Chile

Well I am back in the USA after a great trip to Chile. I got to see quite a lot of the country and was very impressed - being so long and thin Chile has a lot of different climate zones and has quite a lot to offer as a tourist destination. I got to see the bit at the bottom (Torres Del Paine in Patagonia) and the bit at the top (the Atacama Desert) with a quick look around Santiago and Valparaiso in the middle.


I arrived in Santiago after a tiring trip (via Los Angeles and Atlanta) and had a quick look around the city on the afternoon of my arrival. It is a clean and modern city but in many ways unremarkable. On a clear smog free day, the view would be spectacular as the high Andes are quite close to the city but as you can see below, it was not really that clear. Surprisingly there does not seem to be a lot of historical sites or many colonial buildings - perhaps as a result of it being the recipient of some serious earthquakes (in 1960 Chile had the largest earthquake ever instrumentally recorded - 9.5 on the Richter Scale).

For me the most interesting place was the Palacio De La Moneda, where Salvador Allende allegedly committed suicide under siege by the army back in 1973. The palace suffered aerial bombardment during the coup but there were no signs of that now. Since that time and the restitution of democracy they have erected a statue to Senor Allende and there were many fresh flowers around laid at the statue's base. It is still an issue that is contentious in the country after all these years.


Of course as I write this, the main perpetrator of the coup (not counting the US government that is) General Augusto Pinochet has suffered a heart attack.

So after an afternoon in Santiago, it was on to Patagonia - a lot more interesting area which I will write about later in the week.