Gene and Jan's Long Trip Too

Shortly after a beautiful sunrise, we arrived in Iquique, Chile.  This bustling city was once part of Peru and grew in prosperity from saltpetre mining, a form of potassium nitrate.  It was ceded to Chile in 1883 after the War of the Pacific. Iquique is a city of 200,000 people and sits between the Chilean coastal mountain range and the Pacific Ocean.  Near the center of town is a huge sand dune known as Devil's Hill.  Formed 20,000 years ago, it is the largest urban sand dune in the world reaching a height of 1,500' and stretching 2.5 miles in length.  It is world renowned to sand-boarding  enthusiasts. Our tour today took us over the coastal mountains and into the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world.  To the east we could see distant peaks of the Andes. Our first stop was at the Santa Laura ghost town, site of a once thriving Saltpetre mine and processing operation.  Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site....

At 8:00 AM we docked at Coquimbo, Chile, the port city of the greater La Serena region.   Founded in 1544, it is the country's second oldest city after the national capital, Santiago.   As of 2012, it had a communal population of roughly 200,000 and is one of the fastest-growing regions of Chile. Greeting us on the hill top was Crus del Tercer Milenio (the third millennium cross).  Constructed between 1999 and 2001, it stands 278 feet tall and is the tallest monument in South America.  (The famous Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio De Janeiro is only 98 feet tall.) Jan, still recovering from her fall, remained on the ship while Gene traveled to the Elqui Valley and visited the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.  Getting there, the tour bus struggled up an unpaved, single-lane trail before finally reaching the 7,200 foot summit of Cerro Tolodo. The bus bounced, leaned and groaned as it labored up the high mountain trail. The a...

 Valparaíso, founded in 1536,  flourished as an important South Pacific seaport during the 19th century.  During its golden era, many European immigrants arrived, made their fortunes and left their mark on the city's architecture and cultural institutions.   Built on 45 hills, it is often compared to San Francisco.  With a population of about 1 million,  it is  Chile's 2nd largest city.  Diminished maritime traffic (after the opening of the Panama Canal) severely hurt its economy during the t wentieth century causing many wealthy families to abandoned the city. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the city's economy has been improving.  Artists and cultural entrepreneurs have moved into the city's hillside historic districts resulting in a flourishing  tourist industry.     Street art is everywhere.  Some of it very good but much of it just annoying graffiti....

Puerto Chacabuco is located at the tip of the dramatic Ais é n  Fjord at the foot of the soaring Andes peaks.  It is a tiny Patagonian enclave and getaway into the spellbinding beauty of the rugged wilderness.   Tendering ashore (no place to dock a large ship), we were struck by the pristine beauty surrounding us.  Because of its remoteness, the area's first settlers only arrived in 1929.  Today, Puerto Chacabuco's population is just 1,000 residents. We journeyed inland through rolling pasture lands with snow capped peaks of the Andes set as the backdrop. When the first settlers arrived in 1929, they set massive fires to clear the land for farming.  The fires burned out of control for more than 20 years destroying much of the region's lush forests .  During the last decade, reserves have been established to restore some of the area's original beauty.  We stopped at the Rio Simpson Nature Reserve and enjoyed a scenic walk viewing the...