Best of Chile

Three things really impacted our days in Chile: nature, culture, and history. We will always remember the diversity and beauty of the landscapes of this country. From South to North, Chile has a biodiversity to please and infatuate nature lovers: the high mountains and unique rock formations of the Andes, the snowy peaks with multiple active volcanoes, the fjords of the South, and the desert in the north. Make sure to read our articles about Trekking Patagonia and the Atacama Desert to learn more about the treasures this territory has to offer. People all over the country were friendly, helpful, and kind to us. We were surprised by how often we saw passionate public display of affection between young couples in Chile. Although people in this country seem generally more conservative and Catholic than in Argentina or Uruguay, the affection between “pololos” (boyfriend/girlfriend) is very open. We felt encouraged to publicly demonstrate our affection too!! We also loved and felt inspired by the cultural centers in Santiago and Valparaiso, with their fantastic architecture and expositions. In all the cities we visited, we noticed a high number of street dogs, which despite not having a home look very well fed and even wearing a sweater sometimes. We were told that people in Chile takes care of these streets dogs, which is both kind and problematic. The streets of the beautiful UNESCO heritage site of Valparaiso were full of dog excrement which makes it an obstacle course trying to have a pleasant walk through the colorful hills. We also liked learning about two of the greatest writers of Chile: Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. Visiting Pablo Neruda’s and Matilde Urrutia’s, his wife’s, three houses: La Chascona, La Sebastiana, and Isla Negra made us dream. We fell in love with Neruda’s style and decorations, where secretive, social, and bohemian spaces connect to outdoor gardens and beloved views of the ocean. Although we struggled to find coherence between the abundance and comfort of Neruda’s lifestyle with his outspoken political affiliation to the Communist Party in Chile where poverty exists, we cannot deny we wish we could one day build a house like his for ourselves. Although Gabriela Mistral was the first Latin American writer awarded the Nobel Prize in 1945, she was never as recognized before or even after her award as was Pablo Neruda in his time. As a woman that never married, who dedicated her life to writing, and smoked in public without fear, she was not well seen in a very repressive and religious country. Another top experience in Chile was our days of WWOOFing in the Central region. We volunteered with a local family at their organic farm outside a small town named Pelequen harvesting grapes, learning how to make fresh wine cider, and feeding different animals daily. While in Chile, we learned more about all the native plants and vegetables of the American continent that have been shared with the rest of the world: potatoes, beans, cocoa, tomatoes, avocados, cassava, bell peppers, peanuts, cucumber, pumpkins, vanilla, corn, custard apple, etc.