In a few hours I am off to Argentina. By bus. 16 hours. oooer.
For those of you who do contact me by phone, my Chilean number won’t function outside the country, so good luck with that (lol@you).
I’ll be going to Cordoba first. I’ll keep you updated 
Farewell to all my friends in Santiago - I am going to miss you a lot!
Take care everyone, I love you all.
Carly
I did so much in my last month in Santiago. Next week I am leaving Chile for Argentina and eventually to Bolivia for a few months.
I went to Grainne’s farewell at her house (nicknamed the Pisco Disco) and met some of the most awesome people in Santiago. Abraham, a very talented drummer who has now gone to England to compete for a scholarship to study music; Cristhian, a software developer / network admin who also DJs on Santiago Radio and other clubs - now gone back to Bolivia to visit his family for a while; Cris’ girlfriend Bio, an Italian with a great sense of humour and who is a lot of fun; Mauricio and Christian, whose professions are cinematography and who produce music videos among other things; Pablo, a photographer…. ah, so many cool people. Hi guys!
I partied at the Pisco Disco many times over the last month or so, including catching some of Abraham’s concerts with various groups. I had a lot of fun 
Dennis and I went to the Pre-Columbian Museum in Santiago (don’t miss it) as well as the Museum of Natural History at Quinta Normal (missable… nothing special). We went for a walk through Quinta Normal park too which was nice enough, though nothing too spectacular.
I checked out Parque Arauco, which is really just a shopping mall and doesn’t reflect anything of Chilean culture at all, except the division between rich and poor.
I went with Rose to the Exposición del Cuerpo (Exhibition of the Body) where human bodies have been plasticised and sliced and diced and made available to the public. It was very interesting, though I also learnt that this particular exhibition has some questions raised over the source of the bodies used - some believe they may have been underhandedly acquired from asia.
I enjoyed two symphonic orchestra concerts with my friend Dennis: one was the Santiago Symphonic Orchestra, one a combined concert of the Youth Orchestras from Munich, Germany and Chile. The youth orchestra concert was free at the Catholic University - there are so many free and awesome events in Santiago… Make sure you catch some of them!
I went to an Inti Illimani concert with Patricio and his family, to also support Pato’s cousin who is the percussionist in the supporting band. Both groups were great.
Dennis and I also went to a performance at the Goethe Insitut. We thought it would be some classical style music but it turned out to be “experimental” (a bit much for us).
I went with the Pisco Disco guys to some of Abraham’s concerts and also to an album launch to see Christian Carmona’s music video being displayed to the public for the first time. Excellent work on both counts.
Dennis and I went to Valparaiso again for a weekend and were lucky enough to be there when the weather was perfect. It was sunny, a very slight breeze, warm (about 18 degrees or so) and we walked a lot and took some very cool photographs. Dennis is a great person to spend time with (very relaxed and easy going) and I really enjoyed this experience at Valpo.
We went to the old prison at the top of one of the cerros, which is now a public space for art and music. The vibe there was so strong and unique. A very special place. We also went out dancing on Saturday night in Valpo which was cool too.
I think Valpo is my favourite place in Chile so far, and if I come back I want to go there again. There are one million more photos from this trip on my Flickr page.
My visa was getting a bit tight so I went to Mendoza, Argentina for a weekend. The pass through the Andes closes every night in winter (and sometimes in the day in bad weather) so there are a lot of people trying to get through last thing at night. After a three hour wait at the border I got through and arrived in Mendoza at midnight, without having booked a hostel. Luckily I chatted to another traveller and went with him to a hostel nearby which was clean and relatively cheap, if not very quiet.
I wandered around Mendoza, feeling somewhat weird after all the familiar faces and action of the big city of Santiago. Mendoza is very quiet. I walked around quite a bit and was just starting to get comfortable when I returned to Santiago. Unlucky for me when I arrived at the bus terminal I realised I had forgotten to change my watch to local time and had missed my bus by half an hour (d’oh).
So I paid for another ticket in a microbus and when I arrived at the loooong waiting line at the border spoke to the conductor on my original bus (held up in in the line too) and changed to my original, more comfortable, warmer bus for the rest of the journey.
I practiced both my violin and mandolin much more. Last week I took my violin up to Cerro San Cristobal and sat in the sun and played and sang for a few hours. To my surprise some people walking by stopped and sat with me and one guy started humming / singing harmonies. It was really cool - especially because I can neither sing nor play very well, haha.
I also jammed with my cousin a lot, with him playing either the chaurango or piano. I really love music even though I make it poorly (he is much better than me!).
I caught up with Rosemarie (what up, chica!) for shopping, talking, drinks, and everything in between; Dennis (of course), Patricio, the guys from the Pisco Disco (Cris, Abraham, Mauricio, Francisco and all the rest), Luis, Jorge, Diego, my friends at the Dublin Pub, Club 102 and the Ex Fabrica Club…. I had a lot of fun with you all.
Thank you for being so awesome - I will miss you.
On Friday morning I arrived at a hostel in San Pedro to meet my new travel mates - the guys on the Pachamama tour back to Santiago. First I met one Yerson Muñoz - our guide - a young Chilean with a wicked sense of humour and an unhealthy enjoyment of teaching bad spanish words to foreigners.
My other travel partners were two English couples who knew each other from England and so were very relaxed and a lot of fun. Because the bus was quite empty we could stretch out and take up more room than my trip north to San Pedro - awesome.
