Chile travel guide

Biggar, John, The High Andes (1996), Castle Douglas, Kirkudbrightshire. Andes contains 3 chapters with information on Chilean peaks.

CONAF, Guía de Parques Nacionales y Otras Areas Silvestres Protegidas de Chile, US$12, a very useful guide to the main parks, with information on access, campsites, flora and fauna. It also publishes Chile Forestal, a monthly magazine with articles on the parks and ecological issues.

Fagerstrom, René Peri, Cuentos de la Carretera Austral, on the Camino Austral. Regata, a monthly sailing magazine. Climbers will also find Cumbres de Chile of interest: 2 books with accompanying tapes, each covering 20 peaks.

Mantellero, Alberto , Una Aventura Nave- gando Los Canales del Sur de Chile, a guide to sailing the southern coast, with maps.

Allende, Isabel, the doyenne of modern Chilean letters. Her books include: The House of the Spirits (1994), Black Swan. Brilliant, evocative, allegorical magical-realist account taking the reader through 20th-century Chilean history. Of Love and Shadows (1988), Black Swan. Painful story about a journalist uncovering evidence of military atrocities under the military regime. Paula (1996), Flamingo. A beautiful ‘letter’ written from Allende to her daughter, who is stuck in a coma after a car accident, taking in the modern history of Chile and Allende’s emotional roots. More recent books include Daughter of Fortune (2000), Flamingo, and Portrait in Sepia (2002), Flamingo, both of which are lyrical prequels to the story that made Allende’s name: The House of the Spirits.

Bolaño, Roberto, By Night in Chile (2003), Harvill. A caustic, brilliant novel, as an ageing Chilean priest lives through the last night of his life, and recalls teaching Marxism to General Pinochet and various surreal encounters with the Chilean literary establishment – thereby exposing the complicity of so many in the ‘normality’ that accompanied the military government.

Donoso, José, The Garden Next Door (1994), Grove Press. Evocative novel that deals with the ageing process of a couple in Spain. The Obscene Bird of the Night (1995), Grove Press. Donoso’s most famous, experimental novel, which gained him international acclaim across Latin America.

Dorfman, Ariel, Death and the Maiden (1996), Nick Hern Books (also in the collected volume The Resistance Trilogy; 1998). Subtle, moving tale of torture and resistance, an allegory for the state of Chile. The Nanny and the Iceberg (1999), Sceptre. Cross- cultural story of Chile and North America told with Dorfman’s usual eloquence.

Neruda, Pablo, Selected Poems (trans/ed Ben Bellit (1961), New York Grove Press. Bilingual anthology of the master’s work.

Richards, Ben, The Mermaid and the Drunks (2003), Weidenfeld & Nicolson. An English novel set in Chile, which gives an entertaining picture of modern Chile from the perspective of a longtime friend of the country.

Skármeta, Antonio, Il Postino (’The Postman’, 1996), Bloomsbury. Beautiful novel about the relationship between Neruda and his postman while the poet is in exile in Italy, made into a famous film. Watch Where the Wolf is Going (1991), Readers’ International. Another novel in Skármeta’s trademark style of eloquence and emotional honesty.

Chiletur, published by Copec, http://www.copec.cl, is very useful for roads and town plans, but not all distances are exact. It is published annually in 3 parts; Norte, Centro, and Sur (in Spanish only), alongside a separate volume dedicated to national parks. It contains a wealth of maps covering the whole country and neighbouring tourist centres in Argentina, and is well worth getting, particularly for those with their own transport. Each volume costs around US$10, but buying the whole set is better value. Available from larger Copec service stations.

Sernatur publishes a free Guía Turística/ Tourist Guide in Spanish and English, with good maps, useful text, while CONAF publishes a series of illustrated booklets in Spanish/English on Chilean trees, shrubs and flowers, as well as Juventud, Turismo y Naturaleza , which lists national parks, their facilities and the flora and fauna of each.

A recommended series of general maps are published by International Travel Maps (ITM), 345 West Broadway, Vancouver, V5Y 1P8, Canada, T604-8793 621, compiled with historical notes, by Kevin Healey.

Almarza V, Claudio, Patagonia (Punta Arenas: GeoPatagonia). A book of photographs, with text, on the region.

