35 - Chile - San Pedro, La Serena, Santiago, Valparaiso, Pucon

My first stop in Chile was San Pedro de Atacama. If you remember from the last blog entry my three day tour of the salt flats and lagoons in Bolivia ended by dropping me off at the Chilean border. From there I bussed about an hour to San Pedro. Chile and Bolivia are completely different, and it's amazing that they share a border. Bolivia is really undeveloped while parts of Chile could be confused for Europe or the United States. I was in a Bolivian market one week looking at cowheads and live chickens, and the next week I was in a megastore in Chile staring at hundreds of flat screen TVs. The only similarity between the two markets was the plasma (hahahaha). Talk about culture shock.

San Pedro was really beautiful. I did a nice tour of the valleys surrounding San Pedro. At the end of the tour we watched an amazing sunset over Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley).

I stayed in San Pedro for a few days, and then I took an overnight 17 HOUR bus ride south down to La Serena. La Serena was a nice town on the coast, but Chile is getting into winter, so it was too cold to go in the water. Instead I went to the circus.

The circus was great because the girl I was traveling with and I arrived a little before the show began and we got a backstage tour and met all the performers and the owner. Then during the show the performers kept looking over at us and giving us the thumbs-up. I think I could have joined that circus if I wanted to. It would have been fun, but I had to get on my way to meet up with my mom in Santiago.


From La Serena I took another overnight bus to Santiago. My mom wasn't arriving until the next day, so I took the time to go to a small town outside of Santiago where I ate a delicious 1/2 kilo empanada for lunch.

The following day I was at last happily reunited with Momma Cermak.

Happy mom and daughter.

My mom was in Santiago for the World Federation Occupational Therapy conference. This conference only happens once every four years, and this year it just happened to be in Santiago, Chile, which worked perfectly for me because I got to be with my Momma again!

She presented one day at the conference, and I was lucky enough to get to watch. Great job, Mom!

One day my mom played hookie and skipped the conference. We went on a nice tour around Santiago, and took a funicula up to a mirador that looked out over the whole city.

Once the conference was over we (me, my mom, and two of my mom's friends/colleagues, Missy and Noomi) headed on a road trip to Valparaiso on the coast.

Here we are stopped at a great fast food joint along our drive. We ate steak sandwiches smothered with tomatoes, guacamole, and mayonaise. Mmmmmm. If you're wondering, "How is Amanda eating all that food without getting fat?"... I'm not. I am getting fat. But it's worth it. Every bite of that sandwich was amazing.

Our first day in Valparaiso (Valpo) we took a short boat ride around the harbor. We saw lots of sea lions, and got a great view of the city.

Valpo is built in the hills, and the whole city is narrow streets lined with beautiful, colorful houses.

On Mother's day we did a tour and tasting at a nearby wine vineyard.

Mom, Missy, me, and Noomi in the wine cellar.

Noomi, me, and Mom with the vineyard behind us.


It was a really pretty vineyard with the mountains in the back.

They gave us lots of good wine to try. What a wonderful day with the three moms!


Our last day in Valpo we drove up along the coast and stopped at really nice viewpoints.

After Valpo we all headed back to Santiago, so the mom´s could catch their flights home, and I was off on my own again. Thanks for a wonderful time, Mom, Missy, and Noomi!


My last stop in Chile was 11 hours south of Santiago in a small ski town called Pucón in the lakes region of Chile. Pucón reminded me of a mix between Colorado with the beautiful rocky mountains and fall in New Hampshire with the changing color leaves. One of the most popular things to do from Pucón is to hike Volcan Villarrica.


Volcan Villarica is the most active volcano in the Chilean Andes. The hike to the top was about five hours. For the first hour or so we hiked along this chairlift.
Then we hiked up through the clouds.
The second half of the hike was on glaciar, so we had to put on crampons and use an ice axe.
Up and up and up... what a work out!

And five hours later we finally reached the top!
This is the crater of the volcano. We saw lava a couple times when it exploded out, but I wasn´t able to get a photo of it. Really cool though.

This is a picture of the view from the top.





And this is a video showing how we got down the volcano...

Hiking the volcano was incredible, but man alive was I sore afterward. Good thing I had already booked a tour to the thermal hot springs for the evening. That night I soaked in the steaming hot natural pools underneath the starry sky. Just another amazing day in South America.