Cile & Bolivia, Deserti Andini

Santiago de Chile spreads across an elevation of over 500 metres at the foot of the Andes, with the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera rising on the horizon like a permanent, almost surreal backdrop. Founded in 1541 by Pedro de Valdivia, the Chilean capital is today a modern, cosmopolitan metropolis of over seven million inhabitants, capable of surprising visitors with the variety of its neighbourhoods, its cultural vitality and quality of life. The historic centre revolves around the Plaza de Armas, flanked by the Catedral Metropolitana, the Palacio de la Real Audiencia and the Museo Histórico Nacional — a few blocks are enough to retrace five centuries of colonial and republican history. Nearby, the Barrio Lastarria is a bohemian hub of art galleries, antiquarian bookshops and cafés open late into the night; the Barrio Italia enchants with its vintage design shops, fusion restaurants and murals that turn walls into open-air canvases. The Cerro Santa Lucía, a small hill in the heart of the city, offers a stroll through romantic gardens and panoramic viewpoints, while the Cerro San Cristóbal — reachable by funicular or on foot — rewards climbers with a 360-degree view of the entire metropolitan area. The lively, colourful Bellavista neighbourhood is home to the house-museum of Pablo Neruda, La Chascona, where the Chilean poet lived among storytelling objects, coloured bottles and a garden of curiosities. Upscale shopping concentrates in the modern Barrio Providencia and leafy Vitacura, where international boutiques share space with craft markets and tree-lined parks. The gastronomic scene is among the most dynamic in South America: from corvina ceviche to pasteles de choclo, from empanada de pino to lomo a lo pobre, Chilean flavours find accomplished interpreters in Santiago's restaurants, blending tradition and creativity. The markets of La Vega Central and Mercado Central offer an immersion in authentic Chile, amid aromatic herbs, exotic fruits and the freshest fish from both oceans. Santiago is also an ideal base for day trips: the wineries of the Maipo Valley to the south, the Valparaíso and Viña del Mar riviera to the west, and the ski slopes of Valle Nevado and Portillo to the east. An efficient metro network makes it easy to move between neighbourhoods, and the city boasts a first-rate museum offering, from the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes to the Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos. Santiago de Chile is a capital that never ceases to astonish, weaving Andean grandeur with the irrepressible energy of a young city in perpetual transformation.

Viña del Mar stretches along the Pacific coast a few kilometres from Valparaíso, establishing itself as Chile's foremost beach resort and one of the most visited in South America. Its fine sandy beaches — Playa de Viña, Playa Acapulco, Playa Reñaca — come alive during the summer months with Chilean and foreign tourists, while the plane-tree-lined avenues, neo-Tudor villas and flowering gardens of the Quinta Vergara earn it the nickname «Ciudad Jardín» (Garden City). The Quinta Vergara amphitheatre hosts the Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar each February, one of Latin America's most celebrated musical events. Castillo Wulff, a neo-Gothic villa on the waterfront, and the Reloj de Flores — a floral clock on the seafront — are the most photographed symbols. The Casino Municipal, open since the early twentieth century, adds a touch of Belle Époque glamour. Viña del Mar can be reached from Santiago in under an hour and a half by car and is often combined with a visit to Valparaíso. Valparaíso embraces a Pacific bay, spreading across forty-two cerros — the hills that climb above the port plain — in a labyrinth of painted alleyways, wooden staircases and vintage funicular lifts connecting the upper neighbourhoods with the commercial centre below. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the city is famous for its murals that transform every wall into a work of art, and for an atmosphere unique in the world, combining the vitality of a working port with the creativity of a university city. Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are the most photogenic neighbourhoods: colourful houses, cafés with panoramic ocean views, bed and breakfasts in tastefully restored late-nineteenth-century mansions. The waterfront of the Plan — the lower city level — teems with markets, offices and seafood restaurants; the Mercado Puerto offers fresh fish and shellfish at honest prices. In the evenings, the cerros come alive with bars and small live-music venues where students, artists and travellers mingle. Valparaíso is also where Pablo Neruda loved to spend his days: his house, La Sebastiana, is now a public museum with an eccentric collection that tells the story of the poet's life and imagination. Less than ten kilometres away lies Viña del Mar, reachable in just a few minutes by train. Valparaíso is a city that reveals itself slowly, on foot, curve by curve, colour by colour.

