Valparaiso - Concepcion

I arrived in Valparaiso on the afternoon, went to the cerro Concepcion,
found a very nice hostel and stayed there two nights. I was seriously amazed by this city, I´ve never seen anything like this before: all the houses are painted, it´s so colourful and so vibrant. I´ve never been to a place that artistic. It used to be a ghost city, with houses made of metal sheet and now the municipality offers financial help to make people repaint their house, so wether they just paint it or, they make fresco and figures, landscapes etc. There is a "open air museum". Plus, a lot of hills to climb, one of the Pablo Neruda´s house, very nice people indeed. I met for example a guy named Carlos, who lived in Lyon and invited me to go to a private island in Chiloe. I only stayed two days, walked a lot, but it was amazing.

After that I took a bus to Concepcion, a city where there was a very bad earthquake last year, for a couchsurfing meeting. Jonathan, went to pick me up at the bus station at 10pm and brought me to a cheap hostel. The next day we went to the museum, with an amazing fresco that represents the history of South America (by a mexican painter) then we climbed a cerro and kind of got lost in the forest, it was a really nice walk actually, at night I took a bus to Puerto Montt, he once again walked with me to the station, such a nice person.

There was an earthquake in Conce four days ago and you could definetely see (on the news) how people relived the last years one. There are still buidings destroyed and it´s so fresh in people´s mind still. There´s a documentary film, called Muchaos that my friend Valentin edited, which is really great, about that subject.

Santiago de Chile - 24 janvier/ 2 fevrier 2011

¡Me quedé mucho tiempo en Santiago y me gusto mucho!

I stayed for a long time in Santiago de Chile: to be quick: many museums, walks, restaurants, "cerros" (the hills from which you get a nice view", party time in huge houses, movies... I ´ve even seen a polish play "Oczyszczeni" and it was a huge success.

The best part for me was having the chance to stay in a "real chilean house". The family was great: Patricio, my friend, has two sisters, Pamela and Camila. Pam just had two baby twins, a boy and a girl: Luciano and Franca. They are so cute and small. Plus his parents, his grandma is living with them, and her sister who lost her house during the earthquake. Not to forget, the first born of Pam and Daniel, her husband: the cutty Rafaela. Well that s definetely a family with all generations involved.
I really enjoyed the meals we took all together.
Family is really important in Chile, I felt like home.
The more I stay in this country, the more I m amazed by the people: they are so nice and adorable it´s hard to believe. (On my way to Valparaiso, head and feet lost in my map, two women just stopped asking me if I m lost, recommanding me some place to go and a man out of nowhere also joined us, we started to talk all together in the midddle of the street, crazy!). People are extra nice, I´ve never seen it , the cashier girls even smile in the supermarket! Unbelievable! (szczegolnie ze nasze kasjerki chca nas zabic! przynajmniej na to wyglada) Everybody is smiling, "tranquilo", talking to you, sharing, always telling you "pasa lo bien", "valla te bien", even people you barely talked to. I´m amazed by the "chilenos". For me there´s a real difference between them and Peruvians and bolivians. (Rien a voire pour etre honnete) I´m thrilled with this country. How could all of them be so nice?

La Serena -22/24 de enero 2011

After a very long bus ride (more or less 18 hours) I arrived in La Serena, a city on the cost, at 6 in the morning.
I found a hotel, had a very nice nap and went to town. La Serena is very nice, with its churches, theaters and markets. I watched for a bit a music band playing on ¨la plaza¨, there were dancers with them, wearing traditional clothes. It was great, i liked it so much I bought the CD. After that I found a chinese buffet restaurant and since i hadn´t eat for 24 hours I can tell you I ate like crazy! That was good! And I went to the Japonese garden,un lugar muy bueno, and then walked to the beach, front and back which is located at 3kms from the center, but since I wanted to see an Iranian movie at some film festival (for free) I didn t stayed, just to refresh my feet fand saw the movie. I ve already seen it but it felt so good to finally see other thing that americans ¨mierdas¨.
There was some free concert and people dancing la cueca chilena. Here´s a link for a video.


www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWC69PT-KrQ&feature=related


I stayed to a place very close to the main square ¨La Plaza de Armas¨ and the party of folkloric music lasted until 1 or 2 am!
The next day, completly out of nowhere, I met randomly my friend Inbar from the Ecotruly that we´ve met in the lac Titicaca as well. We had a great day, went to the museum, we had the best crab chupe (sort of crab meat in cheese and bread stuff) we went to the beach (it s really nice out there) then had a salad and coffee and went to see a movie in the mall which is right next to the bus station and she had her bus at midnight. We saw the last Disney, it was so cute, and there´s absolutely no problem to understand it in spanish, which is really nice.


