Punta Arenas, Chile
Walk About Streets
We docked earlier than expected and exited the ship with some friends to find a good Chilean restaurant they had read about. It was called Bernardo O’Hennessey’s. That’s right, nothing like a good Irish name to lead you to one of the best Chilean restaurants in the city.
The next morning, we take a bus ride to the foothills of the Andes where we then take a ski lift to a resort called Club Andino. It’s the only ski resort in the world boasting views of the Pacific Ocean. We could see the Strait of Magellan in the distance. Here comes the hard part; the hike down. I bought good hiking boots and poles and made it without falling once. We crossed a river about a dozen times on rickety wooden slats so not falling was an accomplishment. We were lectured on the flora and fauna in the area and we enjoyed a sense of peace as we descended this pristine environment. We walked for about 3 hours and it was trying to rain the whole time. Fortunately for us, we just made it back to the warming hut when the skies opened up. Our guide provided us with hot chocolate and cake. As we ate and drank, we noticed a second bus in the lot and thanked are lucky stars we were on bus #1. Bus #2 had to be getting a soaking and maybe a mud bath!
Back in town, we pulled out umbrellas and walked the town. We found cheese empanadas and coffee to fill our bellies, then headed to the public Cemetery of Punta Arenas Sara Braun. On a piece of land granted by the government, engineer Fortunato Circutti built the magnificent portico and the perimeter walls donated by dona Sara Braun in 1919. That is why the cemetery has been named after her. The cemetery is 9.9 acres and is laid out on a grid and the isle ways are named just like streets. European cypresses grow on the avenues granting an English touch to these open spaces. The inner paths lead to tombs and mausoleums, some of them decorated in various styles with marble, brass and granite. Sculptures of forged iron are everywhere.
The chapels built during the first three decades belong to the most important families. Various institutions also have their own buildings, such as the Salesian Order, the foreign colonies and the mutualist societies.
There are also buildings that house entire caskets, five high and 20 side by side, with glass windows in front that are decorated by the family. It looks like an apartment building for the dead. They have sliding ladders so if your loved one is high up, you move the ladder so you can reach the widow. It opens up so you can clean it, redecorate or lay flowers. I’m not aware of anything like it in the USA.
Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
Port and Motor Coach trip to Coyhaique
We continue on to Coyhaique City which would have been a great place to spend an afternoon had it not been for the boarded up storefronts, graffiti expressing protestor views and sidewalks with missing bricks because they are being used to throw at the storefronts (primarily banks and government buildings). All storefronts have protective covers for their glass windows which are removed around 11am. Some stores never remove the covers so as not to be continually replacing windows. If you want to go into some stores, you enter through the door and there is no natural light inside because all windows are boarded up. Locals walk the streets as if everything is normal and perhaps this is their new normal. People are very nice and we never felt threatened. Most of the small kiosks are open and these are the people who have hand crafted items for sale.
Puerto Montt, Chile
Yet another port that was skipped due to weather. The Viking Sun arrived at Puerto Montt at 6 AM, anchored, and launched a tender boat. The wind caused the Sun to drag the anchor, while the tender bobbed a few feet while tied to the ship. The movement of hundreds of passengers from the Sun, into the tenders, then onto a pier was deemed too risky. The winds were scheduled to increase during the day, making the return tender trip more tenuous. On shore were all of the tour guides, buses, and some fresh vegetables for the kitchens. Didn’t happen.
Valparaíso, Chile
Harbor Images
We are docked straight across the major highway which would take us up the hill to anywhere we want to go; however, we have to take a shuttle about a mile to the terminal where we catch a bus that takes us to Sotomayor Plaza which is pretty much the center of everything. The bus is pretty much unpredictable as are the taxi’s but there is no getting around this process. Even all the excursions have to be shuttled to the terminal to then get on the proper coach.
So, off we go to the terminal to hop a bus for a tour of the coastal colonial village of Valparaiso. First stop was Villa Victoria, a 19th century mansion which was home to one of the wealthiest woman of the city, Dona Blanca Vergara. She sold the mansion to Spanish immigrants who converted it to a bakery. It was sold again and restored into a living museum. We were greeted at the entrance by the current owners Victoria and her son, Kenneth dressed in traditional costume who led us through their living museum. It was an interesting tour.
Next stop was the Museum of Fine Art, Palacio Baburizza. We took a funicular up the hillside to reach this museum and met Rose who was our very knowledgeable guide who only spoke Spanish. Our tour guide translated Rose’s commentary into English. This was a great tour.
The tour ended and we were taken back to the terminal where we decided to walk the very long boardwalk. Bathrooms cost $1.00 to use. Lots of locals sitting on the rocks, there was no way down to the water and there was no sand. People just sat, ate lunches and crawled around the rocks. It was pretty dangerous looking to us foreigners.
