at a local gig, sound good? Well it was entertaining but the band only did Metallica covers - so not quite the local music we had in mind, still, it was a night to recover from.

Next stop was Potosi, just for an overnight stay - which turned out to be a shame as it was a lovely town. We had a delicious meal in a local pub with an open fire, it's pretty blooming cold at night as Potosi is at 4070 meters.

Next day we were back at the bus station bright and early to continue our journey through Bolivia to a little cowboy town called Tupiza. Tupiza is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid reportedly ended their days. The route between Potosi and Tupiza took about 7 hours, about 6 of those were off roading! Quite an impressive feat for a double decker coach! Sitting right at the front we couldn't believe our eyes as the driver went through small rivers and across the countryside. Needless to say it was a long and bumpy ride - during which we were holding our breath most of the time!

When we arrived in Tupiza it was like a ghost town with dust blowing through the streets. Eventually we found a little hostal, with lovely cactus wood furniture, and slept, a lot (must have been coming down from the adrenalin fuelled bus journey).

The scenery around Tupiza

It wouldn't have been right to visit somewhere like Tupiza without getting on the back of a horse. So for a few hours, one windy afternoon, we did just that. Not the most comfortable afternoon but he scenery was amazing and my horse was lovely!

I even had my own cowboy hat for the afternoon

For some reason Gio couldn't find one to fit!

From Tupiza we organised our visit to the Salt Flats - one of the big sights to see in Bolivia. What we hadn't realised was that the scenery before you even get close to the salt flats, on the journey from Tupiza, would be the most amazing scenery we had ever seen (next issue!).