After a reasonably comfortable night on the bus - no wine, Tia Maria or hellish snorers this time - we arrived in Pucón in the heart of Chile's Lake District. In actual fact we appeared to have arrived in an out of season Swiss ski resort. The main street and the newer parts of town in particular consist of wooden chalet-style buildings. A lake to one side and overlooked by a snowcapped volcano on the other, it is a very pretty town indeed. There is in fact a s...

Final day in Santiago before heading south to the Lake District. First on the agenda was Cerro San Cristóbal, a viewpoint hill by Bellavista with an extensive park behind it. The funicular railway to the top was, typically, under renovation and so the options were to walk up, wait (a very long time) for a free shuttle bus or wait for a cab. It being a nice day we opted for a pleasant walk. It turned out to be 6km uphill to the top. After 20 minutes in the scor...

And back to Santiago. The 16th was primarily comfortably spent on buses travelling back to the capital via La Serena. We arrived late evening and opted for a meat feast at a restaurant close to the hostel. Due to lack of planning we were not in the boutique Bellavista hostel this time but in a more standard backpacker place, albeit close by. First stop the following morning was Centro Cultural Palacio de la Moneda, where there was an extensive exhibit of 20th c...

We awoke to a drizzly grey day, not quite the ideal star grazing conditions. A search of weather websites showed the forecast for Vicuña, our stargazing base, to vary from clear blue skies to cloud laden and rainy. A sense of dread was forming. Curious quirk of the hostel, individual breakfasts were left in Tupperware boxes outside your room in the morning. Basic but cute! We boarded a bus for the 90 minute journey inland to Vicuña and promptly fell asleep. W...

Chile is one of the best places in the world for astronomy. Unfortunately we weren't able to do it in San Pedro due to it being a full moon and cloudy sky. Not ideal. However the Elqui Valley north of Santiago is also home to several observatories and is world renowned. The weather forecast looked perfect and so we decided to make the trip. First leg was a 7 hour bus up to the town of La Serena on the coast. A very popular holiday town, inexplicably 2km from th...