I also learnt a whole bunch more Spanish (read: bad words) and, as Yerson was quite relaxed, was comfortable enough to practice a bit of mine. While this sometimes resulted in being laughed at, it was all good, haha.
We left San Pedro a little late (one of the guys had his new iPod stolen and exchanged for a crappy damaged one without music in San Pedro and needed to go to the cops about it for insurance). We stopped by a ruined town in the middle of the desert which was sorta cool.
As a result of leaving late we arrived at Pan de Azucar after sunset… we got out, walked around the bus a little and then decided to push on to the cabins at Bahia Iglesa again rather than camp in the cold at the park. lol.
We stayed that night at Bahia Iglesia again - a reason for another barbeque (awesome). Some music and drinks and then off again to Valle Elqui.
We stayed two nights here… the first night we went to Mamalluca observatory which was pretty cool. This observatory is not a research observatory - rather it is for tourists and education only. We listened to a presentation on the origins and formation of the universe, the lifecycle of stars etc. Then we went up to the dome and had a peek through the big telescope at such things as Jupiter, the Moon and some star clusters. Afterwards we were able to take pictures of the moon through some smaller telescopes outside.
Later we visited “disco” which was pretty ordinary, but we had some drinks and danced anyway, haha. We went to go back to the hostel at about 4am but Yerson was also a bit tipsy and got us lost on the walk home, ahaha. Eventually we all arrived in one piece.
The next day we (finally) got up and Andy and I decided to participate in the day’s activities - horse riding and a tour of the Capelo Pisco Factory. In reality the tour of the factory was not very interesting, and the horse riding (for only a half hour I think) was very short, though the view from the mountain was pretty cool. I think if I go horse riding again I want to ride for a longer time.
We had a quiet night that night - I think we were still tired from the night before.
The last day of the trip took us through Fray Jorge National Park just for a toilet stop and a half hour walk. The walk was nice enough - you can see the different types of vegetation in the different parts of the hills depending on the height and whether direct sunlight is received or not. All very interesting.
I don’t have many photos this time because really I wasn’t in the mood for taking photos, though a lot of the scenery was quite beautiful.
I was disappointed at the speed of the tour especially on the way back. There was a lot of driving, and unfortunately waiting for an entire week for the next bus was, in most places, too much time… Maybe it would be better in Summer when the buses come through a few times a week rather than just once. Hmm.
In general, Pachamama was a good service, though there is a lot of driving involved covering these distances, especially on the return leg.
Poor old PGR, so neglected. Please prepare for a barrage of posts as I cover my adventures of the last two months 
So, I spent a little over a week in San Pedro de Atacama while I waited for the Pachamama bus to return and take me back to Santiago.
So I stayed in San Pedro de Atacama from Thursday night, Saturday morning my group left on the tour and I moved with a friend to another hostel a bit closer to the centre of town and a bit warmer.
The next few days were quite relaxed… I walked around the town; I picked a direction and walked in the desert for a few hours; I found a book trader and a hammock in the sun and read; I went to the markets and the museum.
When my friend left for Bolivia I decided I would actually do something… I went to a tour office to arrange for a tour to the Geysers del Tatío, where I started chatting with a girl from Ireland named Grainne. We realised we were going to the same tour in the morning and that we were both travelling solo and got talking… we decided to go horse riding together too one day, and for dinner that night.
While I was relaxing that afternoon a strapping young Chilean man spotted me in the hammock and asked me if I could recommend any places to go. He introduced himself as Patricio (Pato) and he was visiting San Pedro for a week with his friend Rosemarie.
He and Rose joined Grainne and I for dinner - we all got along very well and had some fun. Over the next few days we hung out quite a bit together and were joined by others from Brasil, Turkey and the United States.
Grainne and I went to the Geysers del Tatío - a 4am start and -15ºC at the Geysers at sunrise, but beautiful. It was funny, on the way back you get to see cute llamas and then you stop in a village called Machuco and you get to eat them. Hahaha.
We also went horseriding in the Valle de la Muerte, again beautiful, though it was the first time I’d been on a horse in more than 10 years and I felt quite uncomfortable for the first hour. The saddles were also different to in Australia, and the horses were trained for single-handed control (I’ve no idea what the proper name for that is) which was weird to get used to.
Grainne, Rosemarie, Arturo, Pato and I decided to go for a walk to the Valle de la Meurte for some fun. We packed some water and a bit of food and trudged off into the middle of the desert. A combination of me being very unfit, walking on sand with bad knees, the heat and the altitude made for an easily exhausted Carly, so when Grainne and Pato (both marathon runners) decided to climb up the steepest part of the biggest sand dune in the valley, and Rose and Arturo decided they would clamber over the rocks nearby, I sat myself down in waved them on. It took them over an hour to scale the damn thing, and I could hear Pato repeatedly exclaiming “oh shit” as he and Grainne realised that they could no longer walk up the sand and needed to crawl the rest of the way… this was 1/3 of the way up.
But they finally made it and were (rightfully) very proud of themselves.
We also visited nearby Quitor, a ruin of a native village and fort which was the location of the first Spanish defeat in the area. There was a great feeling there, especially at the top with such a broad view across the valleys.
After all this I prepared to head back down to Santiago with Pachamama… (next installment)
As usual, more photos can be found on my Flickr Profile.