The next day I took a day bus to Santiago de Chile. With a great memory of La Serena (except that the sun burned my wings so bad I couldn t walk for two days).

San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro de Atacama is a village-oasis in the desert, still in the Norte Grande region, surrounded with volcanos (like the Licancabur, 5916 mts high, that dominates the village).

I arrived at night but a very nice boy drove me to his hostel, which was cheap and very nice, I shared a small dorm room with a chilean: Gabriel. The next day I visited the town and mu

seum, and on the afternoon I met my friend Sergio, a friend of a friend that I´ve met in Poland, he´s a guide in the mountains. He showed me around, we had a beer and I came back before night. I bought some fruits and veggies at the market, made myself a salad and went to sleep. The next day I rented a bicycle and went to the ruins of Pukara de Quitor, from the XII century, one of the last bastion of resistance against the spanish invasion. From up there, you have a great view on all the oasis.

I went to the mirador where the view is even more spectacular, and took my bike and continue to Catarpe.

There´s a small church at 9 kms from there and apparently some Inca ruins that I didn´t find or recognize.

After all the biking, I went to the vallee of death to try some Sandboarding, it was great but really tiresome, as we had to go up the hill everytime and it s the most arid desert of the world, and it was something like 45 degrees.

After this, we went to watch de sunset and most of all, the moon rising, cause it was the full moon that day , all that on the Moon Vallee . It was spectacular! Really amazing. The moon came out of the volcano, all shiny and glaring. We shared a pisco sour with the group and came back to the city.

I was exhausted from all the biking and boarding, slept like a baby. The next day I rented a bike again and tried to find the Aldea the Tulor, but I kind of lost myself plus I didn´t enjoy the big paved road so I came back to San Pedro and went to Pozo 3: the swimming pool in the desert at 3 kms from the village.

I enjoyed a nice fresh swim and met friends of Sergio, they invited me for a barbecue, with wine, great meet, and the best mango salad ever! With a guitar and singing, in this really nice place I spent all afternoon with them. It was great. Then I took my bike and came back to the village (it was really tiring) and we all met at Sergio´s place. Had some more food and wine, played some more music, and then I came back to the hostel around 11 pm and enjoyed a good night sleep.

Great memory of San Pedro. Very nice people, nice riding, some good exercise: everything for the soul and body ;)

Chile : Arica, Iquique

I arrived in Arica from Bolivia, there was a rally all weekend and therefore it was really hard to find a cheap hostel, I end up going to a dorm, in a very nice place though, with a kitchen and everything but so expensive.

I stayed there two days, just chilling, being so exhausted. I enjoyed the beach, read a lot, had walks, eat home made salads at the hostel. Arica is nothing like Bolivia, what a shock! Bikinis, shorts, everyone wearing sunglasses, the city of palm trees, organized, clean with clothes shops everywhere and supermarkets.

I went back to Arequipa for the weekend to meet Fabian. Arica is at 30 kms from the border, you have local buses that goes to Tacna every 15 minutes. There are also taxis that goes there (colectivos) I came back this way and it s a really funny way to cross the border.

Anyway, with more stamps on my passeport and more night hours bus in the legs, I came back to Chile, directly to Iquique (after a stop at Tacna at 5.30 am and one in Iquique at 9) I arrived around 2pm, went to eat something: the fish was delicious! Then I looked for a hostel and I end up going to the YMCA place, and although it was expensive (this country is, especially for accomodations) I had my own room with bathroom, hot water and most of all: free dancing class and a gymnasium I could use everytime I want. I loved this place! I really enjoyed myself in Iquique. I had really long walks on the beach all day, I´ve never seen that much jellyfish mutilated on the beach: it s everywhere, but not dangerous, kids play with it. The ocean is so violent, it destroys everything. This is why it s not really possible to swim, just getting wet.

Anyway, I stayed all weekend in Iquique ( I really needed a rest also, the first time in months I woke up a 12! Slept for 11 hours straight, I was exhausted). I really enjoyed the town, with the wooden side walks, there s a nice atmosphere, people are adorable (people in Chile are really really lovely but god they speak fast!). I loved Iquique.