We walked back to the terminal and decided to cross the main highway looking for a place to eat. The area was not very inviting so we crossed the highway again, back to the terminal and took the shuttle back to the ship.
We’ve never seen so much graffiti in a city ever. A lot of this had to do with all the protests going on in Chile. Lots of buildings covered with political position flyers and many more buildings damaged. We’ve also never seen so many different and well-designed street murals. I think we got pictures of all of them!
Day #2 – Today, we decide to tour the city on our own. We take the shuttle to the terminal to catch the bus which we are told will be about 45 minutes. We try to take a taxi but there won’t be any for about 30 minutes and are told it’s better to just wait for the bus. We ask if we can just walk and are told – Not a Good Idea – so we wait and wait and wait and wait for about 90 minutes. All of South America is pretty laid back and being punctual is insignificant. Siestas are every day from 1pm to 3pm no matter how many tourists are in town, and everything closes on Sunday, which is considered family day. The bus finally arrives and the driver asked if we’d like to go up higher than his regular stop. We happily said yes, remembering these streets are built on hills and it’s up and down and up and down and up. Always more ups than downs. We walked every street a multitude of times. The city is built so that it’s not easy to get from one side of the city to the other without going up and around. We had coffee and carrot cake inside a little artsy area. Continued walking and had mocha’s at a cafe on top of a hill. View was great but coffee was disappointing. Decided to start our long walk down. We did some shopping in between all the coffees and finally reached the funicular which would take us down the hill and decided one more coffee was needed at an outside restaurant along with one of the best sandwiches ever. Bread with the crust cut off (they do that all over South America) with ham and melted cheese. Can’t really say what made it so good but yum. Finally, we take the funicular down rather than walking, then wait for the bus to the terminal, then take the shuttle back to the ship. Ahhhh…home for the night.
Day #3 – One of us went to the fashionable resort of Vina del Mar. The gap between the wealthy and the regular is very apparent. Along the beach are several high rise condo structures whose owners have multiple expensive units for summer residences, summer offices, and client perks. The city’s best-known landmark is the famous floral clock. Unfortunately, the hands of the clock had been removed to prevent protestors from damaging the clock. There were protests in the area, however our motor coach deviated to avoid them.
The last stop was at the Fonck Museum, housing wonderful exhibits from the Chilean mainland and Easter Island or home of Rapanui, the aboriginal Polynesian inhabitants. Outside is one of the distinctive Moai or stone statures from the island. Only two have been moved from the island, the other is in London. Many jars, carvings, and other pre-Columbian artifacts are on display. A mummified woman shocked me as I rounded a display corner. She lived in the Norte Grande (Big North, Far North, Great North) which is one of the five natural regions of continental Chile. It borders Peru to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the west, the Altiplano, Bolivia and Argentina to the east, and the Copiapó River to the south. This includes the Atacama Desert. Upstairs was an exhibit of really big and unusual insects from the western region of South America.
La Serena (Coquimbo), Chile
La Serena starts a 3 Day Atacama Desert Overland, returning to Viking Sun at Iquique, Chile
Day #1 – This is a big day for 16 of us as we head to a 3-day overland in the Atacama Desert. The Atacama is one of the most intriguing landscapes on the planet as well as being the driest place on earth. There are places in the Atacama where it has NEVER rained. We are docked in the Port of Coquimbo in the city of La Serena, Chile. We’re up early and with our luggage hop a shuttle to the La Serena Airport for a flight to Santiago. After a great lunch in the airport, we take another flight to Calama, Chile. In Calama, we meet our guide, Pablo. He’s 32 years old and looks exactly like you’d think a desert guide should look. He wearing a painters hat and a big scarf around his neck, hiking boots, a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and levis. We begin a 3-hour bus ride through the Atacama to the city of San Pedro which is where our hotel is located. We are all tired and sit quietly on the bus as we drive through miles and miles of nothing but cracked earth, mountains and gravesites where drivers have died for a multitude of reasons.
We’re very close to San Pedro; however, before we can continue, we must transfer to a smaller bus because the one we are currently on will not fit on the roads in this town. We’re now in the town and there’s a parade playing music, dancing and singing down the streets. People are dressed in bear and gorilla (yes, you read that correctly) costumes, and colorful local garments. Our guide, who lives in this town says there is no reason for the parade; they just do it. The street is lined with tourists watching; mostly backpackers, mountain bikers and hikers, all much younger than us. As we continue on, we now understand why we had to change buses. This one can barely turn the corners. Most of the vehicles in this town are bicycles and motorbikes. As we near the end of town, we see our hotel on the other side and OMG! Talk about wealth vs poverty. It’s called Hotel Cumbres San Pedro. Viking has a way of finding the most beautiful properties. This is the first time they have offered this excursion and so far it’s 5-star. The rooms are like individual Spanish houses with an inside and outside shower and “Emperor” king beds that 6 adults could easily sleep in, huge patios with sofas and tables. It’s just beautiful.
