Doing anything touristy at this time of year has proven difficult. Most tour operators on the island seems to be completely closed this time of year, which has made it difficult to see some of the best parts of the island. So trying to see as much as we could by taking public transport, we travelled to the Isla Quinchao, to the town of Achao.
Category: "Beyond Peru"
Chile: Castro in Chiloé
Castro is the third oldest city in Chile, founded in 1567. It is at the end of a fjord that reaches almost 20km into the island of Chiloé. This city has been destroyed again and again by earthquakes and fires and twice by the Dutch. Despite this Castro still retains its character, as these photos show.
Chile: Ancud in Chiloé
Ancud was founded in 1769 as a Spanish stronghold in the region, and after Peruvian independence in 1824 it was the Spanish Crown’s last possession in all of South America. The bay is surrounded by forts like the one you can see in the images attached. Spanish Ancud was able to fight off one Free-Chilean attack, but cold and demoralised fled in the face of a second.
Chile: Puerto Montt
We arrived to this city in the late evening in the dark and were shocked at how dirty and run-down the city was in comparison to what we had seen so far. We hoped that by daylight the place would look at least a little better.
In the morning we awoke to a city of fog, cold, run-down buildings, graffiti, stray dogs, homelessness and filth.
Chile: Valdivia
Valdivia, being hundreds of miles south of Santiago and Valparaíso – in this country of unimaginable distances, takes over 10 hours to get to by bus. For this reason we took an overnight bus, which also saved on a hotel room. We were in for a shock upon disembarking the overheated night bus at 7am. Within seconds we were scrambling through our bags for extra fleeces and hoping we would be able to find a hot cup of tea quickly.
Chile: Viña del Mar
This is a more modern town that sits on the edge of Valparaiso. Normally it is visited for its beaches, but we are here in the winter and it is a little too cold for that. The town has more hotels, restaurants and bars which is its over purpose.
Chile: Valparaiso – Down Below
Here you really feel like you could be in Victorian England, the streets and buildings date from around that time and are lined with telegraph wires and power lines for the bus-trams.
The port is still a working port and alot of cargo destined for this region of Chile arrives here.
Chile: Valparaiso – Up Above
We arrived in Valparaiso and went straight to Cerro Concepción to our hotel.
This city is composed of two parts, the sea-level ocean front and the cerros behind, where houses are delicately perched and special ascensores are in place to take you up to the streets above, which would otherwise be a near-vertical climb to get to.
Chile: Santiago’s Cerro Santa Lucia
Santa Lucia is another high lump of mountain in the middle of the city with good views. It is here where Valdivia founded the city after marking out the streets. It is now a city park.
We spent about a hour climbing it, eating ice cream and admiring the views.
Chile: Santiago Centro
Our first stop was the Plaza de Armas where our first sight on ascending from the metro was a dead homeless man having prayers said over him by a city official with a bible. Not at all what I expected – the plaza I mean. Sure it was grand, but it was also incredibly dull. It could have been a plaza in any large city anywhere in the world, it has absolutely nothing distinctive. The cathedral too was nothing in comparison to the ones I had seen in Lima. There are dozens of cathedrals in Lima, all of which are better than Santiago´s grandest. Here in the plaza are dozens of Peruvians sitting in the shade hoping some form of work will magically come and find them.
Here though, in the Plaza was were Pedro de Valdivia marked out the new city streets with ropes in 1541 when Santiago was founded. All distances in Chile are measured from here.
Chile: Santiago City Streets
These photos show some of the streets near the Rio Mapocho near Bellavista. It surprised me how like London it was. We even have the same traffic lights and taxi´s are black.
Chile: The Metro system of Santiago
The metro system in Santiago shows what a disgrace the London Underground is. The trains and platforms here have air-conditioning. Each platform has several plasma screen TV´s entertaining passengers with music for the no more than 30 seconds they have to wait for their train, which is easy to fit into because they are larger than ours. Fairs are the same for all destinations and less than $1.
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