6 posts tagged “chile”

We left La Serena, for a six hour bus ride to Santiago.  We arrived in Santiago and took a bus to the airport.  We arrived three hours before, set to go to New Zealand, when we were told the flight was overbooked.  They offered us compensation of $400 cash or $1200 in flights.  Unfortunately the flights were only for LAN Chile and they only fly into Santiago so were useless for us, so we took the money.  We got put on a 12 hour flight to LA, assured someone would meet us at the other end. 

We arrived in LA at 6.00am and it was 9.30am by the time we had left.  Nobody knew about our arrival.  We had to wait for the staff to email Santiago and get authorisation.  When we finally got out of the airport, we got taken to the Hilton Hotel where we were given a room.

It was very posh.  We walked in and everyone turned and looked at us... unwashed, scummy backpackers.  Even the receptionist sked what we were doing there.  I felt like Pretty Woman walking into there!!!!

We took advantage of the bath and shower (our first bath in 2 months!!!), and then took a yellow cab down to the beach.  We went for a walk along the beach and then returned to the hotel for our freebie dinner.  We then packed and went back to the airport to catch a 12 hour flight to New Zeland. 

Today we went on a tour to the Elqui valley, famous for Pisco.  It was a gorgeous place.  A valley with mountains on either side, with vineyards on the steep mountain slopes.  The vines were so green and lush against the grey dust of the hillside.  We went to see how Pisco was made and looked around the a village which was very hippy like and chilled out.  We ate lunch and then went to swim in the river.  While we were there we met a man who invited us to his hous (or hut) on the hillsside.  We climbed up the hill to his hut.  The view was amazing and although the hut was basic, it would be a fantastic place to live.  The guy could not speak English, but the guide translated for us.  The guy was an artist and made ceramics.  He showed us how he moulded them and hand painted every one of them.  His figures were then sold around Chile.

The guy was very talented with a very steady hand and an eye for detail.  His figures were an impression of the Nativity, but the donkey was a camel and the wise men were wearing Alpaca wooly hats.

Today we walked down to the beach, which was really really quiet.  It is low season here, but is still really hot, although a little windy. 

The beach stretches for miles and after getting sun burnt (even with loads of sun cream on) we walked up the beach back to La Serena.  On the way we bumped into Marija and Bart, a dutch couple we had met visiting the Salt Lakes.  We all got a taxi back to La Serena and booked a tour with them for the following day.

We arrived in La Serena early in the morning and found a place to stay called Maria's Casa... well it literally was Marias house.  This old woman who opened the door, Maria, led you through her house to her back yard where there were little bungalow type rooms.  After unpacking she was knocking on the door with a cup of tea and jam on bread, she really trys and mothers you, it's great.

After a little sleep we had an incident with contraception breakage and so went to the chemist for the morning after pill.  The chemist did not speak English, but asked a customer to translate.  So I had to tell this guy I needed the morning after pill, who said I could only get it on prescription.  We went to the accident and emergancy at the hospital (as we didn't know where the doctors were) and tried to explain to the woman behind the desk what we needed.  She did not speak English.  After ten minutes of trying to explain, write it down, Tony drew a diagram of a sperm and an egg with a cross through it.  She sent us to the maternity ward.

The doctor tried speaking to us, but knew know English.  I wondered if they knew why I was there, I don't think they did, but the doctor found our drawing very amusing and so did the rest of the nurses in the ward!!!

Luckily there was a German girl working on a placement in the hospital, and they found her to translate for me.  I eventually got a prescription and was told to get it from the chemist.  After going to twelve different chemists, no one had this drug in stock.  Chile is a catholic country and the drug has only just been legalised in the country and many people are against it.

We went back to the hospital and after five minutes trying to explain to the receptionist, no one had the drug, we went back to the maternity ward.  We waited for an hour and evetually the nurse found one box of the drug in the hospital... what a relief.  I am glad we didn't have to stay in the hospital, it was a bit different from British standards, and  people just wait and wait for hours, although we got straight through, I think because no one understood us and wanted to get rid of us :)

Today we said goodbye to Colin.  He had to get to Santiago to fly back home...  another chapter over.

We spent the day in department stores today.  It is the first time we have been able to look round proper shops in our whole time in South America.  Chile is very civilized, very westernised compared to everywhere else we have been.  After a hard day shopping (we didn't buy anything) and after a Mac Donalds, we checked out of our Hotel, which the lock wouldn't work so we had to put important things such as plane tickets and credit cards under the bed.

We got on the bus to La Serena, a 12 hour bus ride overnight.  As the bus was pulling out of the station, We went through the usual routine:

Me:    Have you got the camera?

Tony:  Yees...(rolling his eyes)

Me:    Have you got the green bag?

Tony:  Which green bag?

Me:   You know, the one with the plane tickets and the credit cards?

Tony:  I didn'tpack that, did you?

Me:    No, ok stop joking now, tell me you packed the bag?

Tony:  Oh sh*t, it's under the bed!!!

Me:    What was the Hotel called?

Tony:  I don't know!  I'm going to have to get off the bus!!

Me:    You can't stop the bus now!!!

Tony:  I f*cking can!!!

It was amazing how quickly Tony managed to remember his Spanish, and ask the driver to stop while he ran back to the hotel.  Fortunately the driver was very understanding, stopped the bus at the side of the road, while Tony ran for his life back to the hotel....    we got the bag...

Well, we had to get up at 4.30am this morning, which wouldn't be too difficult except for the fact that there was no electricso we had to pack by candlelight. This resulted in the loosing of my silver bracelet Tony had bought me from Peru, which I was gutted about.  We got to the lake just in time to see the sun rise and took a dip in the hot springs for our morning bath.

We then continued to the Green Lake.  This was fantastic.  It was really beautiful.  As the angle of the sun changed, a green carpet swept over the lake.  It was quite spectacular, definitely the nicest lake I have ever seen.

After visiting the lake, we went to the border, where we said goodbye to the driver and the falling apart car (which only got two flat tyres along the way.  Well one was a slow puncture, so he changed it to the spare, the spare got a puncture, so he changed it back to the origionalone, and just kept pumping it up!)

A bus met us at the border which took us to immigration in Chile.  The border was one hut on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere with a barrier, very strange!!!

After we went to immigration, the bus took us to San Pedro, a lovely little town.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to stay here, so hopped on a bus to Antafogasta where we stayed the night in a cheap, tacky hotel.  We did find a nice restaurant though, which had the most gorgeous steak and pianist.