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Northern Chile

January 2023
A 30-day adventure by Speak, World Read more
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  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    Day 4

    VALPARAISO

    January 4, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    My first trip to Chile was in 2019, when I explored from Cochran in North Patagonia up to Santiago. Now I’m finally back, to explore another section of this oddly shaped country. (From north to south, Chile extends 4,270 km, 2,653 mi, yet is only 350 km, 217 mi at its widest point, and averages just 177 km, 110 mi east to west.) This time I’m planning to go north from Santiago (near the middle) and my first stop is in historic Valparaiso.

    I had a truly rough time getting to this, my first destination, due to the domino effect of a 4-hour delay of my first flight from Oaxaca to Mexico City. You will be spared the details, but I missed two flights and arrived a day late, and the culprit was the airlines, AEROMEXICO. Be warned!

    I chose to stay in Valparaiso’s Historic Center (a UNESCO World Heritage Site from 2003) to explore the two cities: the lower town full of official government buildings and banks, and the upper town of steep hills, reached by 140-year-old 10-person elevators. Up on the hills are historic houses and other lavish buildings from Valparaiso’s heyday as a major port—before the Panama Canal was built in 1914. The Museum of Fine Arts is in a former palace; the Museum of Engravings is in a stately home. The hills are truly interesting and beautiful, though some parts are very rundown, filthy, and dangerous.

    The first day I walked along the coast for the entire day. With my binoculars I spied flocks of terns, cormorants, and pelicans, as well as a little sea otter. There was edible tubular kelp called “cochayuyo,” which I ate in Castro, on the island of Chiloe on my first trip to Chile. There were two lighthouses, native cacti and succulents on the hillsides, and even a very long public beach. There was celebration in the air, as January 2nd is also a holiday in Chile. By the time I was ready for lunch, the restaurants were all out of the standard fish, so I had eel! It arrived fried, and quite delicious.

    The second day I visited the Museum of Fine Arts, which is in the art nouveau/deco Palacio Baburizza. They have a collection European art, as well as the Valparaiso art for which I was searching. (See photos) And then to the Natural History Museum for descriptions of flora and fauna of here, Central Chile.

    The third day I visited the Valparaiso Museum of Engraving, which displayed great artistry and variety of techniques. But because of a blooming cold, I rested most of the rest of the day, and felt better on my last morning.

    The prices here are much more than those of Mexico, so I’ve felt some shock. But how pleasant to see cats minding many businesses along the main streets, and a few nice places to drink coffee and study Spanish in the late afternoon. It’s not difficult to be a short-term resident.

    And here, as usual, is a link for further information about the city:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valparaíso

    Please enjoy the pictures.    Read more

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    Day 6

    La Serena, second oldest city in Chile

    January 6, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    La Serena is a medium-sized city of 250,000, located 248 miles north of Santiago. It is ChiIe’s second-oldest city, with many things of interest to me.

    As it turned out, there was a very nice surprise right across from my Airbnb property: a historic house where the poet Gabriela Mistral lived with her sister, and just behind it, a public library dedicated to her memory. I explored the house with a very knowledgeable guide, and got acquainted with “Gabriela,” as she is known in Chile: the first Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1945, and also an educator, diplomat, and public intellectual. The area of La Serena is full of places where she lived and worked.

    I also walked the short kilometer to the “Faro,” lighthouse for my view of the ocean, back to town to book sightseeing, tours and just. walk around. I headed to the small and excellently arranged Archeological Museum, where I learned about the local indigenous people, the Diaguita, who settled in the area (and also in northern Argentina) from around 900 CE. Such wonderful pottery they produced! There are still 88,474 Diaguitas living in Chile today.

    The city center was given a “Haussmann treatment” 1948-52 to make it homogenously neocolonial, or Spanish Colonial Revival style. It is pleasant enough, and there seems to be enough money in the city coffers to keep the “historical” buildings freshly painted. This is necessary, because there is a plague of graffiti writing and murals on every available wall in the city. Indeed, this graffiti plague (my opinion) is sanctioned by city governments now all over Chile.

    I finally ended my first day in a coffee shop studying Spanish. A wonderful surprise: I found out that José Vasconcelos, the author of our Oaxaca reading circle’s current book, invited Gabriela Mistral to Mexico when he was Minister of Education (1922-24) to establish educational programs. A perfect connection!

    Please enjoy the photos.    Read more

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    Day 7

    From La Serena: Valle del Elqui

    January 7, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    I had the great fortune of being a kilometer away from an A+ tour agency, so I booked tours for the 2nd and 3rd of January there. I used to be a “tour snob,” trying to find places by myself. This is a good process in large cities where a map and a guidebook are enough, but to see what’s OUT of town, a tour delivers. Both of mine included 14-15 people, we rode in vans, and the drivers were also quite excellent guides who spoke extensively and knowledgeably throughout via a microphone on board.

    The Elqui River empties into the Pacific Ocean two kilometers north of where I was staying. But its origins are in the west Andes, from which it flows into a fertile valley to the west of La Serena. Here a good portion of Chile’s vegetables are grown—especially lettuces, avocados, and olives for olive oil.

