La Serena, Vicuna, Valpariso and drinking lots of Pisco!

La Serena is another nice town, with lovely buildings, and yet another festival (I have seen 4 festivals in 1 week in Chile!). I didn´t feel settled here though, so after staying one night I caught a bus to nearby Vicuna.

Vicuna is in the heart of the Elqui valley, the first proper green landscape I have seen since I arrived in South America, it makes a nice change from the desert so far. Vicuna is surrounded by beautiful rolling mountains, and as all the buildings are one storey high, wherever you are the view is great. The hills remind me of Scotland a lot, as does the weather, my woolley hat and newly acquired alpaca wool gloves came in useful.

I went on a free tour round the Pisco distillery, Pisco is the national drink here and very nice, especially Pisco sour, made with lemons. Unfortunately the tour was completely in Spanish, but luckily a guy also taking the tour was bilingual and translated for me. He was very friendly, as are all the locals here, and even bought me a small bottle of Pisco at the end.

I was supposed to go on a tour round an observatory that evening. The observatory was built because Vicuna is supposed to have some of the clearest skies on the planet. Unfortunately I managed to go there on the two days of the year that it is extremely cloudy, so the observatory was closed.

The next day was a Sunday, and as everything in the town was closed, I went for a walk in the hills. Up there you can really appreciate how beautiful the setting is; a perfect sized town amongst lovely hills & vinyards. If I was going to design a town I would base it on Vicuna. That day it seemed like the whole town had the same idea - to go walking in the hills. Everyone was very friendly and insisted on talking to me, when they realised I couldn´t understand me they just carried on anyway. I felt like a local celebrity, being stopped all the time. It was good fun.

Back in La Serena I met 3 nice backpackers travelling together; English, Irish & Scottish (not a joke). I caught the bus with them to Valpariso. We stayed in the coolest place in Valpariso, it was a very old fashioned victorian-style house, run by an old couple (Maria & Hector). There were only 4 of us & another Scotsman staying there, and the owners treated us like long lost relatives. They made an amazing breakfast (my 1st proper cup of tea with cold milk in 3 weeks), and made us stay up til well past midnight, teaching us new card games & making us drink Pisco & wine. They talked to us incessantly, all in Spanish, and between us we managed to understand most of it. It was like staying with a mad old uncle & aunt, it was great.

Valpariso is fantastic. The town is built on a steep hill which arcs around a busy port. The houses are a complete hodge-podge of styles, all clinging to the hill as if about to fall down any second. Smart houses are built next to ramshakle ones, the only thing they have in common is they are all very colourful. There are 20 or 30 Ascensors, or little funicular railways, to help you climb the hill. We spent hours just wandering around the colourful cobbled streets. The only bad thing about Valpariso was the scratty flea-ridden dogs, they kept following us around and we had to escape into shops a couple of times to get rid of them.

San Pedro de Atacama

I was desperate to meet some people after I had not met a single person who spoke English in either Arica or Iquique, so luckily San Pedro was full of tourists. I had another interesting bus ride to the town, because at 3.45am we were all ordered off the bus into the freezing night, and had to unload all our bags. Both the bus and the bags were thoroughly inspected, whilst we stood in the freezing cold.

It was worth it however, as San Pedro is lovely. The downside is that the streets are covered in dust. Dust got in my hair, dust in my clothes, dust in my eyes, everywhere. Also, as it is in the desert it is boiling hot in the day and freezing at night. There are lots of nice cafes & restaurants to escape in though, and the surrounding landscape is incredible.

I went on a short tour to the ´valle de la luna´ (valley of the moon). It was beautiful, just acres of golden rocky shapes. I felt like I was on a different planet (hence the name). We walked through a small canyon, and if we were all quiet we could hear the rocks making cracking noises, as they expanded with the heat. We sat on top of a sand dune and watched the sunset, too amazing to describe.

On the tour I met two lovely Italian girls, and I went out to dinner with them and their Austrian friends. It was great having company for dinner, as I´m a bit bored of eating alone.

The next day I went on another tour, to see the Salar de Atacama (salt flats). This was incredible too, just miles & miles of volcanic-looking rocks which were wholly comprised of salt. The salt flats used to be part of a large inland sea, but has since dried up, leaving the salt behind. Surrounding this landscape were beautiful volcanoes, perfectly shaped cones. Apparently they are active, but haven´t erupted for years. I did see one with steam rising out of it though.

After the salt flats we visited a village for lunch, which just happened to be celebrating its annual festival. The whole village (about 150 people) were out in the streets in brightly coloured clothes, and they paraded around the village enthusiastically dancing and playing music which can only be described as uncoordinated and untuneful, but fun.

