South America | On My Canvas

Cultural Differences, a Friend For Life, and Diwali in Chile

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Covid-Related Travel Update, Jan 2024: Chile is open to international tourists. Visit the Chilean government’s official website for travel-related information and regulations. Don’t forget to read the government’s rules to be followed in public spaces here. My guide to Chile visa would be helpful for Indian citizens.

It is Diwali and I’m reminded of a Diwali I spent with three crazy Chilean sisters in a country home of Chile five years ago. Damn! It has been five years. The narrative tells just how different two cultures can be.

In 2016, I had been volunteering as an English teacher with the English Open Doors program in Chile. I was in the south of Chile on the Chiloé island in its capital city Castro. Like other volunteers I stayed in a Chilean home. The house had my bubbly host mother, other Chilean borders, and two more volunteers from England and the US.

It was Diwali and also an extended weekend in Chile. My host mother was visiting her relatives. Other housemates were traveling.

I had made many friends by then but Gabriela, another English teacher on the island, had become a special one. She invited me to a countryside family get-together with her two elder sisters. They were going to their parental home in Cauquenes, a small town in Southern Chile, to celebrate Gabby’s daughter Javiera’s eighteenth birthday.

Either I could’ve gone with Gabriela or traveled with an English volunteer best friend and housemate (and his other friends) to another cool place. (This things to do in Chile travel blog from my experiences will help you plan your trip.)

But spending Diwali with three crazy Chilean sisters sounded much more fun than talking about foreign things with other foreign travelers. So I packed my bags, took a bus to Gabby’s house, and together we took another bus to Cauquenes.

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When I Couldn’t Get a Chilean Visa at the Border and Bolivia Wouldn’t Take me Back.

My cheeky Canadian friend Alison walked towards me from the immigration counter at the Bolivia-Chile border in San Pedro de Atacama. Fanning herself with the green Chile tourist card that boasted her free entry into Chile for ninety-days, she smiled.

Now it was my turn. The young immigration officer looked at me and gestured me to come closer. I walked to his desk. He asked for my passport. I slid my blue passport through the gap under the glass that stood erect between us.

Instead of handing me a green card as he issued to other tourists, the officer turned the pages of my passport and squinted to read the various visas and immigration stamps I had collected over the years. When he found my Chile temporary resident visa stamped on one of the passport pages, he asked for my RUT.

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Covid Update Jan 2024 – Peru is now open to international travelers. Travelers must show proof of vaccination. Those who are unvaccinated have to show a negative covid-19 test issued up to 48 hours before boarding. Find the complete information on the official website of the Peru government.

Hand in Hand With a Peruvian Grandmother in Cusco

A gray-haired lady entered the restaurant and turned her eyes to me instantly. Her gaze didn’t surprise me. During the eight months I had been traveling in South America, I visited indigenous Andean villages and remote islands where the locals had never met someone from India before. My earthy complexion and kohled eyes always raised a plethora of questions about my origin.

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Chile is a long country sandwiched between the Pacific ocean and the Andes mountains. I have written twelve other articles on Chile that go from covering the Chile culture to fun things to do in Chile to a comprehensive Chile travel guide — so this one is going to be a point to point informative Chile tips guide. Oh, I also have an exhaustive guide to traveling in South America.

This travel tips for Chile list is a quick handbook to acquaint travelers visiting Chile with the country’s most important travel information.

Let’s get started.

My List of top things to do in Chile

Table of Content.

I spent six months in Chile that were spread across July 2016 to April 2017.

Here I am sipping coconut water and writing about the best things to do in Chile, but a few years ago, I didn’t know much about Chile. I just decided to travel to Chile and teach English there on an instinct.

After I had been to Chile, an artist in Pushkar told me that Chile is like a long river, flowing on the edge of the American continent. And Pablo Neruda describes Chile as a long, thin ship. Running from the Atacama desert in the North to almost into Antarctica in the West, every corner of Chile has been well-planned by nature to surprises its residents and travelers alike.

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An Unforgettable Trip to the Salt Flats of Bolivia

Uyuni salt flats is a mystifying place. You must have seen the regular mountains, rivers, glaciers, deserts, but before the Salar de Uyuni, I had never seen salt flats, at least not as gigantic as the one in Uyuni. The Uyuni Salar are the world’s largest salt flat, extending over 9,000 square km.

On top of the vastness, the Salar del Uyuni is special because it is high up near the Andes at a height of 3,600 meters above sea level.

When you stand upright in these bizarre salt flats of Bolivia, you see a salt desert billowing into the infinity and beyond. The copper mountains with the mix of an occasional snowy volcano try their best to fringe the horizon. Walking on the Salar could be the closest we can get to walking on the moon.

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My Beloved Chilean Island, Chiloé

The island of Chiloé in South Chile will be marked in my memories forever. When I applied to the English Open Doors program in Chile, I didn’t realize that the program would give me some of the best times of my life.