Araya, B and Millie, G, Guía de Campo de Las Aves de Chile. Bird-lovers will appreciate this guide to Chile’s feathered population.

Bahn, Paul and Flenley, John, Easter Island, Earth Island (1992), Thames and Hudson. A comprehensive appraisal of Easter Island’s archaeology.

Cárdenas Saldivia, Umiliana, Casos de Brujos de Chiloé (1989), Editorial Universitaria. Fascinating tales of witchcraft on Chiloé.

Castillo, Juan Carlos (ed) Islas Oceánicas Chilenas (1987), Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile. Much information on the natural history and geography of Juan Fernández and Easter Islands.

Clissold, Stephen, Chilean Scrapbook (1952), The Cresset Press. Gives an evocative historical picture of Chile, region by region.

Collier, S and Sater, WF, A History of Chile 1808-2002 (2004), Cambridge University Press. The definitive single-volume history of Chile in English.

Coña, Pascal, Memorias de un Cacique Mapuche (1930), publisher unmarked. An account of Mapuche traditions and history by a Mapuche chief in his 70s.

Constable, Pamela and Valenzuela, Arturo, Chile: A Nation of Enemies (1991), Norton. Excellent and readable take on the Pinochet years.

Dinges, John, The Condor Years (2004), The New Press. Thorough examination of the Condor anti-leftist terrorist operation set up by South American dictators, including Pinochet.

Dorfman, Ariel, Unending Terror: The Incredible Unending Trial of General Augusto Pinochet (2003), Pluto Press. A gripping account of the Pinochet affair from one of the most perceptive living writers on Chile. His memoir Heading North, Looking South (1998) is also essential reading.

Goni, Uki, The Real Odessa: How Perón Brought the Nazi War Criminals to Argentina (2002), Granta. Although based on the Argentine hiding of Nazi war criminals, this book has a continent-wide significance, as it reveals how this movement shaped the fascist attitudes of military governments of the 1970s.

Haslam, Jonathan, The Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende’s Chile (2005), Verso. This book examines the involvement of Nixon and the CIA in the 1973 coup.

Hazlewood, Nick, Savage: The Life and Times of Jemmy Button (2001), Sceptre. Interesting if hyperbolic history of Jemmy’s tale.

Heyerdahl, Thor, Aku-Aku, The Art of Easter Island (1975), New York: Doubleday.

Kornbluh, Peter, The Pinochet File (2003), The New Press. Declassified CIA documents together with editorial explanations relating to US government involvement and collusion in the 1973 coup.

Montecino, Sonia, Historias de Vida de Mujeres Mapuches (1985), Centro de Estudios de la Mujer. Interviews with Mapuche women giving a real insight into their lives.

O’Shaughnessy, Hugh, Pinochet: The Politics of Torture (2000), Latin American Bureau. Informed and up-to-date analysis of the whole Pinochet affair.

Porteous, J Douglas, The Modernization of Easter Island (1981), Department of Geography, University of Victoria, BC, Canada. A very thorough illustrated book.

Read, Jan, The Wines of Chile (1994), Mitchell Beazley. A gazetteer of the vineyards and wineries of Chile, ideal for the specialist.

Rector, John, The History of Chile (2005), Palgrave MacMillan. A readable general history of Chile.

South American Explorers Club, The South American Explorer (126 Indian Creek Road, Ithaca, New York 14850, USA). This journal regularly publishes articles on Chile including Easter Island.

Spooner, MH, Soldiers In A Narrow Land (1994), University of California Press. A readable account of the Pinochet dictatorship by a North American journalist resident in the country at the time.

Wearne, Philip, Return of the Indian: Conquest and Revival in the Americas (1996), Cassell/Latin America Bureau. Information on the Mapuche within the entire Amerindian context.

Chatwin, Bruce, In Patagonia (1977), Pan. A modern classic for those visiting the far south, although it concentrates mainly on Argentina.

Cooper, Marc, Pinochet and Me (2001), Verso. Fascinating account of the 1973 coup by Salvador Allende’s English translator, intermingled with his account of modern Chile and the coup’s legacy.

