I´d heard so many stories about muggings, robberies and hijackings in South America that I arrived expecting to be scammed or robbed waiting for my bag to turn up at the airport. Instead Chile has been such a fantastically laid back introduction to South America that the only time I felt in any danger was when the riot police used tear gas to break up a teacher´s demonstration and I got caught down wind of it. Tears and choking aside Santiago was great, all beautiful sunshine and faded colonial buildings. Me and my Easter Island buddy Sarah decided to get acclimatised as soon as possible by joining in a wine tasting session at our hostel, which gave us an invaluable insight into how good very, very cheap wine can be! Red wine was a frequent feature of the trip from then on, along with pisco sours – pisco being another grape derived booze that originated in Chile (or Peru, depending on who you talk to). Myself, Sarah and Sanne (another Easter Island escapee) travelled up to Valparaiso after Santiago, where there were more teachers´demonstrations, and more piscos! Our host at the hostel, Pedro, introduced us to a drink called an earthquake – pisco, orange juice and icecream! pretty good, although judging by everyone else the next morning I´m glad I only had two of them…
Chile is such a thin country that the journey up to Peru is basically a straight line, so after Sarah had left on a 28 hour bus journey to Beunos Aires, the rest of us in the hostel that were going up became travel buddies for the next couple of days. Steve and Jeff joined myself and Sanne travelling up first to La Serena to see the Pisco Elqui valley and sample some piscos, and then up to the Atacama desert to enjoy some scorching hot days and freezing cold nights. We met a guy called Pablo walking along the tiny high street in San Pedro de Atacama, who directed us to our hostel and then became our tour guide for the next couple of days. We knew we´d made a good decision when he started into his first can of escudo at our first stop on the first day! Him and his driver Eduardo were our entertainment after that, but the desert was pretty cool too. Our tour largely consisted of driving somewhere very remote and then jumping into some body of water, be it a salt lagoon, a freezing cold pool (to wash off the salt) or a thermal pool during the cold of the early morning. For me driving around the mountains and canyons of the Atacama was a highlight. The whole place could be a backdrop for an old John Wayne movie, except for the occasional herds of llamas that you pass. After each day of touring we´d spend the nights huddled around the fire at our hostel drinking red wine, which also had to be warmed on the fire to keep it drinkably warm! Man it was cold!
Sanne left us in the desert for her 20 hour bus journey back to Santiago, and myself and the guys have been hopping buses for the last couple of days, from the desert to Iquique in northern Chile, and then on to Tacna in Peru via taxi before another long bus journey to Arequipa, where we´re trying to get our heads around Peru. So far it seems a bit more confusing than Chile, but I think we´ve gotten the hang of crossing the roads that are teeming with taxis now. Next stop, Nazca!