Highway (and Airplane and Bus) Chile

I had grand plans for what I would write about my trip to South America last summer, and have achieved none of them. After that five-week adventure, I began another that was unlike any I’ve been on before – moving across the country to pursue a relationship. Adjusting to sharing my life with another person (and to life in Alberta) has been uniquely challenging and rewarding, and has moved the writing of blog posts a few steps down my priority list. So this post is less involved than I would have liked. But it is at least something, before the memories of last summer’s trip become so covered in dust as to be unrecognizable.

My time in South America began with a week alone in Santiago, Chile. Two classmates from Dalhousie would be joining me later. That gap was mostly a result of more ambitious trip plans that I had reduced, but it also gave me time to adjust to the new surroundings on my own. As the most experienced Spanish speaker of the three of us, I needed some time to revive my knowledge; as the instigator of this trip, I wanted to be somewhat comfortable before they arrived.

I had never been to Latin America, and despite my well-worn passports, most of my travelling has been in first world/OECD/developed countries. I’m ashamed to admit that I had something of a siege mentality for that first week in Santiago. I walked everywhere, partly to see the city but partly to avoid the challenge of taking the subway. I didn’t make much small talk. I think my worst fears were that Santiago would turn out to be like Marrakesh, the only other second-world/non-OECD/developing city I’d visited. It had been impossible to avoid hawkers there, and asking questions just meant being hassled for money before long.

My fears were baseless. Chile is (I believe) the most developed country in Latin America. I walked through crowds of people with no one batting an eye at me, most of them too busy on their smartphones to notice that I was not from there. Santiago is Chile’s largest city, but it’s hardly a tourist hotspot. That gave me a comfortable level of anonymity as I wandered around.

Each week of this trip deserves a separate blog post, but here are three highlights/observations about Santiago:

It’s mostly flat, but a couple public parks had excellent views of the surrounding Andes. Walking on Cerro San Cristóbal was particularly memorable for the chapel/amphitheatre at the hill’s summit; it was also there that I noticed just how many tourists to Santiago come from other Latin American countries.

A large area of Santiago’s downtown is pedestrianized, which made us three urban planners wet our pants with excitement. During business hours, the pedestrian malls were packed with people of all stripes: vendors, customers, people-watchers, chit-chatters and checkers players.

It was not until after I left that I realized how polluted Santiago is. It’s hardly surprising, given its glacial traffic. But I learned later that I had spent my first week walking through smog so dangerous that children and the elderly had been advised to stay inside.

After a week in Santiago, I was ready to move on when my friends arrived. Luckily, they quickly were too. We hopped a bus to Valparaíso, on the coast. It was one of the few destinations in Chile I was aware of before researching for this trip. Three quick highlights:

Valparaíso is made up of nothing but hills (42 by some counts). Therefore, elevators make up an important part of the public transit system. The elevators are old, still mechanically operated and are dirt-cheap to travel on.

Almost every surface in Valparaíso has art on it; murals are especially popular. There is a thriving arts community that benefits from the city’s tourist industry without catering exclusively to it.

Valparaíso is also a major port and the main headquarters of the Chilean navy. The port, the hills and the arts community made me think of both San Francisco and Wellington.

Our visit to Valparaíso was probably too short, but one of my friends was only staying for nine days, and sights had to be seen. In the most complicated travel day of our trip as a trio, we took a bus from Valparaíso to Santiago, another bus to Santiago airport, then a flight to Calama and another bus to San Pedro de Atacama. If you’ve heard of the Atacama Desert, you may know that it is the driest place on Earth. Being right next to the Andes and in the Atacama, San Pedro is in the middle of some pretty dramatic geography. We did our best to see as much of it as possible via organized tours. Three quick highlights:

Just west of San Pedro is la Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon). Reminiscent of Tatooine, it was an aggressive reminder that deserts are more than just flat sand and hot sun. In that extreme setting, it almost feels like you can watch geology happen. The wind was overwhelming.

The salt flats near San Pedro are among the largest in the world (Uyuní, just over the border in Bolivia, is the largest). A visit to el Salar de Atacama gave us the chance to go swimming in the saltiest water any of us will ever see, taste, or frantically wash off when it starts to crack skin. It was also freezing cold – it was winter, after all – resulting in this memorable picture.

We also got super high when we were in San Pedro. 4,320 meters high, to be exact. The Tatio geyser field in the Andes looks its best at sunrise, they said, meaning we woke at 4 in the morning to get there. The combination of waking early, altitude, and freezing temperatures made for a physiological roller coaster. Jumping in a thermal pool right when my feet lost feeling was a welcome relief.

After waking at 4 in the morning, we spent one final afternoon in San Pedro before flying back to Santiago. One of us flew home; the remaining two prepared to cross the Andes by bus. The journey we took on July 20, 2016 deserves its own blog post. Stay tuned.

Add llama to the list of animals I've eaten.