Bye Bye Peru - Bolivia

Peru

My experience in Peru was very good, strangely I heard a lot of tourists complaining about the peruvians, and I do not agree with that. In general, they were nice. I think that Peru is a sublime country, therefore there are more and more tourists invading the place, and therefore the lifestyle is changing, and the mentalities also.
I love the peruvian´s mixture: a peruvian is a mix between a native indian (andean), a chinese, a black, and a spanish. I found them very beautiful physically and you have differents influences on the music, the Arts, the architecture indeed. The Nascas and the Incas civilisations were really advanced, which make them proud. They re also proud of their cuisine (which unfortunately I didn´t taste or found).
I was shocked by the way people despise the indians, in Bolivia it´s the same: usually they are really poor, living from their handcraft, wearing traditional clothes and speaking Quechua.
It was really heart breaking walking in their neighborhood, in Cusco for example, the non turistic zone is ideous of poverty. I can´t, and refuse, to get used to that, seeing children working on the street, woman beaten, people starving, all dirty and miserable. Hard time.
It reminded me of Asia, but the main difference is that in there, the ethnic group don´t live in the cities. Cities are really bad for that.
To sum up, my opinion of Peru is that it´s a wonderful country but I´m scared of the bad consequences and damages the tourism can cause to the country, the people and the culture.

Bolivia

Amazing country with amazing culture. I loved Bolivia, it´s such an authentic country. I enjoyed being a traveller there, as you are directly helping people and you know where your money goes: to the construction of schools, hospitals when you pay the entrance fee in the national parks, when you stay at people´s place, it allows them to built toilets and showers, with hot water, they use themselves. In the Isla del Sol, for example, even with the development of tourism, everything is so quite and preserve, there´s no pollution or degradation caused by the tourists and I hope it will stay this way.
I came during the wet season (sunny and warm almost all the time I might add) and I have no idea how it looks like during the dry season when everybody comes. So this is of course, pretty subjective.
About the people, i found them lovely. People in latin america are really innocent in general.
Bolivians (native indigenes) acted like they were scared of us a little bit. A little suspicious. But I found everybody we talked to extra nice. Everyone. Extremely polite and helpful. Touchingly simple. And when they drink, they get extremely open and invite you all over. Very funny. You see evreywhere the mamitas with their two braids, with bowler hats and pleated skirts. They´re all small and fat (but it´s better in the south).
We really enjoyed the food (I heard about very bad turista experience from some friends in Bolivia, but I guess we were lucky) excellent meat, excellent fruits and fruits salad with honey and "granola"... mmmm my favorite! Excellent advocados!

I wanna go back to Bolivia, the landscapes are just unbelievable and there´s so much I haven´t seen.

Potosi - La Paz

Potosi is one of the main cities of Bolivia, it´s actually one of the highest cities having more than 100,000 inhabitants in the world. it is well known for its mines, hundreds and thousands of it. Silver mines where slavery lasted for decades.
It´s a very nice city, pleasant, with a lot of small streets, the kind of city you won´t expect to encounter in this country. Very nice. After the trek in the Salar, we really needed a rest, we arrived during the afternoon, found a hostel (La campaña de Jesus, an ancient monastery) had diner and went to sleep.
The next day, we had a nap on the afternoon after lunch (still very tired) and went up to have a view on the city, just near the mines, we saw the miners going back home after work. We didn´t want to visit a mine (the main attraction in the city) I, because of the claustrophobia, and Adrien because he didn´t want to be stuck in a tiny place. We visited a museum instead (the Santa Theresa museum) an ancient monastery. It was very interesting, kind of crazy also. Inside we met our friends from the tour, Gunther and Nathalie! So funny. After the best diner ever, we went to a tiny bar "Top bar" to have a drink, it was a small place with very nice music and gentle old barman.
We were both really sick at night and slept horribly.
The next day there was a party in the main square, with music and a lot of flowers, definetely I love bolivian´s street fiestas! We went to buy our bus tickets at the bus station using a collectivos , it´s funny how much you see using the public transportation. People were really nice with us. Really helpful.
We had lunch in a veggie place, and second time we encountered our friends Gunther and Nathalie! Had lunch all together and they left for Sucre. We tryed to have a rest in a hostel and somehow left after some eating and a lot of tea. (They have very good tea)

We spend the night in the bus to Lima, both slept like babies all the way. Arrived in the morning around 6 pm went to the same hostel, had a rest, went back to the indian restaurant for a good lunch menu and did some shopping.

After a short night sleep, Adrien went to the airport and I went to the bus station at 4.30am.

I took the bus to Arica, the way is known to be the most spectacular route that cross the Andes, and seriously it was! Amazing landscapes, mountains, snow, lamas of course, lagoons, clear blue lake, volcanos, and at some point, I woke up surrounded with dunes, sand all over, and the fresh humid air, I knew I was close to the ocean. Such a good air, comparing to the desert. I think I had enough with the dryed cold desert.

Now, it´s time to swim.