Calamaty

A scant four hours after going to bed, following our Latin dinner, the alarm rang and it was off to the airport to catch our flight to Atacama.  The Atacama Desert is the driest in the world, covering a huge swathe of northern Chile on its high-altitude plateau.  It is definitely a highlight of our trip, including star gazing in the incredibly clear skies (lots of countries have observatories here), visiting the salt desert, floating in the Chilean equivalent of the Dead Sea...this really is an amazing region.

We flew into Calama, the main airport.  There are two things to do in Calama; one is to arrive by plane, and the other is to leave as quickly as you can.  The Lonely Planet guide to Chile describes the place in ways that should not appear on a family-orientated blog, but let's just say that they are completely accurate.

Things started well when we got to walk down steps off the plane!  I thought that was made illegal in the 1980s, but they rolled the staircase up to the door and down we got onto the runway tarmac.  I didn't kneel and kiss it, not wanting to offend local Roman Catholic sensibilities.

We then witnessed an epic battle trying to rent a car, where the local rental firm (who have a little desk right next to baggage claim) were adamant you couldn't rent one for four days.  You had to agree to rent for three and then they would charge you for the fourth when you were late returning it on the third.  Silvi and Ignacio played good-cop-bad-cop to get their confirmed four day booking, with Silvi as the bad one.  Pretty scary.  And although you can book and pay for GPS they don't and never have offered it.  Apparently it doesn't work in Calama.

Finally we drove away, didn't manage to get a scheduled tour of a mine (they "forgot" to change the website when they changed the tour details...18 months ago), and found ourselves eating Kentucky Fried Chicken in a shopping mall.  I guess we should have had low expectations with that one, but none of what we were served had been cooked within the last day.  And they'd run out of ketchup.  Silvi and Ignacio were happy to draw comparisons between Santiago and Chile's more remote provinces, but the gap is a real and difficult one for a government desperate to modernise.  Thankfully we finally managed to escape Calama's pull and set out into the vast expanse of the Atacama plains.

5am - not pretty.

6am - still not pretty.

Putting those MBAs to work (Silvi is actually doing everything).

All, or most, happy on the plane.

Disembarkation at the other end.

There's no duty free.

What did I expect?  Well...something warm, at least.

A KFC empanada.  Or empty-ada, as it should more accurately have been called.

Hannah is rightfully suspicious of her salad.

Consumption function

It was a return to the good old days tonight with a barbecue at Raimundo and Tere's apartment here in Santiago.  How little changes!  We still discussed the high-level topics of the day - politics, Latin American economics, who's going to win the forthcoming rugby World Cup (hint: Wales) - all while eating wonderful food cooked by Raimundo on his barbecue, which now overlooks the financial district rather than a train line in Albany.

The one thing that has changed rather massively is Teresita!  Last time we saw her she was a dark haired, round faced, cuddly baby.  Now she is a tall and beautiful girl!  She also has a taste for pistachios, so Hannah became an instant friend by cracking as many as she could eat.  A lot.

Oh, and we also sat down for dinner at 11pm.  I've never started a dinner that late in my life.  I'm not sure I've ever been awake that late in my life!  But when in LatAm...

Teresita - she's almost as tall as her father now!

Talking of which, Raimundo arrives with pisco sour.

Hannah finds employment.

Asado on the balcony.

Pete, dutiful father.

Just to prove I was not exaggerating.

Dessert, somewhere around midnight.  But when it's Dulce de Leche and chocolate chip ice cream, it's worth the wait.

Alumni and partners - just like old times!

Guided tours

It's been two days of tours around the great city of Santiago.  The first was an exclusive personal excursion by Ignacito and Silvi, taking in the Palacio Cousino, a full-scale replica of the Sacre Coeur, and the furniture making district.  The Palacio used to be owned by a Chilean coal baron, but has unfortunately been closed since the big earthquake.  It's still an impressive sight surrounded by its gardens and a park.  The Basílica de los Sacramentinos is a little harder to fathom.  Someone just wanted a church that looked exactly the same as one in Paris.  Why not?

Today we followed up with a tour of Santiago's downtown, basically finding out what we were looking at on Monday.  It was free - yes, very unlike us - and promised to show us the real city.  This included the uniquely Chilean cafe con piernas or "coffee with legs" phenomenon.  Cappuccinos are served to you by women in incredibly skimpy bikinis, and four times a day you can enjoy "happy minute" when they do it topless.  I think I'll stick to Starbucks.

We also took in Chilean politics at the Palacio de la Moneda, enjoyed a (without legs) coffee in Lastarria, learned of the terremoto cocktail that sounds even better than the pisco sour (white wine, pisco, pineapple ice cream), passed through the Bellavista district of student bars, and finished at the house of Nobel Prize-winning poet Pablo Neruda - a man who loved the sea but never stepped in it because he couldn't swim.

After all that it was back to Silvi and Ignacio's flat for a cup of tea with some dulce de leche-filled croissants.  Tonight we're having a barbecue with all the Haas people but because we have to be up at 4am to catch a flight to Atacama, Silvi asked if it could start early.  So it was moved forward to 8.30pm.  Ahhh, Latin America!

The Palacio Cousino.  A nice house with a good central location.

Tour guide #1.  He's very good at leading you up steps and then jumping off.

Pot plant.

A typical Chilean family.

One of the previous owners?

Latin ladies.

Yes, it's the Sacre Coeur, a long way from home, and not on a hill.

Pigeons admire the ironwork.

We even had our own driver!

We went to Pete and Fini's for dinner, where Pete has already sold the advertising space on his daughter.  That's entrepreneurship!

DELICIOUS empanadas.  And Argentinean ones, which Fini claims are far superior to their Chilean counterparts.  I'm not getting into that battle.

A typical Argentinean family.

Look, a smile!  I knew I could get one out of her.

What could have attracted us to this tour?

At the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art.  Which leads me to believe we are now post-Columbian.

The back of the Palacio de la Moneda (which used to be where they minted the coins, and was bombed in Pinochet's coup).

President Allende, the man deposed by Pinochet.  He was a Marxist, and the statue is somewhat controversial.  Several people shouted things about it while we were standing and looking at it.

Nuts 4 Nuts.  A Chilean invented the honey roasted peanut, took it to New York, made a fortune, and was then begged by Chile to bring it back.  There are on every corner now.

A slightly more civilised cup of coffee in a cafe that's an ex-castle.

Lastarria district - arty.

Maria, Heyzus and Hozay.

Someone almost as famous as them.

A rather beautiful, and ultra-conservative, Opus Dei church.

The Parque Forestal that runs all along the river.

The Mapocho River, such as it is.  It needs some snow melt to make it more impressive.

Bellavista, a bit like the Mission in SF.

The classier side of the district.

Pablo Neruda's house, built to look like a ship so he could pretend to be at sea without taking unnecessary risks.

The final stop of the tour.

Enjoying the empanadas I stole from Fini last night.

On our way home, using one of Santiago's more famous buildings to find our way.  It's owned by a phone company, and built to look like a mobile phone!  Except it was constructed in the early 90s, and phones are a bit sleeker nowadays...

World of Wine

Chile is famous for many things, the not least of which is el vino.  It's something they're rightfully proud of, and this evening we got to sample a nice proportion of it at bargain prices.  Ignacio's company was doing an exclusive tasting and 50% off sale at El Mundo del Vino, which is very much like BevMo! but without the Mo! That suited us just fine.

It's a shopping trolley designed to ONLY carry wine!  I need one.

Our sommelier picks out a fine vintage.

Luckily Ignacio had some foreign workers to help carry his wine home.