Central Chile is the cultural nucleus of the country.
All of Chile's largest cities are located here, as are most of its universities and industries, its vineyards, finest agricultural lands, colonial and early republican architecture.
In fact, central Chile is something of a microcosm of the country, balanced between deserts to the north and forests to the south, with the capital poised between the highest peaks in the Americas and a host of premier beach resorts.
Since we will be in Chile for almost 2 weeks we will limit ourselves to explore only the centre of Chile.
Friday the 2nd of June we flew from Quito to Santiago de Chile, arriving there at 5 o´clock Saturday morning. A taxi then took us to our hotel in downtown Santiago. The temperature was quite a shock to us coming from the Galapagos with a average temperature of around 30 degr. In Santiago it was about 9 degr. when we arrived!
After a few hours sleep we strawled around Santiago a bit. Our hotel was located in a really nice part of the city, close-by the main streets and squares. Since our hotel room had cable TV we also enjoyed watching a few films that day.
Sunday we spent by walking around the city some more. Santiago is a modern city situated between mountain-ranges which are currently partly covered with snow. The temperature wasn´t as bad as we had thought the first day. Because it was a mostly sunny day, it probably got as warm as 20 degr. So we stopped worrying that we wouldn´t have enough warm clothes with us (since we had sent them back after the USA!).
Monday afternoon we took the bus north-west to Valparaiso at the coast. At the bus station of Valparaiso we were welcomed by some nice Chilean ladies who tried to persuade us to come to their hostel. Finally we decided to walk to one of these hostels. It was conveniently located in the center of the city and we had a nice room with private bath, and could make use of the communal kitchen.
After settling in a bit we spent the remainder of the afternoon by exploring the city center. Valparaiso is a remarkable city partly built in the hills overlooking the ocean. It has many historic buildings and nice parks. To overcome the most steepest parts of the city they built 15 'ascensors' end 19th century, which are all still in use.
Tuesday we visited on foot and by taking a couple of these escalators a few of the most nicest neighbourhoods of Valparaiso. In these neighbourhoods the houses are all nicely restored and painted in bright colours. However we also saw some shabbier neighbourhoods.
At night we went to the cinema to watch "the Da Vinci Code". (we are huge fans of Dan Brown, we read all his books before our trip).
Since we try to avoid walking on the streets too late at night, we took the early show which ended at 9.30 pm. Since there were still a lot of people walking on the streets, we felt quite safe. However when we passed a few groups of young Chileans all looking at us, calling us "Gringo's" and shouting "money", we were extremely relieved when we got to our hostel without any difficulties!.
Wednesday the 7th of June we travelled by bus to la Serena up north, which took about 7 hours. Although we had originally planned to travel through Chile by car, we had learnt from previous experiences in Panama and from other travellers that travelling with public transport through South America is extremely efficient, comfortable, safe and cheap. (for instance our 7 hour voyage from Valparaiso to La Serena was less than 10 EUR p/p).
Also at the bus terminal of La Serena we were welcomed by Chileans trying to get us to stay in their 'Hospadajes'. However we decided to take the option we already had found in the Lonely Planet. This family run hostel was located in the center of town and had really nice, colourful rooms (and cable TV which is convenient looking at the upcoming World-cup games!)
Thursday we booked transportation for Saturdays' visit to Cerro Tololo Astronomical Observatory. Around La Serena there are numerous Observatories since here the sky is unaffected by city lights and has a very transparent atmosphere. This combined creates one of the best sites in the world for astronomical observations. We had to pick up a special permit for accessing this observatory since it is not really a tourist attraction. We were lucky to obtain one since only 40 visitors are allowed to enter per week (only on Saturdays).
Unfortunately it rained most of that day. We were therefore very happy to have our private bathroom with a hot shower (not as common as you might think), to be able to warm up after we got soaking wet walking around town.
Friday was a beautiful sunny and warm (up to 20 degr.) day, so before the match Germany - Costa Rica started we walked to the beach. In the Lonely Planet we had read that La Serena was a popular beach resort, so we were curious about its beaches. After an hours walk we almost reached the beach. We could see it but not get to it since the access roads were flooded due to yesterdays' heavy rainfall. From what we could see in the distance it didn't quite meet Lonely Planets' description. Also just as in Central America and Ecuador we noticed countless stray dogs walking around. Here for the first time we also got woken up by their
hauling.
We did however find the town really pleasant to stay. It has 29 churches, beautiful plazas and streets with nicely restored buildings.
Saturday we went to the Tololo Observatory. The drive, which took about an hour to the entrance gate, showed us part of the Elqui Valley. We could see a lot of different plantations like f.i. papaya and chirimoya. After the gate it took us another 36 km on an unpaved private road to the Observatory which is at 2200mt.
The complete site looked extremely futuristic with its odd looking buildings on top of the mountain. The view on the surrounding areas was magnificent also thanks to the beautiful weather we had (although pretty cold).
During the tour which lasted more than 2 hours we got to see 2 of their telescopes and were explained how they worked. The largest was 4 mtrs in diameter. Up to recent this was the largest in the southern hemisphere. Currently the largest is 8 mtrs and a 30 mtr is under construction.
You cannot look through these telescopes since the collected data is sent straight through to the computers. At the end of the tour we did however got to see some of the amazing images they had recorded of the sky the last few years.
After the tour we were brought to Vicuña, where we would start a new tour at 6 that evening at Mamalluca Observatory, where we could actually see through a 30 cm. telescope. Although we had planned to take a walk up the mountains that afternoon overlooking the city, we finally ended up in a bar watching Argentina - Cote d'Ivoire!
Since the sky was too cloudy at 6, the tour was postponed to 7 o'clock. At 7 however the tour was cancelled because there was no improvement. We decided not to wait for the next tour but took the bus back to La Serena (because our tour guy didn't want to drive us back!).
Sunday morning we watched the match the Netherlands - Servia-Montenegro in our room. Just as we planned to go downstairs during the break to have breakfast, the owner knocked on our door offering to bring us our breakfast! Well, this was the kind of service we could get used to! While enjoying our breakfast we watched the second half of the match. Fortunately the Dutch team didn't let us down.
Monday we were picked up at 8.30 to join the excursion to the National Reservation of the Humboldt Penguins, about 120 km north of La Serena. After a drive of 2 hours, we got into a small motor boat which took us to two islands of the coast, Choros Island and Isla Damas.
We were extremely lucky since it was a beautiful sunny day with practically no wind. During our boat trip we saw a lot of wildlife, like numerous breeding masked boobies, a sea otter, sea lions (but a different kind than on the Galapagos) and some Humboldt Penguins. Unfortunately we didn´t see many penguins since it is not the season for them. But we did see oceanic dolphins, so this was definitely one of the highlights of the day! We disembarked on Isla Damas where we went for a walk to the lighthouse.
After returning to shore, we enjoyed a nice lunch before heading back to La Serena where we arrived beginning of the evening.
Tuesday we got up really early to pack all our stuff, prepare some sandwiches and go to the bus station. At 8 in the morning we took the bus back from La Serena to Santiago, arriving there after 2 in the afternoon.
Since we were already familiar with Santiago, we took the metro and walked straight to the Barrio de Brazil the neighbourhood where our previous hotel was located. We found a new one for our last night in town.
Tomorrow morning we will take the flight of 06.40 to Lima, Peru. That same afternoon we will fly to Cuzco.
For now this is the end of Chile, but we will return once more, to continue exploring the north of Chile (since it is simply too cold in the south!). We will then also continue exploring the wines of Chile, since the ones we tasted so far are really good (and luckily for us also really cheap!)
Bye for now!
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