Santiago : picking up camper and staying in wacky air b n b ! Should have said that we visited Pablo Neruda’s house as well a real right of passage for all Chileans.
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8th Jan 2017: Fly to Santiago
Day 22
Our Argentinian taxi driver to the airport was a 60 year old ex rocker nursing a hangover, but spoke English perfectly. Growing up in Buenos Aires, at his private school, if he didn’t speak English he was beaten.
Years of too much sex, drugs and rock and roll told on his lined face and in his gravelly voice, but he certainly made our trip to the airport most entertaining. He went to London to study rock music just after the Falklands war and the street in which he stayed was called “Falklands Islands”. He loved irony. His classmate is now a successful politician and he was a taxi driver. Both Neil and I suspected we’d prefer the taxi driver to come to a dinner party.
Our flight past over the high reaching and dramatic snow covered Andes. We were both very excited to see Chile.
Santiago was even hotter than Buenos Aires. We passed a shanty town along a river on our way to our next Airbnb. A student we met at the airport in BA was studying a masters in International Economics and told us that Chile was the fastest growing economy in S America, so perhaps these people will have a chance at some point in the future. We hoped so.
Our accommodation was a little bizarre really. It was in a university part of town with links to Oxford on a plaque. The owner looked like he could be a PhD student. He’d painted a couple of simple rooms in vivid colours and our breakfast table was an old wooden ironing board outside. We applauded his entrepreneurial spirit.
We didn’t see much of Santiago as we were only there for a night before picking up the campervan. We wandered a few streets in search of a restaurant passing endless car parts shops until we found a pizza place near a square. We noticed some buildings in the area were being restored and hoped that some prosperity might be returning. Pinoche was long gone!!
At the end of the evening a very entertaining rock and roll band started performing in the square and people of all persuasions came to listen. Is was a quirky end to our first evening in Chile.
9th Jan 2017: WICKED campervan!
Day 23
It was wicked!!! It had 2 slogans on the back :
“Love like you are 81
Love like you are 18”
the lower line had been changed from “F*** like you are 18” !!! (Fortunately)
The sides of the van were painted with pot smoking cartoon characters. The police are bound to ignore us now!
But it was perfect for us. The back opened up into a make shift kitchen. Between that and the front seats were three small mattresses forming a bed, with huge storage space below.
We were offered to help ourselves to anything previous campers had left. So we ended up with 2 duvets, lots of kitchen utensils and food. The only thing we needed to buy was a petrol container.
We were set! The van had no air conditioning, so we immediately drove out of Santiago to escape the heat, to make the long drive to the coast to search out Pablo Neruda’s house. On the way we made the customary stop at a supermarket to stock up with food, tea, wine, beer, G&T etc. All the essentials for campervan camping.
After hours of driving, finally the air chilled with a welcome sea breeze as we approached the coast, but only to find miles and miles of holiday apartments similar to southern Spain.
And so on we drove on past the end of the built up areas until we found a large empty car park with access to the beach and a loo.
I turned our van into a home while Neil ventured out for a swim.
We had a small camping gas type of cooker so started our cooking with pasta and sauce and our tour drink, Campari and Soda.
A great day.
Then bed.
10th Jan 2017: Pablo Neruda’s house
Day 24
We both slept really well during our first night in the van. The bed was comfortable and the temperature perfect. We had two curtain poles which fitted cleverly across the inside of the van front and back for privacy, which we didn’t need, but would prove useful keeping out the early morning sun. Breakfast was easy: cereal, fruit and cups of tea. Soon we were on the road.
Pablo Neruda is one of Chile’s most famous men. He’s known mostly as a Nobel Prize winning poet, but was also a politician and Chile’s foreign ambassador in many countries. This house, Casa Isla Negra was his third of three houses situated on the sea front and where he was happiest. He had named it “Isla Negra” probably because of the black rocks. It wasn’t an island but maybe he felt it was due to the isolation of the house which was perched on rocks above the sea shore with many huge windows facing the sea.
It was a fascinating house, full of quirky memorabilia from all over the world. The house grew with him as he’d add extensions for his various hobbies. His living room had maidens from the front of shipwrecks gazing out to sea from whence they came.
We learnt more about this remarkable man and his fights for justice for all. His father had been a poor railway worker and was very much against the idea of his son being a poet, but Pablo Neruda persevered into successful careers, never forgetting his roots where he fought for civil and human rights. He had three wives, the last of whom lived with him at this house. Just after Pinochet’s brutal military coup in 1976, Neruda was taken to hospital suffering from cancer, where he died four days later. His human rights activities were very much against Pinoche’s military approach so there has always been speculation around the circumstances of his death.
His wife continued to fight for human rights until her own death 12 years later.
With no air conditioning in the van, we decided to escape the heat and take the long open motorway south. We drove until we tired early evening then decided to look for a wild camp.
Various guides recommended camping for free at service stations as most had hot showers for a small fee. They were clean facilities and many lorry drivers and campers stayed there, but we both agreed it was too noisy for a decent night’s sleep being so close to the motorway. We drove on, took the next exit and followed a dusty dirt road until we found a quiet place to stop. The only sounds we heard through the night were dogs and a cockerel in the farm nearby.