Then we visited brilliant-blue coloured lakes, which were picture-postcard perfect. The lakes were surrounded by some of the most beautiful volcanoes I have ever seen, and on these lakes lived a colony of flamingos. It was so nice it didn´t look real, like someone had painted a picture.

That night I had another multi-cultural night out at dinner, and the next day was spent relaxing, reading my book, and going for lunch with the Italian girls. It was great.

Crossing into Chile

Why is it that the travelling is sometimes more interesting than arriving? Not that this journey was particularly interesting, but I´m going to write about it anyway. It started off amusingly, with me quite grumpy (it was 7am and I had yet to have a cup of coffee). I had a big argument (me in English, the guy in Spanish) about taxis. It turned out I had misunderstood for the umpteemth time, I had to pay departure tax, not for a taxi. I do like arguing in different languages though.

The bus journey strengthed my theory that Peru is just desert and nothing else, although I did see some condors along the way. I practiced my Spanish by having a conversation with someone who spoke as much English as I do Spanish, and also I got some much needed practice of Spanish numbers when the whole bus played "Bingo!". Although I am going to have to keep trying, as I can currently only count up to 49 and the currency in Chile is measured in thousands.

I got off the bus in the southernmost town in Peru, and immediately got asked if I wanted to get a 'taxi' to Arica in Chile. I agreed as it was cheap, but the taxi turned out to be a private car that would have never passed its MOT in the UK. It had a massive crack right across the windscreen, no seatbelts, and the door felt like it would fling open at any time. 6 of us squeezed into the car, and made it across the various borders. My bags and I got inspected 4 times that day, surely it would be more efficient to have one check point? And what happens if you leave one country, but cannot enter the other? Are you stuck in a kind of no-mans land? Luckily that didn´t happen to me, and I entered Chile eventually.

Arica was pretty boring, good for me as it had a much needed McDonalds & loads of nice pizza restaurants. It did have a nice hill to climb, where I sat on the top & watched loads of condor-like birds circling below. I didn´t stay in Arica long, I got another bus to Iquique.

Iquique was another uninteresting town, except for the central market which had loads of little cafes which was great for people watching, and restaurants which served 3 course meals for 1 pound 50p. This was good as Chile is proving to be a pretty expensive country.

Arequipa, the Colca Canyon & being sick

Arequipa is a lovely town, in the south of Peru, and the first place I´ve been to where I actually wanted to stay more than one night. Which is lucky as I ended up staying a lot longer than planned. From Arequipa I went on a tour to the Colca Canyon, one of the deepest canyons in the world, and pretty spectacular by all accounts. The tour wasn´t so great though - it started off badly when I had to get up at 1:30am, in order to get on one of the worst bus journeys I´ve ever done. I can only describe the bus as like being inside a tin can with someone shaking it constantly from the outside (unpaved roads, no suspension). The tin can is inside a freezer, so despite having on 3 jumpers and a sleeping bag over my head, I was still cold.

We reached our destination around 7am, having had no sleep on the bus whatsoever. I was in high spirits though, and we sat down to breakfast to discuss the days trekking. The trek that I had agreed to was a nice 3 hour walk in the morning, with the rest of the afternoon to relax. The rest of my group though (very athletic Brazillian & English guys) thought that the 7 hour trek would be much more interesting. So I had a choice of walking on my own, or doing 7 hours with the others. I´m used to long treks, so I decided to go with them. What I am not used to though, is altitude sickness (headaches, nausea, dizziness), or trekking for 4 hours non stop in blazing sunshine, all down hill. After the 4 hours & a break for lunch, we did another 3 hours, which I actually enjoyed as it was in the shade & we walked through villages.

These villages are amazing, right on the side of the canyon, with the only link to the outside world being a very long walk or donkey ride. The canyon is also cool, one side of it is as barren as a desert, except for loads of impressive cacti growing everywhere. The other side is lush & green, this is where the people live. Where the two sides intersect in a zig-zag pattern is an awesome sight. Condors cruise around the canyon, beautiful & elegant birds.

So, if the trekking wasn´t hard enough the first day, the next we got up at 3am to climb up the side of the canyon in the dark. As I´m writing it now it sounds like a stupid thing to do, no wonder I got sick. It was so hard, if it wasn´t for my guide, Andreas, I wouldn´t have made it, he barried my backpack all of the way, and even then about half way up I broke down in tears because it was so hard. The guys had gone ahead by this point, so me and Andreas made it up slowly.

