Santiago
Sprawling outwards and sky-scrapering upwards,
Chile's capital, Santiago, is immense. Its central
core, however, is manageable and relatively small
- a roughly triangular area bounded by the Rio
Mapocho on the north. It is a city of grand thoroughfares
and plazas, lined with public buildings and churches
and circled by parks. The
grid town plan imposed by the Spanish, however,
is conducive to traffic jams and pollution. It's
a city of contrast;to one side an ancient church
or museum and to the other a modern business building.The
Virgin Mary guards the city from the peak of the
860-metre Cerro San Cristóbal, part of the Parque
Santiago
at dawn surrounded by the Andes, July 1998
Metropolitano
recreational area. The city's attractions include
the colourful Mercado Central, the historical centre
of Plaza de Armas, the pedestrian mall of Paseo Ahumada
(haunt of buskers and pedlars) and the late-colonial
and block-filling Palacio de La Moneda - former mint,
presidential residence and the site of Allende's last
stand.
Factos
De Chile:
Chile stretches
4300 km from Peru to the Strait of Magellan.its
contrast include the scenic but very steril
Atacama Desert in the north, the metropolis
of Santiago and its Valle Central, a verdant
lake district, and the glacial landscape of
Patagonia in the south. Many Chileans are of
European descent but indigenous traditions persist.
A 3rd of Chiles pop.reside in Santiago. After
1848 many Germans settled in the Lake District.
Other immigrants came from France, Italy and
Yugoslavia.
Valparaíso
Lying 120km north-west of Santiago, Valpo is Chile's
principal port and second-largest city. Despite its
size, it is Chile's most distinctive city and one
of South America's most intriguing. Occupying a narrow
strip of land between the waterfront and the nearby
hills,
its convoluted centre has distinctive,sinuous
cobbled streets, and is overlooked by precipitous
cliffs and hilltop suburbs which are accessed by funicular
railways and stairway footpaths. It truly is a rabbit-warren
of a place, which probably only a lifetime resident
could completely fathom. It is conducive to maze-like
strolls and rides on the funicular, and its natural-history,
fine-arts and maritime museums are justly famed. Muelle
Prat, the recently redeveloped pier, is a lively market
area.
Viña
del Mar Chile's premier beach resort is only 10km
north of Valparaíso, and is popularly known as the Garden
City because of its manicured subtropical landscape
of palm and banana trees. Horse-drawn carriages trot
past attractive turn-of-the-century mansions on both
river and beach frontages. Other attractions are the
white-sand beaches, numerous parks and notable museums
housed in restored mansions. The town is also the home
of Chile's national botanical garden, comprising 61
hectares of native and exotic plants.
Los
Vilos is a small
and charming place.If you looking for peace and
nondisturbance that's the place to be...watching
the fishermen preparing their fish for sale, taking
long walks along the beach or having a little
chat with the locals...life is peaceful here!
The other enchanting fishingvillage is
Tongoy,
lying between Los Vilos and La Serena.Only local
buses go there, but once you are there it's a
very nice and friendly place.
Today, La Serena maintains a colonial air, although
it is threatening Viña del Mar's supremacy as premier
beach resort. Apart from a string of beautiful beaches,
attractions include a handful of museums and a number
of nearby quaint villages and vineyards.
La
Serena Important both historically and economically,the
beachside city of La Serena is one of Chile's oldest
post-Columbian cities. The region's silver, copper and
agriculture were so important that the city had
its own mint.
La Portada, July 1998
Antofagasta,1350km
north of Santiago and 700 km south of Arica,exports
most of the Atacama's minerals, especially copper.
The city itself is ugly and ordinary. the main reason
why people come, is to see "la Portada - 16 km
north of Antofagsta. la Portada is a photogenic,
natural arch erode from th pacific
Travelling
inland about 220 km from Antofagasta and 2700
metres above sea level you get to Calama,
the gateway to Chuquicamata, the oases of San
Pedro de Atacama and the eerie El Tatio geysers.
It's alsp the western terminus of the Calama-Oruro(Bolivia)
railway. The city is nothing special, but it has
a nice mexican restaurant. Chuquicamata,
a company town 16 km north of Calama, provides
half of Chile's copper output and at least 25%
of its total export income. Chuqui's 400-metre-deep
pit is the world's largest.
