Life in Chile: Update 1

I've now been living and working here in Santiago for several weeks, and things are starting to go more smoothly. (At last!) A lot has happened since the first post I wrote since moving here, and so I'll be writing about all of that today...

Our New Apartment!

The most important thing that's happened is that Claudio and I have finally found an apartment! And we've now moved in and have mostly furnished it, though we've still got a bit of work left to do to make it perfect.

It has been a really long and tough process for us to get to the stage where we're at now - first we had to find somewhere to rent, which took ages, and since then we've had to furnish it completely, in addition to sorting out problems with the internet connection.

But we're really happy to have our own place at last. The apartment is starting to look really good, and what makes it even better is that it's in the Ñuñoa district of Santiago, which was our first choice in terms of the area where we wanted to live.

We've faced a lot of challenges over the last couple of years, so it feels like a big milestone for us to finally be able to move in together as a couple, and especially to have such a nice apartment just for us. I know that a lot of other people reach this stage earlier in life, and I certainly expected it to happen sooner for us, but the fact that we've had to have so much patience and perseverance to get here makes it feel even better. ❤

Parque Araucano

For obvious reasons, we haven't really travelled much lately, but we did spend a evening in Parque Araucano, one of Santiago's nicest parks. It was the evening after we'd applied for our apartment, when we were waiting to find out if our application had been approved, so we wanted to do something to take our minds off it.

Parque Araucano is actually known as Santiago's version of Central Park, as it is in a rectangular shape surrounded by skyscrapers, just like the famous park in New York City. It is a very picturesque place to walk around, and it also has some food trucks if you want to have dinner there. We ordered a delicious curry from an Indian food truck, which I enjoyed a lot, because I'd been missing the curries from back home!

Indian Box

Speaking of Indian food, we visited a very special Indian restaurant last night, called Indian Box. We had driven past it a couple of times, and had been impressed by how it looked like the Taj Mahal, especially when lit up at night. Then I looked up the menu online and found out that the restaurant was 100% vegan! So we decided that we would go there to celebrate once we finally had our apartment.

And last night we were able to do just that! We had a really great evening there; the food was amazing, and the décor really gave us the feeling of being in India. We'll definitely go back in the future!

Our Travel Plans!

So far, my time in Chile has mostly been filled with necessary tasks that needed to be done in order to set up my life here, meaning that my plan of having a year filled with travel hasn't quite been put into action yet. But that's going to change very soon!

Next week, Claudio and I are going to spend the Easter weekend in Iquique, a city in the far north of Chile, not far from the border with Peru - in fact, it actually used to be a part of Peru prior to the War of the Pacific. So it's going to be kind of like a trip abroad without actually going abroad. (One of the best things about Chile is that it has basically every time of landscape and climate imaginable, so you can go on almost any type of trip you like, without leaving its borders). We're very excited to spend Easter sightseeing in a new city and relaxing on a tropical beach!

As for the rest of the year, I really want to see as much of Chile and South America as possible. In Chile, I most want to visit Torres del Paine and several other areas of the south of Chile. And regarding the rest of South America, I'm very determined to make it to Machu Picchu and Rio de Janeiro this year. I would also like to spend time in the Galápagos Islands and Cartagena. My work is currently online, and I'm hoping to keep it that way, so maybe I'll be able to fit in a couple of "workations" in exotic locations, as well as making the most of bank holidays and time off.

At the moment, leaving and coming back to Chile is a bit tricky due to all the Covid restrictions, so any foreign trips might have to wait for a couple of months. But I'm hoping to go to the south of Chile next month, and after that, we'll see what the situation is like.

But of course, first of all, we've got our trip to Iquique to look forward to! I'm so excited to go there, and I'll be writing about it very soon!

Instagram Page

I'm writing this quick post just to mention the new Instagram page that I've set up for this blog. You can find the link here:

Charlotte's Travel Adventures Instagram page

I had never been particularly interested in joining Instagram for various reasons, but since moving back to Chile, I've realised it could be useful for life in general. I also thought it would be a nice way to document my travels from time to time, and potentially a way of bringing new readers to my blog.