I got back to the hostel at 5pm, after more nightmare bus rides - a bus for 50 people had at least 200 on, even people hanging out of the door & in the luggage compartment. I refused to get on. Back at the hostel I had a quick shower and then went to bed. I got up at 8pm and 9pm to throw up, then spent the next 2 days, most of the time in bed, or on the sofas watching TV. Today is the 3rd day, and I´ve actually made it into town to go on the internet. Luckily, I´ve been ill in the best possible place; the hostel is lovely. It has a big garden which rains flowers on your head, it has comfy sofas and English TV, everyone is really sociable and the owners even offered to get an English-speaking doctor for me, which thankfully wasn´t necessary. The only problem about being here, is that when anyone finds out that I am ill, they all have their own horror stories to tell about how they ended up in hospital in some remote place or something like that. But as I said, I´m getting better and don´t need a hospital, just lots of sleep. I´ll be fine in a couple of days.

Peru - Lima & Nazca

I thought my flight to Peru was pretty bad, but this is probably because I am used to the luxorious Singapore airlines and KLM is crap in comparison. They managed to show 3 films, all of which I had seen before, so I spent the time learning Spanish. This was a good thing, because when people told me not to expect everyone to speak English, what they meant to say is that hardly anyone speaks more than a couple of words. The most interesting thing for me about the flight is that we did an unexpected (to me) stopover in a place I'd never heard of, its very cool stepping off a plane and having no idea what country I was in. I was so tempted to stay there, just to see what would happen. Anyway, my limited Spanish got me to the hostel ok, and I was dying to meet some fellow travellers to help me plan my trip, I didn't have much of a plan at that stage and wanted some recommendations. The whole place was deserted, which was disappointing but at least I got a great nights sleep in the dorm to myself. At breakfast the next day I met a nice couple, but who were useless at telling me anywhere to go, and some bible-bashing Californians who were here being missionaries. I've got nothing against the church, but the only thing that should be read at the breakfast table is the back of a packet of cornflakes (or in my case, the Rough Guide), not a bible. I caught a bus into Lima Centro - the bus system here is amazing, there are hundreds of mini-buses razzing around the place at high speed, with a man who leans out of the door and practically scoops you up off the street. It seems very chaotic and crazy, the traffic is even worse than Bangkok, someone should tell them that on a 3 lane highway you shouldn't have 5 cars abreast. The good thing about the buses though is that there are so many of them, and if you want to go to a particular place you just turn around and there one is, to wherever you want to go. I spent a lovely few hours wandering around the main sights of the old town, and people watching. I got a lot of attention from men (none from women). Most of them say 'hello' or 'buenos dias' or 'hola'. The shy ones just stare. I even got wolf-whistled at twice, once by a policeman! I don't mind it though, they seem genuinely friendly and as long as they don't touch me I don't care. What is more scary is the fact that every single house or shop or or hotel has massive, military-style security gates and often a security guard. Also, in my taxi ride from the airport the taxi driver insisted that I lock the doors. There must be a lot of crime here. I bought a bus ticket to Nazca (all in Spanish, I'm so proud even though I did have to use my phrasebook), and declared it a good day.

The bus journey to Nazca was spectacular, as we drove through the middle of an awesome desert. I didn't even know Peru had a desert, so it was a nice surprise. The landscape was so barren and desolate, with very few signs of life, but also magnificent. We drove through the mountains as well, so beautiful.

I arrived in Nazca and met two nice guys, Simon & Simon, and went out to dinner with them. Nazca is a funny place, in the middle of the desert so no green anywhere and its really dusty. It has a nice atmosphere though, as the locals are friendly and there are a few tourists around. The river was pretty horrible though, it was devoid of water but instead had piles of rubbish.

The main thing to do in Nazca is to see the Nazca lines; huge geometric shapes and pictures of animals carved into the desert floor a long time ago. No one knows exactly who drew them or why. The best way to see the lines is to take a flight over them, as you can only really see them from the air, thats why no one discovered them for ages. The flight was pretty special, I was the only English person on board, with 11 Italians who kept crying 'Bellissimo!' all the time. For me, seeing the desert from the air was just as good as seeing the pictures. It looks more like volcanic ash than sand, as it is a darkish grey colour. There are loads of wavy patterns that are obviously natural, and intersected with these are huge straight lines and triangles, and the odd picture of a bird or animal. There´s even a picture of an astronaught, although how the people knew what astronaughts looked like back then, I don´t know.

I have lots of questions about the lines - maybe some of them would be answered if I had understood the Spanish video they made me watch, or could talk to my guide. Its really frustrating sometimes not being able to speak the language, other times I like it because it is a challenge. Talking of challenges, I managed to order an omlette for lunch just before my flight, I didn´t know what it was on the menu and if I eat too many eggs I feel sick. I was so so close to throwing up on the plane, I would have done if the pilot hadn´t given me something funny to smell.

From Nazca I caught an overnight bus to Arequipa.