Run by the government of Chile and the United Nations, English Open Doors invites international volunteers to teach English to government school students in Chile. As a near-native English speaker, I could apply for the volunteer program.

Until I landed in Santiago, I didn’t know that I would be placed in Chiloé. When the program coordinator told me that I had to teach students in Castro, the capital of Chiloé, I ran back to my room and Googled Castro.

Rainbow-like stilt houses lined up against an azure shore. Velvety-green hills filled my screen. Stout lambs grazed over those hillocks in groups. Steam smoked out of a chimney in a hut-shaped roof.

Wooden churches were flaunted in abundance. Legendary and mythical were the keywords on-screen.

Azure rivers, dense national parks, fresh seafood brought a grin to my face.

peruvian ladies observing local life top things to do in peru

Covid-Related Travel Update Jan 2024 – Peru is now open to international travelers. And as per Supreme Decree 130-2022-PCM in Peru’s official gazette El Peruano, Covid entry requirements and all other regulations and restrictions were lifted. You can also look at the official website of the Peru government for more information. My guide to Peru Travel Visa would …

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Covid-Related Travel Update 2024: Though every country would have its own requirements and rules, most South-American countries are now open to travel. Please check the individual country’s official government or tourism website to know the specific rules.

What does this guide to traveling in South America contain?

Covid-Related Travel Update Jan 2024 – Peru is now open to international travelers. And as per, Supreme Decree 130-2022-PCM in Peru’s official gazette El Peruano, Covid entry requirements and all other regulations and restrictions were lifted. You can also look at the official website of the Peru government for more information. My guide to tourist visa for Peru for Indians would be helpful.

An Adventure to the Manu National Park, also known as Parque Nacional Manu, in the Amazon Rainforest Peru

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My Fascination with the Amazon Rainforest and Deciding to go the National Park Manu, Peru

Amazon, the world’s most biodiverse tropical rainforest, covers nine South American countries — Brazil (60% of the Amazon), Peru (13%), Colombia (10%), and the rest lies within Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana.

As a little girl, I used to see the Amazon forest on television. My parents and I watched the National Geographic and Discovery channel every evening for hours. During dinner we switched channels because my mother couldn’t eat while the lions and jackals devoured their dead deers. But as she took her last bite, papa would put the Discovery channel back on. And the dense jungles of Karnataka, ochre shrub lands of Rajasthan, and the most mysterious of them all — the Amazon — would spellbind us.

Suggested Read: 27 Pictures of Nature That Asks Us to Protect It

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If you are looking for how to visit Machu Picchu on your own, you have come to the right travel guide. As all you dear readers know, I hate the idea of arranging tours, booking trips, and getting into a group. I will be honest I didn’t even look at the options of going to Machu Picchu with a travel agency. But Machu Picchu was on my mind as it was on the best things to do in Cuzco Peru.

I hope you have read my big guide on traveling to Peru and this one on the Manu National park, the Amazon Rainforest. All these travelogues will help you plan your Peru itinerary.

Now if you are looking for the cheapest way to get to Machu Picchu on your own, then let us continue.

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I took a bus ride from Cusco to a town near Machu Picchu known as Hidroeléctrica and then walked and hiked the rest of the way — around 16 kilometers and more than 3000 stairs —to the top of the Incan royal city sitting at an altitude of 2,500 meters.

I wouldn’t have even taken the bus from Cusco to Hidroeléctrica if I knew I could have walked there all the way from Ollantaytambo, a UNESCO world heritage site and a village near Cusco. But I know now, and you, too.

view of Cusco city in Peru with the surrounding Andes mountains in peru south america

Covid-Related Travel Update Jan 2024 – Peru is now open to international travelers. And as per Supreme Decree 130-2022-PCM in Peru’s official gazette El Peruano, Covid entry requirements and all other regulations and restrictions were lifted from November 2022. You can also look at the official website of the Peru government for more information. My guide to Peru visa for Indian citizens would be helpful.

Table of Content for Best Things To Do in Cusco Peru

What I Loved About Cusco city, Peru

Located high in the Andes, Cusco is one of the most culturally significant cities to see while backpacking in Peru. Once the capital of the Inca empire, Cusco is surrounded by the Inca ruins (including one of the wonders of the world, Machu Picchu).

During the twenty days I traveled in Cusco, I was never bored. Sometimes I hiked in the uninhabited Andes valleys near Cusco city. On other days I soaked in the sun at the main plaza and drank chicha morada (a purple corn drink). While some evenings I admired the rainbows behind the baroque cathedrals only to end up drinking at a fun bar, on mornings I could be found elbowing the locals in collectivos (shared taxis) on the way to the sacred Incan ruins. Once I bantered with fun Dutch and Argentinian travelers in a minibus that drove us to a town near Machu Picchu. And two days later I packed my backpack to visit el Parque Nacional del Manu in the Amazon rainforest (or the Manu National Park in English) – one of my best things to do in Peru.

Any traveler can find a myriad of things to do in Cuzco and make the city their own.