Check it out if you're interested!

Image by Pixabay from pexels.com

Discovering More of Chile's Beaches

Because it's still summer here in Chile, it seemed obligatory to spend at least one day at the beach before the weather gets colder. Even though it's been a very busy time since I arrived three weeks ago, fortunately Claudio and I were able to squeeze in a day trip to some beaches I'd never been to before.

As Chile is such a long country, it has a tonne of beaches to discover, and there are many great ones which can be reached within a few hours or less from Santiago. We'd already been on day trips to the beaches around Algarrobo and the beaches around Viña del Mar, so this time we decided to explore some of the beaches in the northern part of the Valparaíso region.

After driving for around two and a half hours, the first place we ended up in was La Laguna, a fairly quiet town with a long sandy beach. I was surprised when getting out of the car that the weather was still as hot as it had been in the city - during our trips to Algarrobo and Viña, the weather was cold, windy, and even cloudy. It seems that going that hour or two further north makes a big difference in terms of weather.

We had a little walk around before moving on to our next stop, Maitencillo, a bigger town, which is known for being a surf hotspot. Here we had lunch at Beach Break restaurant, which was kind of southeast Asian inspired, with a lot of Buddha statues dotted about. None of the main courses on the menu were vegan, so I ordered two side dishes (potato wedges and a quinoa risotto) and the plate of food I received was so big I couldn't finish it! But it was really tasty, as was the passion fruit juice I ordered. Sitting there, with the sun and the sea within view, I really started to feel like I was on holiday!

Our next stop was Cachagua, a very popular destination amongst wealthy santiaguinos. This was where we had our first swim of the day - the water was cold, but not as bad as I'd been expecting!

One of Cachagua's main attractions is Monumento Natural Isla Cachagua, an island rather like Isla Pájaros Niños in Algarrobo, where birds including pelicans and penguins live. The island is a bit of a distance from the beach, but as far as we could tell, there were lots of pelicans there and a few Humboldt penguins!

About a 10-minute walk from Cachagua along a rocky coastal path, you can find Las Cujas beach, and that's where we went next. Las Cujas is a place that Claudio found out about on TikTok, and it is said to be one of Chile's most beautiful beaches. It's definitely a very picturesque place, with turquoise water and lots of trees surrounding it, and it does feel like a sort-of secluded, paradise beach, although there were quite a lot of people there. Swimming there, in those amazing surroundings, really reminded me why I chose to come and spend this year in South America!

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the beaches at Las Cujas and Cachagua, and then we started the journey back to Santiago, stopping off at Maitencillo again to pick up some drinks and snacks. We arrived as the sun was setting over the ocean, which was beautiful to see.

We had a great time exploring these stunning beaches, and we plan to come back to the area soon to see some more beaches, such as Horcón, Zapallar and Papudo. This trip was the perfect start to what I hope will be a year of amazing travels (it's already been better than last year, that's for sure!). Not quite sure where we'll be heading next, but we'll definitely try to go somewhere exciting during the Easter bank holiday in April, so I'm looking forward to planning that soon!

My First Weeks in Santiago

It's been nearly three weeks since I moved back to Santiago de Chile, and it's been a very busy time so far! Life here is completely different to the life I was living in Wiltshire, but mostly in a good way. And although things haven't exactly gone 100 percent smoothly (my suitcase went missing for over four days, and finding an apartment to rent is proving to be a difficult process), overall, I'm really happy to be back here.

Of course, the best thing is that I'm with Claudio again, after over a year of not being able to see each other in person due to the pandemic. And it's also been great to see his family again (we're actually staying with them until we're successful with our apartment search). 

In other news, I was happy to finally get started with my new job this week, and it's mostly going well so far.

Another interesting thing that happened this week was that we went to the inauguration of President Boric. We waited on Alameda avenue (the main street in Santiago) for his car to go past on its way to La Moneda palace, and he waved at us as he went past! It was really interesting and memorable to be part of such a historic event.

