My Year of Adventurous Travel

As this blog is called Charlotte's Travel Adventures, it seems only right to write a post about adventurous travel!

Of course, I like going on holiday to relax, and visiting places to see interesting sights...but travel is also about having new and different experiences.

The 15 months that I spent living in Chile were a time when I made an effort to go on some exciting and sometimes a little extreme adventures. Though of course, there were plenty of challenges during that time (which I wrote about in this recent post), I feel like I really made the most of it and had a lot of fun travelling and trying new things across South America.

Here are 5 of my biggest adventures from the year!

Indoor Surfing in Santiago

Though I'd tried windsurfing in 2016, I'd always wanted to have a go at classic surfing. Surprisingly enough, even though Santiago isn't by the sea, you can surf there - Mall Sport offers indoor surfing lessons, and Claudio and I took one in May 2022. 

This experience was actually the most extreme of them all, I'd say! You basically get have to try to stay afloat against powerful jets of water, and if you don't manage it, you get thrown across that big curved area you can see in my pictures. Though we had plenty of bruises and even a couple of scrapes afterwards, we had a lot of fun. 

A Speedboat Ride in the Pacific Ocean

Our weekend in Papudo was one of our most low-key trips away during my time living in Chile, but it was actually one of my favourites. We saw so many beautiful animals there, from adorable pet cats to incredible marine life. Plus, the town and its beaches are absolutely beautiful.

Our time there was mostly very relaxing, with the exception of a boat trip we took to Isla Los Lobos. To my surprise, the boat was actually a dinghy with an engine, and it went incredibly fast - it was fun, though I was slightly scared that either I or my stuff would fall in the sea!

But the sights we saw on that trip were incredible: Humboldt penguins, sea lions and even a beautiful dolphin. We finished off the ride with a jump into the water at a beautiful, secluded beach. It was such a memorable experience!

Ziplining in the Andes

Another extremely memorable experience was going ziplining in the Andes mountains. This was something I'd always wanted to try, and I was really excited about it...until we actually got there and saw it!

The experience took place at Cascada de las Ánimas activity centre in Cajón del Maipo, which is such an enchanting and beautiful place. But the zip-line is suspended 25 metres above the River Maipo and looks pretty daunting! We were both pretty nervous when preparing to set off, but it was such a fun and exhilarating experience!

In fact, we liked it so much that we did it again a few months later at Parque Aventura in Santiago. 

White-Water Rafting in Argentina

White-water rafting was another sport I'd wanted to try for years, and I took the opportunity to try it while renewing my visa in Argentina. Although my day at the activity centre was rather long without a lot to do, the activity itself was so much fun, and the landscapes of the Andes and the Mendoza River were beautiful. I definitely plan to go rafting again at some point!

Backpacking Solo to Machu Picchu

We had several adventurous trips during the 15 months, but the most adventurous was when I went to Peru for a week on my own with just a backpack. 

During my time there I took in the sites in and around Cusco, and travelled around the Sacred Valley of the Incas, before taking the train to Aguas Calientes and hiking up hundreds of stone steps to the famous citadel, Machu Picchu.

It was a trip I'd dreamed of for several years and took quite a lot of organising, but it all turned out really well. I had an amazing time!

In my opinion, trying new experiences and adventures like these are a great way to get out of your comfort zone and create memories that will last forever.

There are still several other adventurous experiences I want to try, such as surfing at a beach, paragliding, and maybe even scuba diving.

Perhaps there will be more extreme adventures to come on this blog!

My Last Month in Chile

After waiting for so long to be able to move back to Chile, the 15 months that I spent there just flew by. My first weeks there really seem like they could have happened yesterday. Because it took so much effort and patience to actually get there, it feels a bit strange and sad for it to be over already. But I suppose that's life!

I still have a few things I want to post about from my last month or so of living in Santiago, so that's why I'm writing this post today. During that time, we did manage to tick off most of the list of the places I wanted to visit before leaving (though there are still a few left for when I'm next back, whenever that may be!).

Here are some highlights!

Santiago Centro

In early April, Claudio and I went for a sightseeing walk around Santiago Centro. 

In most cities around the world, the historic centre is one of the safest, cleanest and best looked after areas, but unfortunately this is definitely not the case in Santiago. It's a shame, because there's a lot of beautiful architecture in the city centre, and it deserves to be better preserved than it is.

One of the buildings that does look at its best, however, is Teatro Municipal. This building is just as grand and elaborate on the outside as it is on the inside. It would be nice to go and see a show here, but it seems they just do operas and ballets, and not musicals, which are always my preference when going to the theatre!