Darwin, Charles, The Voyage of the Beagle (1989), Penguin. Still fascinating reading of the great naturalist’s voyage and adventures from Cape Horn to Copiapó in the 1830s.

Giménez Hutton, Adrian, La Patagonia de Chatwin (1999), Editorial Sudamericana. Interesting Argentine perspective on Chatwin and Patagonia (both Argentine and Chilean).

Green, Toby, Saddled with Darwin (2000), Phoenix House. A former author of this book retraces Darwin’s route in South America on horseback.

Keenan, Brian and McCarthy, John, Between Extremes (2000), Black Swan. The 2 friends from Lebanon travel together again, this time through Chile.

Lucas Bridges, E, Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948), Hodder & Stoughton. Brilliant and beautiful account of his adventurous life in Tierra del Fuego with the Yámana and Ona peoples; the classic text on Tierra del Fuego.

Pilkington, John, An Englishman In Patagonia (1991), Century. Heavily critical of Chatwin.

Reding, Nick, The last cowboys at the end of the world (2001), Random House. Quirky yet evocative and highly readable account of the lives of the dying breed of gauchos in central Patagonia.

Souhami, Diana, Selkirk’s Island (2001), Weidenfeld & Nicolson. The extraordinary story of Alexander Selkirk and his island, inspirations for Robinson Crusoe and for the community of San Juan Bautista on modern-day Isla Robinson Crusoe. A prize-winning account.

Swale, Rosie, Back to Cape Horn (1988), Fontana. Swale tells of her epic journey from Antofagasta to Cape Horn on horseback.

Wheeler, Sara, Travels in a Thin Country (1994), Little, Brown & Co. Popular account of the author’s 6-month stay in Chile.

Not many months after the first screening organized by the Lumière brothers in Paris in December 1895, moving pictures were exhibited in Chile on 25 August 1896. Initially all the films were imported, but from 1902 local artists and entrepreneurs began to produce short documentaries. The first narrative movie, Manuel Rodríguez, was screened in September 1910. From about 1915, with European production semi-paralysed by war, the pre-eminence of Hollywood cinema was established. The modern dreams of Hollywood were often more complex, technologically superior and more entertaining than the products of rudimentary national cinemas. The historian of Chilean silent films, Eliana Jara Donoso, quotes a publicity handout for a local movie that read, “it’s so good that it doesn’t seem Chilean”.

But despite the overwhelming presence of Hollywood, local film-makers in the silent era could still establish a small presence in the market. In the main they made documentaries, for this was a niche free of international competition: regional topics, football competitions, civic ceremonies, military parades. Almost 100 feature films were also made, but these are the domain of the film historian, since only one such movie has survived (carefully restored by the University of Chile in the early 1960s): El húsar de la muerte (The Hussar of Death), directed by Pedro Sienna in 1925. It was, like many movies in Latin America at the time, a historical melodrama, exploring the fight for Chilean independence from Spanish rule in the 1810s through the heroic exploits of the legendary Manuel Rodríguez. It achieved great box office success in a year when 16 Chilean films were screened. Never again would so many national movies be produced annually.

The coming of synchronized sound created a new situation in Latin America. In those countries with a large domestic market – in particular Mexico, Argentina and Brazil – investment was made in expensive machinery, installations and rudimentary studios. Elsewhere, and Chile is a telling example, sound devastated local production due to its cost and complexity. Local entrepreneurs were usually unwilling to make the risky capital investment, and the history of Chilean cinema thereafter is littered with tales of self-sacrifice on the part of cast and crew. The first non-silent film made in Chile was Norte y Sur, directed by Jorge Délano in 1934, telling the story of a love triangle where a woman is the object of the attentions of a Chilean and an American engineer. It was a rare example of sophisticated cinema at a time when Chilean film output was reverting to often formulaic stories of young men seducing innocent ladies, or the naïve idealisation of rural landscapes. Délano stood out in this age – another film of his, Escándalo (1940) dealt with the lives of the middle class, rather than those of the aristocracy or the peasantry. Nevertheless, Tobías Barros, an important director of the time, summed up the mood when he sarcastically described his Río Abajo as a film “where there are neither illegitimate nor lost children”.

