Chile: My Favorite
Chile is sometimes described as the only consistently first world country in South America. It was the easiest to navigate, with good infrastructure, food, and safety. It had a variety of climates from the Atacama desert in the north, the wine country, rainy rios and lagos regions all the way to rugged Patagonia (our favorite region along with Argentine Patagonia). Oh yeah and volcanoes. Lots of volcanoes. If I really had to live in South America, I would probably pick a town like Puerto Varas which was like a reasonably priced version of the U.S. Northwest.
Northern Chile and Santiago
Chile is 2670 miles fron North to South. 200 miles further than Washingto DC to San Francisco. Using kilometres makes it even longer 🙂 Santiago is North-Central Chile is and Atacama which is not way North is still a 2 hour 10 minute flight. It is very narrow but the Andes make a day trip to Argentina impossible in most places. The Atacama is the driest region on earth (McMurdo Dry Valleys in Antarctica are dryer but are very specific areas) with some areas never having recorded rain. There are huge salares (salt lake beds) and absolutely dark clear skys. Despite the isolation, there is good tourist infrastructure at San Pedro de Atacama
Santiago de Chile: Could be any European or U.S. City
Santiago seemed the most familiar with lots of international brands and modern infrastructure (metro, malls, etc.) With the Andes close by, it could have been Denver. It was quite nice for a big city and we loved our Airbnb here.
Central Chile: Rivers, Lakes, Volcanoes, Germans, and Monkey Puzzle Trees
What I am calling Central Chile is a huge area south of Santiago to north of Patagonia. We visited the Araucania region for Conguillio National Park (Volcanoes and the Araucaria/Monkey Puzzle trees), Los Rios to visit Valdivia and the floating market, and Los Lagos to visit Frutillar and Puerto Varas. We drove this leg of our trip which was different and nice.
Conguillio National Park
Chile is known for its volcanoes and the national tree of Chile, the Araucaria or monkey puzzle tree. Conguillio has the Llaime volcano which erupted as recently as 2009 and lots of the iconic trees.
Valdivia and the Pacific Coast
Valdivia is a cool little town on the Pacific coast of Chile. It is really reminiscent of northern California to me. It had a cool floating market that sold vegetables, cheeses, and fresh caught fish. Sea lions have learned to wait for scraps from fish cleaning and some of them are huge.
Frutillar and Puerto Varas
On our way to Puerto Varas, we stopped at the interesting community of Frutillar. It was a government funded effort to entice Germans to come over and colonize this part of Chile in the mid 1800s. The government advertised the resemblence to the Alps (well minus the volcanic eruptions) and lake Geneva and it worked. The architecture and some culinary dishes, have carved out a little corner of Germany in Chile.
As I said earlier, I might pick Puerto Varas as my home town if I had to live in South America. It was mid-size with good restaurants but not a lot of traffic. It is surrounded by natural beauty like Petrohue falls and Osborno volcano and it has cool weather like the northwest but housing is still reasonable for U.S. standards. This was a bit of a rest stop before heading to Patagonia and right on cue, I had a weird 24 hour fever thing where I would alternate between chills and sweats.
Patagonia: Amazingly Pretty
Torres del Paine National Park was our second blockbuster/must-see destination and it did not disappoint. It was so beautiful, so peaceful, and so remote. It is getting harder to blow us away, but this place did it.
