famous ice cream at Parque Forestal
´coffee with legs´ in downtown Santiago
home to the infamous terramote (drunk locals come with) in downtown Santiago
We spent 2 full days in Valparaíso (or ´Valpo´ to insiders) where we shared a small room in a lovely B&B in the neighborhood of Cerro (= hill) Alegre - home to countless cafés, restaurants and street art. We spent one day frantically searching for bus tickets to ´El Norte´ and finding none. The other day we went on a free walking tour through the city, which included a ride on one of Valparaíso´s famous funiculars, a homemade cookie with chocolate and dulce de leche (something that we have all grown addicted to), and the national drink: a pisco sour (fresh lime mixed with grape brandy and powdered sugar).
In lieu of bus tickets, we rented a 4WD in Viña del Mar and drove straight to San Pedro de Atacama in the middle of the Atacama desert. Jochem and Roland managed to drive 1700 kilometers on the Panamerican Highway in 21 hours. Here we witnessed a pivotal moment in history: a flooded town in the driest desert in the world - a desert where, in some places, it hasn´t rained for over 50 years. Consequently, this meant a lot of mud and a close of all the major sights in the area. Bummer. But we made the best of it. We found a great hostel (/café/restaurant/tour company) in Ayllu, which is run by a local family. They called us ´chicos´ and fed us homemade pisco sours mixed with local trees, plants, herbs and fruits. We went on a tour to Salar de Tara - a salt flat home to flamingos, llamas and phallic-shaped rock formations that turned us into small children at the sight of it. And we went horseback riding around town - a first for Jochem and Roland. We spent 3 days in this remote part of northern Chile.
´billen voor pillen´(sorry, inside joke)
We decided to break the journey back to Viña del Mar in two by making a 2-night stop halfway at a campsite in Bahía Inglesa, a popular beach town for locals. Although the town is really nothing more than a desert ending in the South Pacific and we didn´t get any sleep during the first night because a group of really drunk Chilean boys were playing really loud and really bad disco music all night long, we had a fantastic time overall. We camped in the sand near the beach. We spent a full day on the beach - playing with the waves in the icy cold ocean, warming up in the campsite´s jacuzzi, playing cards, eating water melon and getting sunburned. We cooked our meals in candlelight on Roland and Margaretha´s tiny gas cooker and roasted corn-on-the-cob on the campsite´s barbecue while drinking cheap wine from a carton. It was a truly great way to end our time together.
our homemade ´mergpijpje´ (sorry, another inside joke - there were many)
After that, things went pretty quickly. We drove from Bahía Inglesa back to Valparaíso and had one last dinner together with the five of us. Early the next morning Roland and Margaretha left on a bus to Buenos Aires in Argentina. They´ll be on plane back home right now. Bianca, Jochem and I took a bus back to Santiago and enjoyed one more day together. But all good things come to an end and yesterday afternoon she flew back as well and she´s already back home as we speak.
It´s awfully silent now in Chile. It´s weird to be on our own again. Even though there were five of us, and considering that we´re all very different people and there were obviously some irritations along the way, I think we all tried really hard to make this trip a success and, eventually, we appeared to form a certain kind of equilibrium in between Roland´s constant farts and burps, Margaretha´s bluntness, Bianca´s planning, Jochem´s cluelessness and my bossiness. We had an amazing time and it´s quite strange to be surrounded by other backpackers again. We miss our friends terribly.
But we go on. The weather in Santiago continues to be amazing and we´re staying at the wonderful La Casa Roja hostel in Barrio Brasil and we´re taking our time resting. Perhaps we´ll go out tomorrow to see some more of the sights, but maybe not. Tomorrow evening we´re boarding a 12-hour bus ride to Puerto Montt from where we hope to explore the Chiloé Archipelago before boarding a boat to Puerto Natales - an epic 4-day trip through Chilean Patagonia past fjords and glaciers. From there we hope to travel to Tierra del Fuego before moving up through Argentinian Patagonia to Buenos Aires. We´re almost at the 6-month mark!
If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!
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