16th April 2008: - Australia & New Zealand for the past 4 months have been very easy going, with the ability to communicate with everyone you meet. We are now looking forward to the challenge that is South America.
We touch down in the capital city of Chile, Santiago just after midday & then catch our pre-booked taxi to our hostel, which I think was called Ali Hostel! Our hostel is located north east of the city & as we pull into the street we see Cerro San Cristobel towering over the city in hazy yellow smog. Yes we have smog again, this is due to the location of Santiago, and it sits in a valley surrounded by the Andes so pollution finds it very difficult to escape. Drew spends the rest of the afternoon planning our route through Chile whilst I sleep as jet lag takes over (which this evening I find was not a good idea). Tonight is Pesto Pasta night, this is free & we lap up the freshly prepared Pesto on Pasta along with a couple of glasses of red wine. Spending only a short period of time in the common area we head up to bed, where Drew sleeps well whilst I listen to the South American vibe into the early hours of the morning.
17th April 2008: - I finally got off to sleep at about 3 this morning, so as you can imagine I am not the quickest to rise this morning. We have the free breakfast that comes with the room, not a great deal, but the lady who serves the breakfast is lovely & does not let you lift a finger. At this point in time I wish I could speak more Spanish, it would be great to have a conversation with her (Spanish lessons are on the agenda when we return home). We take the metro from Salvador to where we think we need to La Moneda stop, where we find out that we have the wrong stop. So we hop back onto the Metro & take it to University De Santiago, where we find the Tur bus ticket office, here we purchase our tickets to San Pedro De Atacama in North Chile. After our eventful morning we then head to a Burger King for some comfort food, hilar. Our walking tour starts from La Moneda & takes us to our one & only stop, the Pre-Columbian Museum. Here we walk through some fantastic displays, with old pottery, replica mummies, masks & statues of various deities displayed in so many different materials.
As I said this was our only stop, we both felt vary tired & suddenly became aware of our surroundings & the people hovering around us. Do not let us put you off of Santiago; I think that we were just being very over cautious.
18th April 2008: - Check out time is @ 11.00 & although we vacate the room we stay around the hostel until 13.00. Making the most of the free internet available to us & having a little read on the landing. Just after 13.00 we venture out with our packs on our backs. We catch the Metro from Salvador to University of Santiago stop & walk to the bus terminal, here we have some lunch. Our lunch consisted of a couple of complitos, basically a hotdog smothered in guacamole, Tomatoes & mayo. Now I know there are two things there that I dislike, but I had to try it. Scrapped off nearly all of the tomatoes but managed to eat a large amount of the guac. 15.30 arrives & we get onto the bus, home for the next 24 hours. It seems to be comfy, but I bet you by this time tomorrow I will be running off the bus. Turbus is the company that we are travelling with & for dinner we receive a roll & drink, which is supplemented with our own food stash. Films are played in Spanish so we basically read & sleep for the majority of the journey.
19th April 2008: - Arrived in San Pedro De Atacama just after 15.00, journey was ok, but as I said above we were ready to get off that bus. Once off we found that something had been spilt all over our packs & let me tell you it stinks. Not too sure what it is, but it smells very fishy & once in our room @ the youth hostel that is all we can smell. Yes tonight we stayed in the very claustrophobic hostel, we though that this would be the best place to stay. But as it turns out an endorsement by hostelling international means nothing, the hostel was very expensive & the room standards were bad compared to the rest of the accommodation available in San Pedro. Once we had checked in with our smelly bags we then headed out to find our accommodation for the other couple nights we are here for. Then onto the Turbus ticket office to book our next journey which will take us to the northern town of Arica (10hrs). The rest of the afternoon is ours to explore the dusty streets of San Pedro. It is a very small town & has a very welcoming atmosphere, of which Drew & I lapped up. Language barrier is a bit difficult, but we persevere & we begin to learn a little. We end the day treating ourselves to what turns out to a very expensive Pizza & beer, but we enjoyed every mouthful. Every once & a while you have to treat yourself!
20th April 2008: - Got up very early morning & ate our meagre breakfast & packed up without even having a shower. We walked to Eden Atacameña an outstanding place that cost less than the last. Shared showers were spotless & the room was very spacious. Spent the morning showering & trying to wash the smell out of our backpacks, but I think we are just kidding ourselves that they smell any better. We start talking to a couple next door, who sadly leave today, but they give us some great tips about the area. First tip that we use is to go to a small café called Salon De Te´ where we each order apiece of quiche that was recommended to us. It was very nice & something we would maybe not have tried otherwise.