Reception always has peanuts and trail mix and coca leaves and coca tea which is very helpful since we are at an elevation of 11,000 ft. We head to dinner which is a BBQ buffet of, well, everything you could possibly want. We might never want to leave this place. I really wanted to try out all the swimming pools but we are so tired and just drag ourselves back to the room and sleep.
Day #2 – OK, so the dinner buffet was nothing compared to the breakfast buffet. They had pure raspberry juice that was to die for along with stuff I’ve never seen before. They had more kinds of cookies and pastries than most bakeries. It’s actually obscene when you think about how the people on the other side of town live.
We board the bus to the town of Toconao where we walk around the church and streets. Pablo takes us to see and feed baby llamas and there is also a house with a woman who knits sweaters and hats with cactus needles. Beautiful sweaters. 5 of the 16 of us are men so you know the rest of us are shopping for sweaters and the temp outside is probably 90 degrees; how funny is that?
Next stop is the Atacama Salt Flat, also know as Chaxa Lagoon, where we see the pink flamingos. They are pink because their diet consists of brine shrimp and blue-green algae. Surrounded by mountains, there are no drainage outlets. Large volcanos dominate the landscape. It’s 1200 sq miles in size and the 3rd largest salt flat in the world. There is a high level of roughness on the ground which is the result of evaporation and ephemeral surface water. The lagoon is a sink hole lake which is where the flamingos hang out. Salt concentration is 5 – 28% producing at the higher end of the range an effect of floating like in the Dead Sea. It also has the purest source of lithium. Boron is another product extracted from the lagoon. The quiet beauty of this place is hard to describe. We were there probably an hour just watching the flamingos fly across the lagoon and land looking for food. They would come in groups of all sizes and we were just mesmerized by being there.
Time to head back to San Pedro, where we once again encounter the parade. Even Pablo can’t believe it. It’s really hot and these folks are back in costume beating drums and dancing in the street. This time, the guy dressed as a gorilla had his baby also dressed as a gorilla. This little guy was bobbing along in his dad’s arms. It was a good hour of entertainment and we had a hard time getting the drum beat out of our heads when it was over.
We had plenty of time to walk the streets and shop before lunch so we took advantage. They had a Lapis Lazuli store. Yes, we bought a Lapis Christmas ornament for next year’s tree. Lapis is mined in Chile and is their national stone. Lots and lots to see and buy. A great place to spend a few hours. Pablo took us to a great local restaurant for lunch. The food is good no matter where we go. We are entertained by 2 locals playing the pan flute, a drum and a guitar. We purchased their CD.
Next stop is Pukara de Quitor, a pre-Columbian archaeological site. We’re looking at ruins of a 12th century stone fortress with sweeping valley views of the San Pedro River. In the 16th century, Spanish invaders arrived in search of gold and silver. They rounded up the residents and killed one by one while interrogating for the gold location. All but about twenty or so were killed, because they had no gold.
Of course, in order to experience the views, you must climb up. I made it to the second level,while the other along with 3 others plus our guide went to the 4th level and over the top. AND, they accomplished the up and down in one hour and returned with comments like spectacular, awe inspiring, amazing and well worth the hike.
Last stop for the day is Moon Valley which is a landscape of various stone and sand formations carved by wind and water. It’s an impressive range of color and texture looking much like the surface of the moon. There are also dry lakes where the composition of salt makes a white covering of the area. It looks like ice sheets in the middle of the desert but after a taste, we all agree it is salt. The diverse outcroppings appear like man-made sculptures, again all formed by actions of wind and water upon these huge fields of sand dunes. It was declared a native sanctuary in 1982 for its natural environment and strange lunar landscape. A prototype for a Mars rover was tested there by scientists because of the valley’s dry and forbidding terrains.
As the sun starts to set, it looks like broken glass has been scattered over the entire valley. However; it’s not glass it’s the salt crystals being hit by the rays of the setting sun. Another incredible day on the Atacama comes to an end as we head back to our hotel.
Day #3 – We pick up a boxed breakfast, grab our luggage and head to the bus at some ungodly hour. We are headed to the Pintados Geoglyphs, which is one of the largest displays of ancient aboriginal art. Over 60,000 square yards of hill slopes are decorated by more than 400 figures depicting humans, animals, birds and abstract shapes, isolated or arranged into related groups. The geoglyphs include piled-up stones and scratching’s on the earth’s crust and are estimated to date from 1000 to 1400 AD. Because there is no rain, these geoglyphs look like they were created yesterday. It’s quite an amazing site.
Time to say goodbye to the Atacama and get back on the bus for a 5-hour long ride back to the ship which is docked in Iquique, Chile.