Finally, even though we've had a lot of things to do since I arrived here, we've had time to explore both new and familiar places around the city, and we've even been on a trip to visit some beaches we hadn't been to before (I'll be writing about that soon!) Santiago looks quite different to how it looked last time I was here - there's a lot of graffiti all over the buildings and monuments in the historic centre, due to all of the political upheaval that's taken place in Chile over the last couple of years. Some of it is interesting street art, but most of it is just ugly-looking scribbles. But it's still really nice to be back here and seeing some of my favourite places again!

Here are some highlights!

Old Favourites

Cerro Santa Lucía

Parque Bicentenario

Parque Metropolitano

New Discoveries

Iglesia de la Divina Providencia

It was quite a grey evening by the time we passed by this church, but I took a picture of it anyway, as I think it looks very Latin American, and quite different to the churches in England and the rest of Europe.

Parque O'Higgins

We had actually been here before, but this time we went to the Chinese garden for the first time, which was a very pretty place to look around.

Parque Mahuida

A couple of months ago, I read an article about this park, which said that Andean mountain cats had recently been spotted there! But they are shy creatures, and unsurprisingly, we didn't see any during our visit there. However, we did meet an adorable little tabby cat, who immediately wanted to be our friend! And we also had a great time sliding down the mountains on the Rodelbahn toboggan ride, and completing a short trekking route up to a nature reserve.

Barrio Yungay

I wanted to visit this particular neighbourhood because of its colourful houses, and it definitely didn't disappoint. Being there reminded me of images I've seen of Havana.

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

This is a place I'd always thought I should visit during my Year Abroad, but I never got round to going. Now we've finally been, I would definitely recommend it. For starters, entry is free! And it has a varied collection of paintings, sculptures and other more unusual works of arts, so it's a great place to spend a couple of hours. The museum's building is also very beautiful, both inside and out, though it's looking a bit worse for wear at the moment.

Castillo Forestal

This is actually a restaurant, but it also makes an interesting sight to see, as you don't expect to find a French château in the middle of a park in Chile!

English Emporio

This is a totally British shop located in the Vitacura district of Santiago, so going there reminded me a lot of home! We bought some Paddington Bear marmalade, and I'm sure we'll be back to buy some more stuff in the near future.

Vitacura

One evening, we went for a walk along the Mapocho River in Vitacura. The water there is a lot cleaner than it is the city centre, and you have great views of Cerro Manquehue. (I still can't believe that I actually climbed it once!)

Cafés and Restaurants

During my first two weeks here, we were staying in a hostel which had a pretty unpleasant kitchen, so we ended up having to eat out a lot. It wasn't always easy to find somewhere vegan friendly, but we managed to discover some great places...

Sapiens

This café in Barrio Italia is 100% vegan and has some very tasty (and healthy) cakes and hot drinks.

Emporio la Rosa

This ice-cream café next to Parque Forestal is actually where Claudio and I had our first date nearly four years ago, so it was really nice to go back there again!

Wonderland Café

Wonderland Café is a great place to check out if you like Alice in Wonderland, tea, and all things English! Not only is the food really good, but there is also plenty of interesting décor, and even a gift shop.

El Mundo de Dalí Cat Café

The cats seemed quite sleepy and a bit hot and bothered compared to the last time we visited, but it was still so nice to see them all again and to eat some very tasty vegan food, including a version of the traditional Chilean dish pastel de choclo.

Café Forestal

This is a nice café we found near our hostel with plenty of healthy and vegan options.

Primal Food Chile

This is another completely vegan restaurant, which has four locations in Santiago. It has huge portions and so many options that choosing just one was quite hard!

It's been a big change to finally move here, but overall it's been a very positive one so far. There's definitely a lot more going on for me now than there was one month ago! And although I'm looking forward to when we're set up in our own apartment, I'm gradually starting to feel more settled into a routine here.

Next I'll be writing all about our first beach trip of the year, and after that I plan to write semi-regular updates about life in Chile and our travel adventures. I've already been putting together some exciting ideas for trips both near and far that we could take over the coming months. So watch this space!