Leaving Chile and Bolivia

We didn’t expect our time in Chile to be quite so scenic. I think it would be fair to say we’ve seen some remarkable things in many countries around the world during this last year, but some of the scenery we’ve been privileged to wander through in Chile and Bolivia has been breathtaking. Absolutely amazing.

We entered Chile in an interesting way, touching down in Easter Island as we hopped through the Pacific. The most remote lump of rock on the globe is impressive enough in its own right – sweeping hills, dramatic cliffs, mysterious lava tubes, eerie volcanic craters – but add in the presence of the staggeringly huge and sombre Maoi statues and you have a truly unique island. Our stay there was possibly one of the most memorable of the trip.

And of course this was shortly followed by our visits to the Altiplano. This high altitude plateau in the middle of the north Chilean and Bolivian Andes completely astounded us – it really wasn’t what we’d imagined at all. We thought that travelling through the barren, dry Atacama desert might be fun, especially as it would be completely different from previous our explorations this year. What we didn’t expect is that as you ascend from sea level into the Andean mountain range you would be surrounded by so many beautiful colours. The deep pure blue of the sky, crisp white salt flats, mountains with rock of every hue from black through to yellow, vibrantly alive geothermal areas, vivid multi-coloured lagoons complete with vivid-pink flamingos wandering tranquilly through the water… we’ve just never seen anything like this before. I really hope the photos we’ve posted on the South America page over the last few weeks give some sort of an impression of this place. It is truly beautiful.

It is not the most easily explored part of the world however! Chile has a reasonably good infrastructure by South American standards: the roads between major cities are good, the buses run to time – getting from place to place independently is easy. But as you go to the more remote regions (which of course are the most beautiful), the beautifully tarmacked roads are replaced by rocky dirt tracks with no real maps or signs to show you where to go! This is when you need your nice 4x4 truck and helpful driver so that you don’t get stranded at high altitude in the middle of nowhere at night, when the temperatures rapidly drop to -15 degrees C! And if this is the case in Chile, what about Bolivia? A much poorer country – we honestly didn’t see any roads that weren’t dirt tracks when we were there! Yet the scenery made our short visit there one of the highlights of this year. Especially our time watching the sun rise over the spectacular Salar De Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. As you stand in the centre of the crisp white salt it honestly seems to stretch into infinity, leaving you feeling alone, isolated and very small!

Anyway, at this point it seems only appropriate to list some of the great versus scary features of Chile, Bolivia and Easter Island…

Some things we’ve found great…

1. Lagoons.

2. Volcanoes.

3. Salt flats. I think we’ve raved about how wonderful the high altitude scenery is here a few times now! If you haven’t already seen the photos on the South America sub-blog for Bolivia, Copiaipo and San Pedro De Atacama go and have a look!

4. Maoi. The weird ancient culture of Easter Island that obsessively created these huge stylised stone monsters of course caused its own destruction in the process. Was it worth it? To them probably not! But there is no doubt that the lasting monuments of their downfall are immensely impressive and well worth the trip to the most isolated island on Earth.

5. Pisco Sours. You know I really struggled to find alcoholic drinks I enjoyed in Asia – except in India where a good gin and tonic is widely available. So it was particularly good to find the national drink of Chile is really tasty! A mix of lemon juice with a zingy brandy to make a short lime-green sour drink. Very nice!

6. Telepizza. It’s really good to find a quick, cheap and commonly available food in a country who’s cuisine isn’t really to your taste (see below). For us, Telepizza was a lifesaver! The pizzas made by this country-wide chain really aren’t bad – nice thin bases, reasonable toppings… Best of all they always seem to be open, particularly important when most restaurants and Cafés seem to be closed every Sunday and Monday, let alone over public holidays like Christmas and New Year! Yep, Telepizza may not produce the finest pizzas in the world, but they are a heck of a lot better than Pizza Hut, and they stopped us from starving on a number of occasions!

7. The Sky. In most places in northern Chile it rains once a year at most. So for the other 364 days the sky is free of clouds, and as you ascend to the Altiplano it takes on the deepest, purest shades of blue imaginable. It really sets off the stunning volcanoes, lagoons and salars. And at night… beautiful. Northern Chile is home to some of the most powerful telescopes in the world – the major European and USA telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere are all based here due to the exceptional clarity of the sky. But you don’t need a telescope to appreciate the brilliance of the stars as they appear in their millions, or the beauty of the largest, brightest moon I’ve ever seen.

And some scary things…

1. Food. Vegetarians must have a hard time in this part of the world. The standard Chilean diet seems to consist of meat – lots of meat – and perhaps a few potatoes. Not so dissimilar from ‘Classic’ British food in many ways! Er, we weren’t fans. I mean, cooked-till-well-and-truly-dead meat and mash? Yuck! They like horse-meat too. Gary did venture as far as trying ‘Pollo a la Pobre’ a traditional combination of fried chicken and chips with two fried eggs balanced on top. Very healthy! But even he shied away from most of the other combinations of meat on offer. Its made a lot worse by a tendency to fry everything – and as a result of these fattening staples most of the population seem to be plump at the very least.

2. Coffee. Erm, well, you can have instant! You know most people here use the word ‘Nescafe’ interchangeably with Coffee! That kind of sums it up. Not fair – we like a good black coffee in the morning.

3. Music. We have swiftly learnt to dread some types of South American Music. Actually we learnt to despise a certain type of particularly evil ‘pop’ within seconds, but unfortunately had to suffer it for hours and hours… During our trip to the wonders of the Bolivian Altiplano and Salar De Uyuni we were driven around by a nice bloke called Valerio. He occasionally played a tape in his 4x4 jeep, but it would always be a pretty benign mix of Bolivian traditional music with a few western songs thrown in for god measure. Nothing great, but not to objectionable either – and at a reasonable volume. But then again Valerio was a nice guy. Unfortunately our return transfer from Uyuni to San Pedro was in the jeep of a much less pleasant bloke called Edgar. He practically shunned Gary and myself the entire way, speaking only to our fellow traveller Nachos in rapid Spanish. I know there were linguistic difficulties, but it’s easy to be polite and pleasant. He didn’t even try. On top of rudeness he inconsiderately let us all freeze at night in the car (lying that the heating didn’t work – it did – we tried it when he was out of the car). I mean freeze – prolonged exposure to temperatures well below zero. And perhaps his infliction of his ‘taste in music’ upon us was even worse. He had two CDs, each with around 18 tracks on them, but we couldn’t tell one song from another. All had the same evil, rapid but monotonous synthesised drum beat, each song exactly the same pace as the last! And every track had an identically pathetic synthesised accordion-like drone playing practically indistinguishable repetitive, simplistic, forgettable tunes, while somebody ‘sang’ in Spanish every now and then. To make it more interesting (I assume) from time to time when the singer wasn’t singing he’d chant over the accordions’ drone. ‘Chile, Bolivia, Argentina, Peru!’ or perhaps ‘Arrrreeeeeba!!!’, or something similar. It would have driven us insane under the best of circumstances, but at top volume for hours on end because the obnoxious Edgar claimed he’d fall asleep otherwise (he only said this to Nachos of course, not us – we were ignored). Grrr. By the time we reached the Chilean border we were delighted to see the back of him – no one could have made a greater contrast to the lovely Valerio who we thankfully spent most of our time with exploring one of the most wonderful parts of the world we’ve seen. Despite Edgar the trip was well worth it – he pales into insignificance.

Anyway, onwards and upwards (well, northwards anyway), back towards the northern hemisphere and home – on to Peru… And that journey probably deserves its own entry come to think of it!