After a great time in
New Zealand we are heading to
South America, starting with the country of
Chile. Our first port of call is the capital city of
Santiago. We based ourselves in the
Bellavista area of
Santiago for a couple of days where there are plenty of resturants, cafes and bars to choose from, also night markets to walk around. The language here in
Chile is Spanish not many people speak English, which when ordering our food we found very difficult, but at least we have our little Latin American Spanish phrase book with us........
.JPG) |
| Yes we managed to order a beer!!! |
We took the cable car to the viewpoint of
Cerro San Cristobar for the best views over
Santiago, aslo had a walk into
Plaza De Armas Square where locals gather round, sitting and relaxing watching the world go by......
 |
| Santiago on a cloudy day!!!! |
 |
| Plaza De Armas Square |
Moving onto to
La Serena, Chile's 2nd largest city, which is blessed with some beautiful architecture and a long golden shorelline, making it a holiday destination for Chileans in the months of January and February. Some of the city's architecture is original colonial, but most of it is neocolonial.
 |
| La Serena Plaza |
 |
| La Serena Beach |
After a couple of days relaxing in
La Serena we took a 16 hour night bus to the desert town of
San Pedro De Atacama which is 2440m above sea level, a precordillera oasis village turned into a tourist boom town. Here you can arrange 4wd tours to go over the
Salt Flats to
Uyuni, Bolivia.
.JPG) |
| Mountain View from San Pedro De Atacama |
.JPG) |
| San Pedro De Atacama |
We hired mountain bikes for the day with Sophie and Jake (friends we met on our 16 hour bus ride here) and headed off to the
Death Valley to the sand dunes where you can do sand boarding.
.JPG) |
| Loving it!!! |
.JPG) |
| This is hard work in the desert....... |
 |
| Cool!!! |
How good is this sat in a pub in the desert watching European Cup Final, Chelsea won on penelties...
.JPG) |
| European Cup final 2012.... |
Now time for our 4wd Trip, 3 days/2 nights from
San Pedro De Atacama to
Uyuni, Boliva...
There were 6 of us plus our driver in our 4wd, which was a good little group, and 2 other 4wd on the Cordilleria tour as well.
Day 1, We set off from
San Pedro De Atacama to the
Bolivian Border Control, at 14,435f above sea level. This is were we have breakfast and meet the rest of the group in the other 4wd's....
 |
| Bolivia Migration |
 |
| Our 4wd's...... |
Then we visit Laguna Verde and Blanca, located at the bottom of Licancabur Volcano, with fantastic scenery, multicoloured desert mountains.
 |
| WOW!! Snow capped mountains... |
Continuing to the
Thermal Water Pools. WOW!!!!
The day ends at
Laguna Colorado, the main nesting centre for morre than 30,000 Flamingos of 3 different species. Also here are Llamas and Alpakas.....
Day 2, we head to the Geysers Sol De Manana and onto Siloli Desert where there are a set of rock formations as a result of the volcanic eruptions wind erosion.
 |
| Geysers |
 |
| Geysers |
 |
| Rock Formations |
 |
| Rock Formations |
Day 3, we drove over the country's largest Salt Flats, absolutely fantasitc.....
We ended the trip in Uyuni at the train cemertry.
 |
| Our group with driver Luis...... |
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
No comments:
Post a Comment