This afternoon we take a tour with Cosmo Andino to Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon) so called because it looks like the surface of the moon. Our first tour with Cactus Tour was cancelled & they gave us only 172 hour to find another, so def would not recommend Cactus. Anyway our tour was extremely interesting, visiting Valle de Marte, Valle de la Muerte & Tres Marias. Views & the landscape looked like they were a painted backdrop to our location. The sunset of Valle de la Luna, was ok if you wanted to share it with over 200 other tourists. Hey ho that is how the tour operators make their money & I do not blame them at all.
21st April 2008: - During the day we do not do that much, just relax & sit in the garden @ Eden! There is a very good reason for this; you see we stopped in San Pedro De Atacama primarily to go on a tour to observe the night’s sky. However for the last four days the office has been closed due to the full moon in the sky, it is just too bright to observe anything. Today thank goodness the office has re-opened & we are able to book onto tonight’s tour without any problems. Well I say without any problems, the majority of the tour will be in French!
So after our day relaxing we wrap up warm & head out to the pick up point, where we are pleased to meet a couple from Brazil who have requested English be spoken as well. So this is good, we will have someone explaining to us what we can see in the night’s sky. We hop on the bus & end up @ our destination in the middle of the desert just after 21.00. We have an introduction in French then we are split into 2 groups for the rest of the tour. Our guide is the wife of the French astronomer & is very informative. She explains where you will find the star signs & other constellations in the sky. Of course being in the southern hemisphere it will be different for us when we get back home, so she also explains where we can find the stars& planets in the northern sky. If you would like have a look yourself go to their web site www.spaceobs.com, here you can type in your location & time, then it will pull up a map of the night sky for you. Now the best part of the tour is to be able to look through the half a dozen telescopes they have available in their back yard. Views of Saturn, Mars & the moon are amazing, we managed to take a few photos through the telescope (hope to post) to show you all what we were able to see. Our night ends up with a bit of banter between the French & English, whilst warming our hands on our cups of hot chocolate.
22nd April 2008: - Checked out of Eden @ 11.30 & stored our luggage for the rest of the day in the room they provided. We have the whole day to just relax & take it easy & that is exactly what we did. We roamed around the small streets of San Pedro De Atacama for a couple of hours, just taking in the atmosphere & also looking for a souvenir. Of which we found, three stencil type pictures, although I think we may be running out of wall space, what with the amazing pictures we have taken & the additional wall pictures we have purchased along the way. We had lunch, in our normal spot of Salon De Te´, two hamburgers that to be fair were ok. Then it was back to Eden where Drew read & I slept for the majority of the afternoon. Oh & we also had our furry friends keep us company on the benches, with one of the cats taking a particular liking to Drew. Evening we go to a café with a Swiss couple Monica & Martin where we all have a beer before we get on the bus @ 20.45 to Arica. From what I remember the bus journey was ok, we both slept pretty well throughout. I tell you the Chile operator Turbus is fantastic & not that expensive either.
23rd April 2008: - Arrived in Arica @ about 7.30am to find that our friends from the previous night were there a few minutes earlier although they caught the later bus, Hilar! Anyway we go into the bus terminal to book our tickets to La Paz Bolivia. We booked with a bus company called Chile Bus, as it was recommended in the Lonely Planet (although we wished we had not). Cashier behind the desk ensured that although they leaved 2 hours later than all the other buses they would get us into La Paz @ 16.00; this is because they did not stop anywhere. Well 1) they stopped @ a few towns & 2 we did not get into La Paz until about 18.30, which to us seemed a little unnerving, turning up @ a city notorious for its crime just as the dark of night was setting in. We just wished that the guy had told us the truth for our safety really, and then I suppose he would have lost two sales! Saying that once in La Paz we found it quite easy to get a taxi & head to the Hotel Rosario which cost us about 10 B approximate $1.50US (we did not get ripped off). We were a day early than expected but they had a twin room available @ a cost of $47US, which is just in budget (although after 24hrs bus journey we did not care how much it cost). Our room is so comfortable & has a descent shower with running hot water, TV & fab warm blankets with traditional Bolivian weaving. Anyway we finish off the day by going to the hotel restaurant, which was simply amazing the food, wine & service were over & above what we were expecting. We would definitely recommend this hotel, as a treat for budget travellers.
24th April 2008: - Woke this morning at about 7.00 after a successful night’s sleep. We forgot to take the Diamox though last night & I am feeling the affects of the altitude this morning. Although I do not really realize it until I get up & take a walk to the bathroom. Today is going to have to be taken slowly, so therefore we have planned to stay in the comfort of Hotel Rosario. & it is comfort; I think we underestimated La Paz, due to the last lot of places we have stayed in Chile. The staff are very friendly & speak perfect English, although Drew & I are still trying to use pigeon Spanish as we go! So the Majority of the day we will be typing up the blog & then taking it easy in the hotel room.
By the way our bags still stink & we are still no clearer on what it was!!!!!!!!