Calama is a mining city in the Antofagasta region, the northern gateway to the Atacama desert and the main service centre for the area's copper mines, including the celebrated Chuquicamata, one of the largest open-pit mines in the world. The city is a mandatory transit hub for travellers heading to San Pedro de Atacama overland; nearby Ojos del Salado is the world's highest active volcano. Calama offers modern amenities and good air connections to Santiago. San Pedro de Atacama is the exploratory heart of the driest desert in the world: an ochre adobe village at 2,400 metres in the Antofagasta region, surrounded by volcanoes, salt flats and lagoons of unreal chromatic beauty. The Plaza de Armas with its colonial church in volcanic stone is the centre of a community that coexists with dozens of adventure operators, establishing itself as one of the most vibrant exploration tourism hubs in South America. Dawn at the Valle de la Luna — a lunar landscape of dunes and salt formations bathed in pink light — is one of the continent's most extraordinary visual experiences; at sunset the sky turns orange and violet, and the silence of the desert becomes absolute. The Salar de Atacama, a few kilometres away, hosts colonies of pink flamingos reflected in the still saline waters like a mirror. Nearby, the El Tatio geysers are active at dawn at over 4,300 metres, where steam rises into the freezing Puna air in a breathtaking spectacle. The altiplano lagoons of Miscanti and Miñiques, at around 4,100 metres, display colours ranging from pale blue to deep turquoise, framed by volcanic cones. The Museo Arqueológico R. P. Gustavo Le Paige holds an extraordinary collection of Atacameño cultural artefacts, including mummies perfectly preserved by the extreme dryness. San Pedro is also a privileged haven for stargazers: the Atacama's night sky, with its exceptional transparency and absence of light pollution, is among the most star-filled on Earth, and several facilities offer guided observations of the southern constellations. After excursions, the dusty village streets come alive with travellers seeking local crafts, Andean cuisine and a good pisco sour.

Ojo de Perdiz is an isolated waypoint in the heart of the high-altitude desert of southwestern Bolivia, along the routes that link the Salar de Uyuni to the lagoons of the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve. Surrounded by a lunar landscape of sand, volcanic rock and endless horizons, it offers shelter to travellers in transit toward the region's natural wonders. The high altitude and absence of lights grant starry nights of extraordinary intensity. An essential stop in one of the most remote settings of the Andes, Ojo de Perdiz is a pause in the absolute silence of the desert.

Uyuni is the gateway to the planet's largest salt flat, the Salar de Uyuni, a blinding white expanse stretching over ten thousand square kilometres at nearly 3,700 metres above sea level. In the rainy season a film of water turns the surface into a perfect mirror that reflects the sky, creating the illusion of walking among the clouds; in the dry season the famous hexagonal polygons of salt crust emerge. From the town, four-wheel drives set out for Isla Incahuasi, studded with giant cacti, and the nearby Cementerio de Trenes, where rusting old locomotives recall the region's mining past. An ideal starting point for tours toward the coloured lagoons of the southwest, Uyuni offers surreal, unforgettable landscapes.

The crossing of the Salar de Uyuni, 100 times larger than the famous Bonneville Flats on the Great Salt Lake in Utah, is an unforgettable experience, it feels like being on an alien planet. One of the main attractions is Isla Incahuasi, in the heart of the Salar, 80 km west of Colchani. Incahuasi is covered with an extraordinary amount of cacti and surrounded by the salt desert: a picturesque scenery, even when tourists are numerous. The climb takes about 15 minutes, but it's worth it for the view. During the rainy season, the island is unreachable. Colchani is a small village set on the eastern edge of the Salar de Uyuni, a traditional centre for processing the salt harvested from the great white expanse. Here families gather, dry and package the salt using methods passed down through generations, and numerous stalls sell handicrafts and objects carved from salt blocks. The village is the most common entry point to the salar and is home to a few hotels built entirely from salt bricks. From here four-wheel drives head out into the blinding immensity of the desert. Plain and authentic, Colchani offers a close-up look at life on the margins of the great salt lake.