An attempt was made in the 1940s to stimulate cinema through state investment. The state agency CORFO saw cinema as an important growth industry and in 1942 gave 50% finance to set up Chile Films. Costly studios were erected, but the plan proved over-ambitious and Argentine film-makers ended up using most of the facilities; by 1947 Chile Films had collapsed. In 1959, however, the Universidad de Chile set up a Centre for Experimental Cinema under the direction of a documentary film-maker Sergio Bravo, which trained aspirant directors from Chile and elsewhere in Latin America (notably the Bolivian Jorge Sanjinés).

Cinema became intricately involved in the wider political discussions of the 1960s. The years 1968-1969 saw the maturity of Chilean cinema. Five features came out: Raúl Ruiz’s Tres tristes tigres (Three Sad Tigers); Helvio Soto’s Caliche sangriento (Bloody Nitrate); Aldo Francia’s Valparaíso mi amor (Valparaíso My Love); Miguel Littín’s El chacal de Nahueltoro (The Jackal of Nahueltoro) and Carlos Elsesser’s Los testigos (The Witnesses). These film-makers came from different ideological and aesthetic tendencies, from the inventive maverick Raúl Ruiz to the sombre neo-realism of Francia, but they can be seen as a group, working with very scarce resources: the films by Ruiz, Elsesser, Francia and Littín were made, consecutively, with the same camera; furthermore, many of the directors sought to break down the traditionally melodramatic themes of Chilean cinema, employing more realistic language and situations more reflective of everyday social problems. Aldo Francia, a doctor by profession, also organized a famous ‘Meeting of Latin American Film-makers’ at the Viña del Mar film festival in 1967. This would be one of the key events to cause growing awareness of cineastes across the continent that they were working with similar ideas and methods, producing ‘new cinemas’.

The narrow victory of the Popular Unity parties in the election of 1970 was greeted by film-makers with an enthusiastic manifesto penned by Miguel Littín; Littín himself was put in charge of the revived state institution Chile Films. He lasted for only 10 months, tiring of bureaucratic opposition and inter-party feuding, as the different members of Popular Unity all demanded a share of very limited resources. Few films were made between 1970 and 1973; Raúl Ruiz was the most productive film-maker of the period, with a number of films in different styles. Littín was working on an historical feature La tierra prometida (The Promised Land) when the 1973 coup occurred and post-production took place in Paris.

The most ambitious film to trace the radicalization of Chile in 1972 and 1973 was Patricio Guzmán’s three-part documentary La batalla de Chile (The Battle of Chile), which was edited in exile in Cuba. In the first years of exile, this film became Chile’s most evocative testimony abroad and received worldwide distribution. Paradoxically, Chilean cinema, which had little time to grow under Popular Unity, strengthened in exile.

Policies following the coup practically destroyed internal film production for several years. Film personnel were arrested, tortured and imprisoned and many escaped into exile. Severe censorship was established: even Fiddler on the Roof was banned for displaying Marxist tendencies. It is from the exiled directors that the continuity of film culture can be seen. Littín took up residence in Mexico, supported by Mexican President, Echeverría, and became an explicit spokesman for political Latin American cinema, making the epic Actas de Marusia (Letters from Marusia) in 1975 and several other features in Mexico and later in Nicaragua. In the mid-1980s he returned clandestinely to Chile with several foreign film crews to make the documentary Acta General de Chile in 1986, a perilous mission documented by Gabriel García Márquez in his reportage Clandestine in Chile (1986). Raúl Ruiz took a less visible political role, but since his exile to France, he has produced a body of work that has earned him a reputation as one of the most innovative directors in Europe, the subject of a special issue in 1983 of France’s distinguished journal Cahiers du Cinéma. He makes movies with great technical virtuosity and often great speed: on a visit to Santiago to celebrate the return to civilian rule in 1990, he shot a film, entitled La telenovela errante (The Wandering Soap Opera), in less than a week for US$30,000. Other exile directors to make their mark include Ruiz’s wife Valeria Sarmiento, Gastón Ancelovici and Carmen Castillo, all based in France, Patricio Guzmán in Spain, Marilú Mallet in Canada, Angelina Vásquez in Scandinavia, Sebastián Alarcón in the Soviet Union and Antonio Skármeta in Germany.

