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.
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.
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!
Us about to enjoy one of the better meals in Valparaiso
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.
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