Opposite the theatre, you can find Palacio Subercaseaux. This is a really French-looking palace, that isn't open to the public, but is still great to see from the outside.

Next we walked over to Barrio La Bolsa (Stock Exchange Neighbourhood). This part of the city is locked at night, so is also in good condition. It is made up of three streets (Nueva York, La Bolsa and Club de la Unión) and has some of the finest architecture in the city. This area somehow passed me by when I was actually living in Santiago Centro back in 2018, so it was good to see it at last!

Finally, we went to see Palacio La Alhambra, which was built in the 19th century and based on the palace of the same name in Spain. Sadly, it is in a very sorry state now! It used to be open to the public as a museum, and is very beautiful on the inside, based on pictures I've seen. Hopefully it will be restored to its former glory and reopened at some point in the near future.

Campus Oriente UC

This university building has been described as the Chilean Hogwarts, and is a nice place to check out!

Café Cupido

One evening, my mother-in-law, Ivonne, took us to this café which is actually located inside an old palace! It has very cute, retro décor, delicious loose leaf tea, and a good selection of vegan food. Hopefully we'll go back at some point in the future!

Vitacura

One weekend, Claudio and I went for a drive around this part of Vitacura, which is probably the richest and poshest area of the entire city. Unfortunately, some of the people living there have put up fences around some of the nicest viewpoints (the first of these pictures was taken through a fence!). But all the same, it was really nice to see some autumnal mountain views. 

La Chascona

La Chascona, Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago, is often described as one of the must-see places in the city. Neither of us had ever been, so we decided to go just to see if it's all it's cracked up to be. In our opinion, it's not that special a place really, especially if you compare it to Isla Negra, Neruda's beach house. You can go inside, but tickets are expensive, and neither of us were interested enough to pay to enter, as Neruda wasn't a very nice person, to put it mildly.

Oh well, at least we can now say we saw the place!

Palacio Pereira

Because we really enjoyed our visit to Palacio Cousiño in March, we decided to visit another palace in Santiago: Palacio Pereira, which is actually free to visit! We were expecting a kind of museum showing what life was like there in the past, like in Palacio Cousiño, but actually Palacio Pereira is more of an exhibition space. 

When we were there, there was an exhibition about the Atacama Desert, which brought back some great travel memories! The main topic was the ancient geoglyphs that can be found in the desert, and the Tarapacá Giant (one of our favourite sights we've seen there) was mentioned!

The palace also has a very nice café - something I always appreciate!

Parque Aventura

Before I left, we managed to fit in another adventure activity! (We have been getting quite into them recently!) At Parque Aventura in Parque Metropolitano we tried out three different things: the zip-wire, the hanging bridge, and the climbing wall.

Neither of us did too well with the climbing wall - unlike the climbing wall I did at university, the instructor doesn't hold on to a rope on this one, which makes it feel quite weird and scary. I only made it about two metres, but Claudio at least managed to get halfway up! We will have to come back in the future and face our fears again!

The bridge activity involved climbing up some completely vertical steps using climbing equipment, and then walking around a wobbly bridge with big gaps in it, which was quite fun.

But the zip-wire was the best bit! We had amazing views over the city while going down it!

Well...that brings to a close my posts about my (little more than) a year in Chile. Life there certainly wasn't perfect all the time, but I'm really missing it already - more than I expected to. I miss our little apartment in Ñuñoa, trips to the beach, evenings at Claudio's parents' house, walking Jackito the beagle around the neighbourhood and saying hello to the friendly cats and dogs there, visiting interesting places in and around the city, pan con palta, mote con huesillos, the mountains, skyscrapers and palm trees. But most of all I miss the life I had there with Claudio. 

Even though part of me wanted to come back to Europe, I still feel a bit sad that I couldn't stay for a bit longer in Chile. Unfortunately, living there wasn't really financially sustainable, and security-wise, it wasn't great either. But I'm hopeful that the country's situation will improve, and I'm very much open to living there again someday if it does.

Changing the subject, I've now been living in Malta for three weeks and have another nine weeks to go. It's been mostly going well so far - I'm enjoying my marketing job, the other interns on the programme are really nice, and I've already travelled a fair bit. So there will be some blogs about Malta coming soon! The only thing is that after I've spent all day writing at work, it can be a little hard to find the motivation and also the time to write on this blog at the end of the day, especially when there are other things to do. But I still enjoy writing here when I find a spare moment, and I hope to continue posting from time to time over the coming weeks!