Chile

Our feelings about Chile - beatiful nature and places

1841

28/03/2015

We spent 20 days in total in Chile. During these days we met many people, visited so many interesting places and gained a lot of experience. Now we want to share our feelings about Chile with you.

Infrastructure and transportation

Roads are in worse conditions than in Argentina.
Chile must have had probably big problems with bus drivers in the past. In every bus there is a GPS system showing the speed. In case it gets over 100 km/h a loud sound starts beeping at the passengers to warn them the speed is over the limit. Passengers have the opportunity to announce this irresponsible act to the Ministry of Work and the Ministry of Transportation.
Crash barriers are rear to see. And in case there are any they are so low that it is ridiculous. Each 2 km you can see crosses reminding fatal car accidents. And then you are sitting on the bus and they ask you for an emergency number in case something happens. It just makes your mood better. 😉

Safety

It is safe to walk on the streets but still you need to remain alert. You can be pickpocketed like in any place in South America.
Cops are equipped and ready for solving any conflict with criminals. They also ride cross-motorbikes. Their level of English is terrible so in case something happens to you and are not fluent in Spanish – bad luck for you!

People

People in the south of Chile are nicer and more helpful than in the north of the country. People in the south are also more open and friendly. We arrived to our hostel one night earlier and they were overbooked. The lady called to another place and provided us a night there. It was late and raining but the other lade from another hostel came to pick us up. Amazing. If it weren’t for them we would be looking for a place to stay for hours.
We had a great opportunity to stay with locals and get to know so many interesting things. These locals were absolutely amazing, educated, nice and neat. We had fun!
Worse experience we had with people on the bus. They behave like piggy piggy. They are truly ill-mannered from our point of view. Absolutely common thing is throwing the waste bin on the streets even the baskets are 20 m from them. They simply do not care. The same thing they do when taking buses, they throw stuff out of the windows or put all the garbage below them and do not give a damn someone else will sit there after them.
Another evidence of misbehavior is that they do not let handicapped people going to the metro train just because there were too many people at the same time. When we argued about this we were told that there is no reserved seat for them and therefore they do not have to let them in. Ok so handicapped have to wait there. For us this was not acceptable, probably we are too well-mannered.
We were truly disappointed by people of the north in many aspects. They were actually saved by our Couchsurfers who were nice and kind and we felt at them like home.

Food and drinks

Food was always delicious. And we truly enjoyed it. No matter if it was beefsteak, local hotdogs, ice-cream, famous chorillana or congrio medallion (conger eel).
As for drinks we were keen on for juices and nectars – you can buy them so cheap here. But we also like the alcoholic drink called Pisco Sour. And after a very long time we also enjoyed the beer – Escudo and Roja are most recommended.

Prices

Chile is cheaper than Brazil or Argentina but still more expensive than the Czech Republic.
We truly welcomed them to show the prices so it did not happen that we payed more than locals. Finally “civilization” for us!

Environment

The landscape is very variable. Depends at what part of country you are.
In the south of Chile it was windy and colder with often rain showers. But the south is greener and the landscape is alike in Europe.
The north of Chile is different. This location is very dry and some places look like on another planet.
The north is very messy, the garbage is everywhere because people throw the waste bin out of the cars and create dump sites in the nature.