    Our first stop was a dam of the river, and we dutifully walked over the top of it. Actually, the first stop of day-long tours is for breakfast—a kind of prize for the night owls who actually got up in time to catch the van.

    To wake us up further, the second stop was at a pisco distillery. Pisco is an unaged brandy made from Chilean (or Peruvian) white grapes, and is distilled (without water) at 38-48 proof. Our tour guide also had extensive knowledge of the process, so we did our thinking before our drinking, to paraphrase a Spanish saying. (“Primero el deber, luego el placer.”) The classic South American cocktail is a “Pisco Sour,” which is pisco with lemon juice and shaken a great deal. We sampled it without the shake-up.

    Other stops were at Vicuña, the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral (Nobel Prize winning poet), lunch in a nearby town, and on the way back, a place to buy goods produced in the valley.

    You can see from the photos that it was quite a lovely trip. I wasn’t my usual chatty self with the other tour members, but stayed quiet and observant for a change. (A big change.)
    Cheers!    Read more

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    1213
    Day 8

    Penguins at Isla Damas

    January 8, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    My second tour involved traveling north to see the endangered Humboldt penguins. I have to reveal at this point that taking tours was more of a necessity than just getting to see places I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to visit alone. It was also because cities in Chile are at this time extremely dangerous—especially for a solo traveler like me. Not only am I spotted in an instant as a foreigner, but will also obviously be carrying a phone, money, and other valuables. An easy target. Tours are the answer for staying in a group, and so far this has worked out quite well: great guides and pleasant company. The only sacrifice is my 50-year tradition of fascinating solo traveling. At least in Chile.

    Back to the penguins. There are now 12,000 mating pairs up and down the coasts of Chile and Peru, and their habitat is disappearing rapidly. We drove north for a little over an hour to the town of Los Choros to board a boat for Isla Damas. On the two-hour ride to and around the island, we saw a fabulous show of wildlife: sea lions, many sorts of terns, two types of cormorants, and—the penguins. The guide on the boat was excellent and could answer any questions. He was commenting on a non-penguin topic—the dangers of a new mining venture trying to start up in the area—as I took a video of the penguins. You can hear Chilean Spanish and watch the lovely creatures at the same time.

    To learn more about the penguins, here is a link:

    https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/bir…

    To honor my own wishes, our guide in the van made a stop so we could get out to examine the coastal flora at close range. I found that quite thrilling.

    To celebrate my final night in La Serena a few days later, I invited my always kind and affectionate landlady Paula out for mariscos, sea food, in a favorite restaurant of hers.

    Please enjoy the photos.    Read more

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    2
    Day 11

    A 13-Hour Ride: La Serena to Calama

    January 11, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    I was so curious to see the deserts in northern Chile! After the green of Patagonia, I needed some contrast. So, I offer these photos of what my ride mostly looked like, to satisfy YOUR curiosity.

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    3
    Day 13

    Atacama Desert: Valle de la Luna

    January 13, 2023 in Chile ⋅ ☀️ 22 °C

    It seems that the tourism industry in each country I visit picks two or three major sights to fly visitors who have only a week to explore. The two places in Chile are Torres del Paine National Park and the Atacama Desert. Missing are a slew of gentler, lesser-known places that I have loved, such as the island of Chiloe. (I wrote about it in my first trip to Chile.)

    The Atacama Desert is a wild and beautiful place, with little water, high altitudes, and a variety of interesting altiplano plants and animals. The indigenous people who live there are the Likanantaí. They are the stewards of the lands that I visited with my tours, charging admission to each major stop, and watching over the innumerable visitors.

     Remember the NY Times article a few months ago about huge lithium deposits that were found in northern Chile? Well, this is where they were found—in the fragile reserves in the region. The rights to mine were sold by the Chilean government to a U.S. company, and all hell will break loose in 2030. You need must get to the Atacama soon, as much will be lost—especially in the salt flats you’ll see in my upcoming posts.

    These pictures show my first excursion.    Read more

  • Speak, WorldNorthern Chile
    Day 14

    Atacama Desert: Red Rocks and Salt Flats

    January 14, 2023 in Chile

    Atacama Desert: Red Rocks and Salt Flats

    This is a combination of my last two days’ tours on January 14 and 15, with photos so you can see the desert scenery. More explanations are given in the photo captions.

     Most of the area is up near the Bolivian border. In fact, in the salt flats tour, our guide was actually an English and Spanish teacher from La Paz, Bolivia. A few times we were above 4500 meters (14,700 feet) altitude! When I breathed, I couldn’t feel any result of being oxygenated. This resulted in my walking slowly and not talking to anyone— to try to get my breath back!

    On the last day, I shared the tour with the Bolivian guide, a doctor from Santiago specializing in geriatrics, and a retired Taiwanese chemical engineer. The four of us bonded immediately, and enjoyed each others’ company the whole day. A jackpot!

    And this concludes my trip to northern Chile.    Read more

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