Posts Tagged ‘Chile’

For our second day out at San Pedro de Atacama, we decided to visit a very famous couple of valleys near the town. Our tour was run again by CosmoAndino Expeditions, who ran our tour of the altiplano, and whose guides and equipment we found to be really nice. We were lucky to meet a couple who had been on the last tour we took, and had a great time chatting with them and enjoying the scenery! Their talk of packing much of Chile into a 10 day trip really made us appreciate the luxury we have by taking our year vacation – time to relax.

Our first destination was ‘Piedra del Coyote’, a place with a really dramatic view over a valley, and with a precarious rock outcropping whose image frequently graces postcards and tour books:

On A Cliff

Today we set off on a 11 hour tour of the area south of San Pedro de Atacama. We went with CosmoAndino Expeditions because we heard they had a good reputation. There are so many tours available in this town, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to pick, but we can definitely recommend these guys.

This post is going to have a lot of photos because it was an incredibly scenic day! And there are more in the gallery! Lots more!!!

They picked us up from our hostel at 7 am and after a bit of a drive around town to pick up the other passengers we set off for the Laguna de Chaxa (Chaxa Lake). The lake is in a reserve area and is part of the Salar de Atacama – the third largest salt flat in the world. Our guide, Alex, was full of information and we learned a lot about the birds, minerals, and mining in the area. But the best part was that it was chock full of flamingos and the morning light was awesome on the water!

Flamingo!

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We often spend our time on the blog talking about where we’ve been.  I’d like to make this post about where we WILL BE!  Tomorrow we’re taking a 24 hour bus ride up to San Pedro de Atacama:

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We headed south from Los Vilos, past Santiago, to the city of San Fernando for the 2011 Fiesta de la Vendmia.  This was the second year this festival occurred and it showcases wines from the Colchagua Valley, which is considered one of the best wine regions in Chile.  We had a blast!

We stayed for two nights in the town at the Hotel España, which was a slightly bizarre place, but not in a bad way.  Half of the interior of the hotel was filled with giant plants and greek looking statues like a strange indoor mini-plaza.  It was a bit shabby, but a nice place to stay and an easy walk from the square with the wine festival.

The festival itself was really well put together and the wine was absolutely awesome.  There were booths all around the main square with the wineries in the middle and all kinds of delicious bbq and ceviche and other tasty foods around the outside.  There were even booths from a couple of local breweries.  The bbq was done over large piles of coals and whole animals were cooked at a time – pork and lamb.  The air smelled like delicious roasting meat, wood smoke and red wine!

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We arrived after dark, but quickly found a hotel and a very tasty meal.  Dad and Justin both tried the Pastel de Choclo (Corn Pie) which is basically a steaming hot bowl of cornmeal pudding/pie with all kinds of meat, egg, and other treats inside.  People often sprinkle a thin layer of sugar on the top.  It is really tasty, but didn’t turn out to be the light dinner they were hoping for!  We also discovered at our meal that there was a very local brewery in the area, and since we liked what we tasted we decided to head there the next day.

Guayacán brewery

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On the way we stopped off at a nature reserve for the first of many birdwatching expeditions.  My dad is an avid birdwatcher and we were determined to help him see as many of Chile’s birds as possible.  He was full of interesting information.  For example, there is less species variation in the southern hemisphere, so in all of Chile there are not many more species than on the small island near Seattle where he lives!  We took an informed bet as to how many species we would see in ten days.  I guessed 93, my dad guessed 115, and Justin was optimistic with a guess of 119.

This first stop was at the Reserva Nacional Lago Peñuelas and we had some good sightings.  There are additional bird photos if you click any of these for the link to the gallery.

Horses in the reserve

We’ve been really busy traveling for the past 2 weeks or so, but will gradually try and get things updated here!  When last I wrote we were in Buenos Aires, and from there we went on to Santiago, Chile.  It was a quick, pleasant flight and we had a few really nice days of exploring the city.

All of the photos link to our galleries which have more photos and I´ve started adding captions to explain them, so you can get even more about our trip if you click through to those!

Our first afternoon in Santiago we headed to the Museo de la Memoria, which is in memory of the incredibly difficult time that Chile has been through from the 1970s until the 1990s.  It was a very well put together museum and we learned so much about the recent history of Chile, despite not much of the text being in English.

Camp

Check out Part 1 here!

Having awakened in camp fully rested, we had a nice breakfast of (you guessed it) oatmeal. However, we had a stroke of genius – prepare it using some of the apple flavored drink powder that’s left over from our water bottles! It was surprisingly good , given that we were just throwing apple sugar on top. Being equipped with our apple juices, we set off for the magnificent Valle Frances, the middle leg of the “W”. This is a day hike of about 3 hours each way, up from the valley floor to a mirador in the center of a circle of mountains.