South America 
8th Jan 2017: Fly to Santiago
Day 22
Our Argentinian taxi driver to the airport was a 60 year old ex rocker nursing a hangover, but spoke English perfectly. Growing up in Buenos Aires, at his private school, if he didn’t speak English he was beaten.
Years of too much sex, drugs and rock and roll told on his lined face and in his gravelly voice, but he certainly made our trip to the airport most entertaining. He went to London to study rock music just after the Falklands war and the street in which he stayed was called “Falklands Islands”. He loved irony. His classmate is now a successful politician and he was a taxi driver. Both Neil and I suspected we’d prefer the taxi driver to come to a dinner party.
Our flight past over the high reaching and dramatic snow covered Andes. We were both very excited to see Chile.
Santiago was even hotter than Buenos Aires. We passed a shanty town along a river on our way to our next Airbnb. A student we met at the airport in BA was studying a masters in International Economics and told us that Chile was the fastest growing economy in S America, so perhaps these people will have a chance at some point in the future. We hoped so.
Our accommodation was a little bizarre really. It was in a university part of town with links to Oxford on a plaque. The owner looked like he could be a PhD student. He’d painted a couple of simple rooms in vivid colours and our breakfast table was an old wooden ironing board outside. We applauded his entrepreneurial spirit.
We didn’t see much of Santiago as we were only there for a night before picking up the campervan. We wandered a few streets in search of a restaurant passing endless car parts shops until we found a pizza place near a square. We noticed some buildings in the area were being restored and hoped that some prosperity might be returning. Pinoche was long gone!!
At the end of the evening a very entertaining rock and roll band started performing in the square and people of all persuasions came to listen. Is was a quirky end to our first evening in Chile.
9th Jan 2017: WICKED campervan!
Day 23
It was wicked!!! It had 2 slogans on the back :
“Love like you are 81
Love like you are 18”
the lower line had been changed from “F*** like you are 18” !!! (Fortunately)
The sides of the van were painted with pot smoking cartoon characters. The police are bound to ignore us now!
But it was perfect for us. The back opened up into a make shift kitchen. Between that and the front seats were three small mattresses forming a bed, with huge storage space below.
We were offered to help ourselves to anything previous campers had left. So we ended up with 2 duvets, lots of kitchen utensils and food. The only thing we needed to buy was a petrol container.
We were set! The van had no air conditioning, so we immediately drove out of Santiago to escape the heat, to make the long drive to the coast to search out Pablo Neruda’s house. On the way we made the customary stop at a supermarket to stock up with food, tea, wine, beer, G&T etc. All the essentials for campervan camping.
After hours of driving, finally the air chilled with a welcome sea breeze as we approached the coast, but only to find miles and miles of holiday apartments similar to southern Spain.
And so on we drove on past the end of the built up areas until we found a large empty car park with access to the beach and a loo.
I turned our van into a home while Neil ventured out for a swim.
We had a small camping gas type of cooker so started our cooking with pasta and sauce and our tour drink, Campari and Soda.
A great day.
Then bed.
10th Jan 2017: Pablo Neruda’s house
Day 24
We both slept really well during our first night in the van. The bed was comfortable and the temperature perfect. We had two curtain poles which fitted cleverly across the inside of the van front and back for privacy, which we didn’t need, but would prove useful keeping out the early morning sun. Breakfast was easy: cereal, fruit and cups of tea. Soon we were on the road.
Pablo Neruda is one of Chile’s most famous men. He’s known mostly as a Nobel Prize winning poet, but was also a politician and Chile’s foreign ambassador in many countries. This house, Casa Isla Negra was his third of three houses situated on the sea front and where he was happiest. He had named it “Isla Negra” probably because of the black rocks. It wasn’t an island but maybe he felt it was due to the isolation of the house which was perched on rocks above the sea shore with many huge windows facing the sea.
It was a fascinating house, full of quirky memorabilia from all over the world. The house grew with him as he’d add extensions for his various hobbies. His living room had maidens from the front of shipwrecks gazing out to sea from whence they came.
We learnt more about this remarkable man and his fights for justice for all. His father had been a poor railway worker and was very much against the idea of his son being a poet, but Pablo Neruda persevered into successful careers, never forgetting his roots where he fought for civil and human rights. He had three wives, the last of whom lived with him at this house. Just after Pinochet’s brutal military coup in 1976, Neruda was taken to hospital suffering from cancer, where he died four days later. His human rights activities were very much against Pinoche’s military approach so there has always been speculation around the circumstances of his death.
His wife continued to fight for human rights until her own death 12 years later.
With no air conditioning in the van, we decided to escape the heat and take the long open motorway south. We drove until we tired early evening then decided to look for a wild camp.
Various guides recommended camping for free at service stations as most had hot showers for a small fee. They were clean facilities and many lorry drivers and campers stayed there, but we both agreed it was too noisy for a decent night’s sleep being so close to the motorway. We drove on, took the next exit and followed a dusty dirt road until we found a quiet place to stop. The only sounds we heard through the night were dogs and a cockerel in the farm nearby.
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