I am back again!! Sorry for not posting anything for such a long time, but I here I am again at least for another few hopefully interesting posts. The reason why I am back is that I am on the road again. This time with my gf and my parents on our journey through big parts of Chile (her home soil) and a small part of Argentina. This is my second visit to Chile and my first to Argentina from where I am reporting now. The idea of this journey is to travel in one month from Santiago to the north and then back to Santiago over Argentinian territory with a xmas stop in Tucapel (600km south of Santiago) and perhaps Pucon (beginning of Vulcano and lake district) before we had back to Santiago and The Netherlands. So far we have already had our temperary homes in Santiago, Totoralillo (near La Serena and Coquimbo), Elqui Valley (near Pisco), San Pedro de Atacama (driest desert in the world) then we went into Argentina through the Paso de Jama (+4000mtr above sealevel) where we´d spend the night in Pumamarca. The next day we drove to La Estancía in Colomé (where we are now, a beautiful vineyard in the middle of nowhere) and had a stopover for a few hours in beautiful Salta. Our next stop will most likely be San Juan with a dinner stop in La Rioja after which we will continue our road the next day back to Chilean soil to spend one night in Santiago in order to be able to spend x'mas in Tucapel where her parents now live 600 km south of Santiago. In there we might have some time to visit for instance Pucon-Villarica (more to the south in the district of lakes and vulcanos) before we fly home again. So far we are just over half of the holiday and I must say it has been pretty amazing!! I have seen landscapes I could never have imagened before eventhough I already saw pictures of it....to really experience the landscapes is something very different. So far we drove more than 4000 km and to see the landscapes change so dramatically within sometimes just a few hours is superb and leaves you with a capacity shortage to process all the new impressions!!
However before I go into all of that I want to structure my coming blog by chronology and location. So first of all this first post will be about our days in Santiago (de Chile)!!
We had a smooth flight untill Brasil where we experienced severe turbulence for a few minutes...enough to make my mom go rather sick. On the Airport in Santiago they had an extremely amazing free service, namely she went to the airport clinic where they checked her, gave her drip as she was dehydrated, recipe for pills and observed her for an hour to see if she improved. Luckily she did and the next day she was up an running again!! A big thumbs up and thank you to Santiago Airport!! The parents of my gf came to the airport to pick us all up, supernice to see them again!!
The first real day in Santiago we used a pilot project, the bus turistik. We bought a ticked and you could get on and off the bus at like 17 stops, on the bus there were guides and a audio tour.
Bohemian Barrio Bellavista Mercado Central
Plz. de Armas Salvador Allenda near La Moneda
First impression of Santiago, wooow how green and I mean that even the balconies of buildings are very green!!) We made several stops under such as in bohemian Barrio Bellavista where we stayed for some nice drinks after which we continued our road to the old centre and the Moneda Palace (where the bombs were dropped on Allenda´s office and Pinochet took control to establish his violent dictorial reign). The nice walk lead us from the Museo de Bellas Artes, Park, Marked (where we had the most delicious meal!!) Cathedral - plz. de Armas, etc. Excellent!! In the afternoon we made a nice walk through the neighbourhood of our guesthouse hihihi, the appartement of Nata´s parents, where we see more and more offices being build in a beautiful light style. After our first dinner in a restaurant (coco loco, very nice food again!!) it was time for us to pick up the car and to leave the next day. Instead of a Toyota we got a very nice 4wd Mitsubishi that would accompany us the next month. One thing that also has to be mentioned is that the hospitality in many ways and the nice lunches and dinners at nata´s parents house was beautiful again. A big thanks to them for making our first days really welcoming and homish.
Green Balconies Office Buildings near home
End of Santiago Part.
End of Santiago Part.
