I have just returned from this truly amazing tour, no sorry, adventure.
I had wondered about the cost of this tour, but at the end of the day, I thought it was well worth the money spent.
it is pointless to write a review as such because everything about the tour was covered in Bob's excellent review of his November trip but I will write a little about what I thought of it.
Our group of 21, 16 of whom did the add-on to Easter Island, was led, thank goodness by Yvette as we were quite a challenging group apparently, (forgetting this, losing that etc etc). Yvette took everything "thrown at her" in her stride and was always there to give us advice where to eat, what to see and do on our extremely limited free time.
The tour does pack in as much as possible, was quite tiring, but well worth being tired.
It was an adventure never to be forgotten!
We were extremely lucky with the weather. hardly any rain and yes, we thought that it was windy in Patagonia only to be told by the locals that it was quite calm. The temperature in Patagonia was warm, being about !6 celsius.
On this diverse tour we visited mainly three areas of Chile.
The northern third of the country is the arid Atacama desert with it's otherworldy landscapes. Here we visited the Geisers de Tatio at sunrise when the geysers are at their most impressive.
The salar de Atacama is the world's third largest salt flat. On the salt flat we visited the shallow Chaxa lagoon, stunningly beautiful, with certain flamingo sightings.
We travelled to the picturesque Lake District, where we visited Chiloe Island. Some parts of the Lake District could double for England. In Puerto Montt I was surprised to see close up, in fact too close up for comfort, sea lions on a small beach by the market.
As for our third area Patagonia, nothing can prepare one for the sheer beauty and grandeur of the mountains and volcanoes of Torres del Paine National Park. From my point of view more beautiful than the Canadian Rockies and certainly more beautiful than the foreboding Himalayas, but was told by a fellow traveller that mountains in New Zealand are equally impressive.
On to Easter Island, with it's rugged coastline. Again, as Bob stated the icing on the cake! I knew that there were about 800 Moai on the island,but what I didn't realize was that they seem to be everywhere you look.
On Easter Island I particularly enjoyed watching the sea turtles for a few minutes whilst having lunch, the Kari Kari cultural show. Swimming in the sea at Anakena Beach was great but obviously we were watched by even more moai. (Seriously,that is a white lie though because they had got their backs to us).
What a fantastic tour, one that I heartily recommend.
Di-
Glad you had such a brilliant time Diane and adding more to Bob's review. Maybe one day I will get there!
Sue
