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.
Category: "Travel and Places"
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.
Chile: Santiago from Cerro San Cristobal
High above Santiago is the Cerro San Cristobal, a Andean foot-hill that towers over the city from where you can see everything on a clear day. Both our days in Santiago were clear days, so we were quickly lucky to get the best views possible.
Chile: 2 days 6 hours in a bus
We arrived in Santiago de Chile after spending a length of time on a bus that I had never before imagined was possible and be honest – it was fine. I spent probably half the time staring out of the window at the bleak desert half asleep and the other half watching the dozen onboard movies.
Caracol turned out to be more of an agency than a bus service and we ended up travelling with the excellent Chilean company Tas-Choapa – it seems all the buses in Chile are excellent.
Catarata Tirol
We went to see Catarata Tirol on our last evening in San Ramon.
The first pictures are of the little river running through the valley coming from the waterfall, where we had to walk to reach the waterfall.
It had been raining beforehand and was starting to rain a little more when we arrived. Due to this additional water the catarata was extremely powerful.
La Merced
The town of La Merced is the gateway to the eastern part of Junin. If you wanted a place to buy fresh fruit then this is it – plentiful and cheap – you could buy a crate of fresh fruits for under $3.
La Merced, although poor and only been accessible for a decade or so, is still very beautiful. There is something about the climate here, the greenery and smells, that makes everything seem more pleasant.
Catarata de Bayoz
After Velo de la Novia we hiked the opposite direction to take a swim in to pool under the catarata de Bayoz. This was a waterfall that lead to another and another, all providing a good place to bathe.
Catarata Velo de la Novia
Near the city of La Merced are two amazingly beautiful waterfalls.
The first we visited involved descending down a dangerous path clinging to the side of a cliff with a drop as high as the waterfall.
San Ramon to Pichanaki
We stopped to take pictures on the way to Pichanaki – this was the route where we first caught site of the new climate we were in on our first day. It is quite a shock to decend from the barren mountains into the green and lush forests.
San Ramon Air Base
The base at San Ramon is a quiet place, mostly due to the fact that they don’t host many aeroplanes.
The night is a different story, when the wildlife tries its hardest to keep you awake.
Tarma, Junín
We stopped for a few minutes in the town of Tarma to confirm directions to San Ramon, where we will be staying at an air force base.
The town is at about 4000m high from where you descend to San Ramón at 700m and the start of the central Peruvian rainforest.