Inside Chile, the output under censorship varied from maritime adventures such as El Ultimo grumete to Silvio Caiozzi’s Julio comienza en julio (Julio begins in July, 1979), one of the first films made in the period, set carefully in a turn-of-the-century historical location and self-financed through Caiozzi’s work in commercials. It would take him a further 10 years to produce a second feature, La luna en el espejo (The Moon in the Mirror), evocatively set in Valparaíso, which was screened in 1990. An example of increased critical debate within Chile in the last years of the Pinochet régime can be found in Pablo Perelman’s Imagen latente (Latent Image, 1987) which tells of a photographer’s search for a missing brother who disappeared after the coup; although the film was not released in Chile until 1990, it was possible to make the film in the country in the mid-1980s. Another case is that of Hijos de la Guerra Fría by Gonzalo Justiniano (1985), which is replete with metaphors of a society asphyxiated by a repressive system.

The return to civilian rule had some benefits for film-makers, most notably the easing of censorship. The Viña del Mar Film Festival was symbolically reinstated after 20 years and saw the emotional return of many exiled directors, but that, in itself, could not solve the problems of an intellectual community dispersed around the world and the chronic underfunding and under-representation of Chilean films in the home market. New names have emerged and some internationally successful films have been made, most notably Ricardo Larraín’s La Frontera (The Frontier, 1991), one of the best Chilean films ever made, which tells of a school teacher’s internal exile in the spectacular scenery of southern Chile in the late 1980s, which as Gustavo Graef-Marino’s Johnny Cien Pesos (1993), which deals with violence in Chilean society. The latter was produced by Chile Films, a short-lived production company made up of film directors and producers financed by a State Bank credit loan. The loan was withdrawn, however, when other productions failed at the box office.

The last few years have seen the screening of one or two Chilean features a year, the best received being the political thriller Amnesia (1994), directed by Gonzalo Justiniano, Andrés Wood’s vogue-ish Historias de Futbol (1997) and Sergio Castillo’s 1997 Gringuito, which focuses on the problems of children brought up in exile, returning as foreigners to Chile. This gentle comedy of reintegration has been made to seem somewhat tame by the demonstrations in Chile surrounding the Pinochet extradition process. Larraín’s latest feature El entusiasmo (Enthusiasms, 1999) did not live up to its title among local audiences but it garnered international recognition, as did Andrés Wood’s new films, Loco Fever, an engaging comedy about two conmen’s frenzied search for as many ‘locos’ – the shellfish, not the crazies – as possible, and most recently Machuca, a socio-political drama centred around the friendship of two boys, one rich and one poor, during the final doomed days of Allende’s regime. While there are many talented young filmmakers, and although government art grants are becoming more available, the increasing globalisation of the culture industry, however, means that the pattern of scarce local production is likely to continue.

Chile is a deeply conservative country: it was the first newly independent state in Latin America fully to embrace the Catholic church and has the most stable ‘democratic’ (or, until the 1950s, oligarchic) tradition in the region.

There is less racial diversity in Chile than in most Latin American countries. Over 90% of the population of 16 million is mestizo (mixed race). There are hardly any people of African origin – in sharp contrast to, say, Brazil or Colombia – and there has been much less immigration from Europe than in Argentina and Brazil. The German, French, Italian and Swiss immigrants came mostly after 1846 as small farmers in the forest zone south of the Biobío. Between 1880 and 1900, gold-seeking Serbs and Croats settled in the far south and the British took up sheep farming and commerce in the same region.

There is disagreement over the number of indigenous people in Chile. Survival International estimate the Mapuche population to be one million, but other statistics – including the official ones – put it at much less. There are also 45,000-50,000 Aymara in the northern Chilean Andes and 4500 Rapa Nui on Easter Island. A political party, the Party for Land and Identity, unites many indigenous groupings, and legislation is proposed to restore indigenous people’s rights.

The population is far from evenly distributed: Middle Chile, from La Serena to Concepción, consisting of 20% of the country’s area, is home to over 77% of the population, with the Metropolitan Region of Santiago containing, on its own, about 40% of the total. Population density in 2002 ranged from 393 per sq km in the Metropolitan Region to 0.84 per sq km in Región XI (Aisén). Since the 1960s, heavy migration from the countryside has led to rapid urbanisation. By 2002, 86.6% of the population lived in urban areas.

