Of the 17 species of penguin that occur worldwide, seven can be seen in South America. Their breeding grounds range from the Galapagos Islands along the equator to the Pacific coasts of Peru and Chile and further on down to the continent’s frigid southernmost tip… Galápagos Islands, Ecuador When people think of wildlife in South […]
It’s a saying Chileans love to repeat. Dios está en todas partes, pero atiende en Santiago. “God is everywhere, but His office hours are in Santiago.” But if that’s the case, it’s the Chilean capital’s museums that serve as the Man Upstairs’s hall of records. When Chile’s first museum was built in 1830, right after […]
The guide in the ski cap stands stock-still, squinting through the binoculars at the blue ice. From off the lake, high winds stir his big-grizzly beard. He looks over. “Looks kinda like space aliens, don’t it?” He offers you the glasses. You tug your parka’s sleeves down over your knuckles, taking careful hold with your […]
“Now this story—this may well have something inexplicable about it.” José Rogel is wagging his finger like a professor, dubious but open to persuasion. “My father told me he’d seen the caleuche. He’d recently married my mother, and one day he went to a funeral. It was dark, lots of gray clouds over the sea. […]
“Holy Moai!” As we neared Rano Raraku, the site of the quarry where Easter Islanders once fashioned the famous stone statues (Moai) for which the island is best known, I couldn’t help but exclaim in sheer amazement. There, scattered across the side of an extinct volcano, stood dozens of Moai: giant heads representing long-ago chieftains […]
Oscar, the guide, has his watch ready. He stares at it intently, then lifts his eyes to the crowd. “Twenty seconds.” The visitors are still bleary-eyed from the early hour (6:30 a.m., departure time 4:30), but the sun just now clearing the snow-dappled peaks is gradually dispelling the sleepiness. One girl taps at a smoking […]
When Pablo Neruda held a house-warming party at La Sebastiana, his hilltop residence in Valparaiso, Chile, in 1961, he did something that left his guests scratching their heads. After inviting everyone to climb the house’s tower, which commands a magnificent view of the Pacific, he tempted them with a bit of voyeurism. There was a […]
Part weather-beaten seaport, part artists’ bohemia, part living watercolor, Valparaiso, Chile is a Latin American city like no other. It’s a hillside city, with a mazelike warren of ramshackle houses crowding its slopes. It’s also a city of nostalgia, drowning in memories of its former maritime glory. But most of all, it’s a city by […]
For wilderness and adventure lovers, it’s hard to find a place more beautiful and full of unique destinations than Patagonia. The region spans the southernmost parts of Argentina and Chile and contains a variety of landscapes from lush grassland to beaches to icy glaciers. Most people that head down there will probably want to take […]
If you are planning trip to Easter Island, (also known as Rapa Nui), located about 2,200 miles from mainland Chile, you may want to plan it for the beginning of February when the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival is held each year. The first of the festivals was held in 1969 and it has been evolving […]
If you’re anything like me, North America’s ski season from December to March just isn’t enough. This is especially true since I discovered that you can extend the season by skiing in Chile, which is known for its Andean Mountains, cuisine, and world class wine. In Chile, the typical ski season runs from the beginning […]
Latin America is one of the best places to hike, so much so that the problem is picking one out of the many possible treks that are available. Here are five of the most popular, each in a different country, to help you in your choice. You can´t go wrong with any one of them but each […]
LAN’s BIG DEAL Mid-Year Sale offers big savings on LAN flights to South America. Fly round-trip to Ecuador for $499, Peru for $599, Chile for $829, and Argentina for $899 when you book by June 18, 2012. Prices are based on departures from Miami, and for travel between September 1 and November 30, 2012.
LAN Airlines (now know as Latam Airlines Group) recently announced two new routes, direct flights from Lima, Peru to Easter Island, Chile and Iguazu Falls, Brazil, beginning in January, 2011. These new flights will save time and money for passengers by eliminating connecting flights in Santiago, Chile and either Sao Paulo, Brazil or Buenos Aires, […]
John Kardys, a professional photographer from Baltimore, MD, recently returned from a Chile Vacation arranged by South American Vacations. He visited Santiago, Atacama, Easter Island, and the Chilean Lake District, one of our most popular Chile tours, and was kind enough to share with us the amazing photos that he took of the trip. The […]
We just received this press release from Turismo Chile, the country’s travel promotion department on the status of the country’s tourism infrastructure. The gist of it is that the Atacama Desert area, Easter Island, and Patagonia were unaffected by the recent earthquake. In Santiago (Central Region), the airport suffered damage to the passenger terminal, but […]
Early in the morning of Saturday, February 27th, an 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Concepcion, Chile’s second largest city. So far, the death toll is over 700 people. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all of the families and friends of the victims. Chile’s capital city of Santiago, which is more than 200 miles northeast of […]