San
Pedro De Atacama is an oasis village at the very
north of the Salar de Atacama, a vast saline lake,
120 km south-east of Calama. To its east rise immense
volcanoes, both active and extinct. Nearby is the
Valle de la Luna(Valley of the Moon). At 2440 metres
above sea level, San Pedro's adobe houses preserve
a colonial feeling. In the early 20th century, the
village was a major stop on cattle drives from Argentina
to the nitrate mines, but the Salta-Antofagasta railway
this colourful era
15
km west of San Pedro lies Valle de la Luna.
It's an area of oddly eroded landforms. The reason
for its name is that at night the sand looks like
a starry sky from the refelxion of the moon.
The
Atacama Desert is the very north of Chile. The Atacama
region consists both of beautiful beaches and coastal
scenery and the dry and arid Atacama Desert,
The
way to Eternity
that
with its temperatures (max. 19 C in winther and 28 C
in summer)and other weather conditions forms a veru
interesting and unusual landscape.
In
the Atacama Desert you also find volcanoes, both
active and extinct , hot water springs -geysers-
and salt deposits and lakes.
Salt
Lakes
Valle
De La Luna, July 1998
Geyser
El Tatio
Parque
Nacional Puyehue Situated in the beautiful Lake
District, this is Chile's most popular national park.
It preserves 107,000 hectares of verdant montane forest
and starkly awesome volcanic scenery. Dense forest hides
puma, the rare pudú (a miniature deer) and prolific
bird life, including the Chilean torrent duck. Nature
trails, lake views, ski resorts, thermal springs, waterfalls
and examples of some of Chile's strange plant life,
in particular the umbrella-leaved nalca and multi-trunked
ulmo, are some of the many attractions which draw visitors.
Puerto
Montt Settled by German colonists in the mid-19th
century, this is one of southern Chile's most important
cities. It features middle-European architecture,
with shingles, high-pitched roofs and ornate balconies.
The redwood cathedral on the city's plaza is the city's
oldest building, dating from 1856. The city is the
transport hub and access point to the southern Lake
District, the island of Chiloé and Chilean Patagonia.
The nearby port of Angelmó and the island of Tenglo
offer a more relaxed atmosphere. Angelmó has an outstanding
crafts market and fabulous seafood.
Vulcano
Osorno
-
Outside Puerto Montt - Nov.1998
Volcán
Osorno This flawless cone sits in the Parque Nacional
Vicente Pérez Rosales, the first national park in
Chile, and is surrounded by wonderful natural attractions.
Beautiful Lago Todos Los Santos is the centrepiece
of the park, looking over the thickly wooded vista
to the volcano, and offering ferry trips to nearby
lakeside villages. Osorno can be climbed, and is a
popular skiing spot.
Chiloé Only about 180km
long and 50km wide, the Isla Grande de Chiloé is a
well-watered, densely forested island of undulating
hills, with a temperate maritime climate. It is linked
to the Chilean mainland by ferries departing from
the island's northern tip. Its towns feature distinctive
shingled houses and stilt homes, and its weather is
known for precipitation and fog. When visible, however,
a majestic panorama across the gulf to the snow-capped
volcanoes of the mainland are revealed.
Ancud
and Castro are the only two sizeable towns, but there
are over 150 picturesque wooden churches servicing the
island's small villages. Parque Nacional Chiloé protects
extensive stands of native coniferous and evergreen
forest and a long and almost pristine coastline. The
rare pudú also lives here.
Easter
Island (Rapa Nui)
Lying 3700km west of the Chilean mainland,
enigmatic Easter Island is the world's most remote
inhabited island. It is actually more Polynesian
than Chilean, though the presence of Pacific Islanders
in this isolated part of the world is as much
a mystery as how their descendants managed to
design and sculpt the hundreds of colossal statues
(moai) from hard volcanic basalt - let alone transport
them from the inland quarries to the coast. This
really is off the beaten track: you can sail more
than 1900km in any direction without sighting
inhabited land. Chile officially annexed the island
in 1888 during the period of expansion which followed
the War of the Pacific. Only about 2000 people
live on the island, and nearly all of them live
in the town of Hanga Roa. The population is 70%
Polynesian, with most of the remainder coming
from the Chilean mainland. The island is virtually
an open-air national park, and boasts 300 moais
and related stonework
The
way to Eternity