According to the most recent (2002) census the population is 70% Catholic and 15% Protestant. Membership of Evangelical Protestant churches has grown rapidly in recent years. There are also small Jewish communities in Santiago and Temuco especially.

Chilean literacy rates are higher than those of most other South American states; according to the 2002 census over 95% of the population above the age of 10 is literate. Census returns also indicated that, among the over-25s, 16% had completed higher education, 52% had completed secondary education and 41% had only completed primary education. Higher education provision doubled in the 1980s through the creation of private universities.

In November 2004, and to the consternation of the Catholic church and most conservative politicians Chile became one of the last countries in the world to legalise divorce. Until then, couples that wanted to separate had to go through the farcical process of getting a notary to swear that they were married in an inappropriate municipality and that their marriage certificate is therefore invalid. Even now the process is not cheap and the upshot for impoverished rural populations is that divorce – and remarriage – is still, in effect, impossible.

Chile’s traditional crafts are often specific to particular places and all have a long history. Present-day handicrafts represent either the transformation of utilitarian objects into works of art, or the continued manufacture of pieces that retain symbolic value. A number of factors threaten these traditions: the loss of types of wood and plant fibres through the destruction of forests; the mechanisation of farm labour, reducing the use of the horse; other agricultural changes, which have, among other things, led to reductions in sheep farming and wheat growing; and migration from the countryside to the city. On the other hand, city dwellers and tourists have created a demand for ‘traditional’ crafts so their future is to some degree assured.

The next major empire to touch northern Chile was that of the Incas, which, at the peak of its growth in the 16th century, stretched as far south as the Aconcagua Valley near modern-day Santiago. The advancing armies of Inca Topa Yupanqui suppressed resistance in the valleys of the central region and replaced local structures with their own military administration. They were finally stopped by hostile forest tribes at the Río Maule near present-day Talca. This was the southernmost limit of the Inca Empire, some 3840 km south of the equator and the deepest that any imperial movement had penetrated into the southern hemisphere.

One major group that survived the Inca incursion and resisted conquest by the Europeans right up until the 19th century was the Mapuche . They were concentrated in the central valley south and east of the Cordillera de Nahuelbuta. The Mapuche were primarily farmers but also hunted and fished, both inland and along the coasts and lake shores. Their large cemeteries contained a variety of burial sites, some in canoes or stone chambers and some in simple earthen graves. Grave goods were plentiful, with elaborate ceramics, wooden and stone artefacts and jewellery made of copper and semi-precious stones.

In most of former Spanish America, Independence was followed by a period of political turmoil, marked by civil wars and dictatorship, which in some cases lasted until the 1860s. Many Independence heroes had tragic ends: disgusted at the chaos, San Martín retired to France; Simon Bolívar died penniless and in hiding in a boarding house in Santa Marta, Colombia; and O’Higgins was quickly overthrown. O’Higgins’ demise was followed by a brief period of instability in Chile but, in 1830, conservative forces led by Diego Portales restored order and introduced the Constitution of 1833, which created a strong government under a powerful president. Portales, a Valparaíso merchant, who never became president, explained his actions thus: “If one day I took up a stick and gave tranquillity to the country it was only so that the bastards and whores of Santiago would let me get on with my work in peace.”

Chile became famous throughout Latin America as the great example of political stability: the army was reduced to 3000 men and kept out of politics; after 1831, four successive presidents served the two five-year terms permitted under the constitution. However, this stability had another side: civil liberties were frequently suspended, elections rigged, opponents exiled and power lay in the hands of a small landowning elite. Neither was the stability perfect: there were short civil wars in 1851, 1859 and 1891.

