It’s hard to summarize our time in Chile in a few paragraphs.  It’s an average of 110 miles wide, but stretches over 2600 miles north to south – going from desert to snow-covered fjords.  Picture a narrow country beginning at the tip of Guatemala and extending north to middle Alaska.

While up north, we played some golf.  At Coquimbo we went to a short 9-hole course on the ocean but it was closed.  We played it anyway.  Since there were no carts, we recruited our taxi driver (in jeans) to help with bags.  He wasn’t very good at reading putts though.

The morning we played, we were awakened by a series of loud bangs.  It was as if the ship was being rammed repeatedly from the side.  We later learned that it was an earthquake (5.5 on the Richter Scale).  You may remember that in 2010, about two weeks after Haiti, Chile had an 8.8 quake that caused a 16 foot tsunami.  The world’s worst earthquake of 9.5 was also in Chile in 1960.  It caused a tsunami that was still 35 feet high when it reached Hawaii, 15 hours later.  It even caused a volcanic eruption.  California seems tame in comparison.

We got off the ship for a couple of nights in Santiago, the capital of Chile.    

Presidential Palace today

We started our tour at the Presidential palace.  You may recall that after 40 years of democracy, Salvador Allende – a Marxist, narrowly won a three-contestant election and for three years, took the country down a socialistic path.  With the help of Nixon and the CIA, Augusto Pinochet came to power after a violent coup d’état. 

Presidential Palace September 11, 1973

The Chilean Air Force bombed the Presidential palace.  Imagine our AF attacking the White House?

Pinochet was a brutal dictator who in addition to imprisoning, torturing, and killing perceived dissidents, he “disappeared” people in an attempt to hide from world attention.  Missing people were known as “desaparecidos” and numbered in the thousands.  But Pinochet is also credited with fixing the economy with the help of Milton Friedman and economists from the University of Chicago.  After 17 years in power, Pinochet allowed a referendum, expecting to win easily.  But 56% voted “no” (there was no other candidate) and he eventually stepped down. Many we met in the country felt conflicted – great progress at the price of human rights and many lives. 

In any case, Santiago is a beautiful, vibrant city.  Quaint and funky neighborhoods, a modern downtown, an attractive historic section, wide, tree-lined avenues, and surrounded by mountains.  We enjoyed it a lot.

From there we wandered down the rest of the west coast of Chile and through the beautiful fjords and finally arrived in Ushuaia, Argentina – the jumping-off post for most trips to Antarctica.