The latter half of the 19th century saw Chile’s great period of expansion. In 1881, when victory over Peru in the War of the Pacific was assured , the much- enlarged army was sent to put an end to Mapuche independence and thus secure continuous Chilean control over the entire Pacific coastline south of Arica. In the few short years between 1879 and 1883, Chilean territory had expanded both northwards and southwards. However, some Chileans still argue that the victory over Peru and Bolivia came at the price of losing both the region around Mendoza and most of Patagonia to Argentina; according to some, this should, by dint of colonial land divisions under the Viceroyalty, be Chilean territory. It is certainly true that maps from the early 19th century show Chilean territory crossing the Andes and advancing halfway to the Atlantic Ocean, while early colonial documents speak of “the city of Mendoza in Chile”.

From the 1860s onwards, conflict between President and Congress became a constant feature of political life. The War of the Pacific brought the Chilean government a new source of income through the tax levied on nitrate exports coming from the new territories of the Atacama but it also increased rivalry for control of this income. When, in 1890, Congress rejected the budget, President Balmaceda announced he would use the 1890 budget for 1891. Congressional leaders denounced this as illegal and fled to Iquique, where they recruited an army, which defeated Balmaceda’s forces and seized the capital. Balmaceda took refuge in the Argentine embassy, where he committed suicide. His defeat was important: between 1891 and 1924 Chilean presidents were weak figures and real power lay with Congress, ruled by the elite.

In the north, the extremely dry climate is a great preservative, allowing archaeologists to build up a detailed picture of early life. The people in the Atacama lived in solidly built adobe houses, arranged in complexes around inner courtyards and corridors, such as can be seen in the village of Tulor near San Pedro de Atacama.

These northern peoples had contact with neighbouring highland communities, shown by the presence there of plants and other goods found only in the adjacent regions. The important altiplano culture of Tiahuanaco in present-day Bolivia is thought to have had particularly close links with northern Chile, helping to stimulate the growth of settlements such as that at San Pedro de Atacama. Trade with Tiahuanaco, through llama caravans bringing highland goods and produce, boosted the wealth and cultural development of the desert people. Some very fine textiles were found in this area, showing distinct design similarities with those of Tiahuanaco. The textiles were hand-spun and coloured with vegetable and cochineal dyes. Clothing and jewellery adornments containing feathers suggested contact even with tropical regions, although these may have been obtained through their altiplano intermediaries. Local ceramics were mostly plain and highly polished, but some items decorated with elaborate dragon-like figures had probably been traded with Tiahuanaco.

Mummification was practised from as early as 2500 BC by the Chinchorro people. They buried their dead stretched out straight, in contrast to the foetal position used by other Chilean and Peruvian cultures. Internal organs and the brain were removed and the body was stuffed with a variety of materials to preserve it. Sticks were attached to the limbs to keep them straight. A mask was placed over the face and a wig of real human hair was attached to the head. The body was then coated in a layer of clay and wrapped in animal skins or mats. According to the person’s status, they were often buried with their personal possessions: clothing, jewellery, musical instruments and copper items.

In the period AD 500-900 the association between San Pedro de Atacama and Tiahuanaco had become even stronger. In return for trading their agricultural produce and other goods, it is thought that the Tiahuanaco people sought copper, semi-precious stones and the use of grazing lands in northern Chile. As with the Araucanía in the south, some graves from this period contained bodies with more elaborate clothing, jewellery, imported ceramics and other valuables, suggesting the existence of a wealthy elite, which was also common in central Andean cultures.

Following the demise of Tiahuanaco in about AD 1100, a number of cultures arose in the adjacent area bordering southern Bolivia, northern Chile and Argentina, practising derivative agriculture, with terraces and irrigation, and producing ceramics in similar styles. In the Quebrada de Humahuaca in present-day Argentina, several small defensive towns were built with fortified walls and stone houses. Grave remains have revealed that metallurgy was well developed here; some bodies were adorned with pectorals, bracelets, masks and bells, made of copper, silver and gold. Shells from the Pacific and ceramics from present-day Bolivian cultures, such as the Huruquilla, show the existence of widespread trade links.

Some 50,000 years ago, the very first people crossed the temporary land bridge spanning Asia and America at the Bering Straits and began a long migration southwards. They were hunters and foragers, following in the path of huge herds of now-extinct animals, such as mammoth, giant ground sloth and ancestors of the camel and horse. The first signs that these people had reached South America date from around 14,000 BC, if not earlier.

As sources of game in forested valleys dried up, some groups settled along the coasts, particularly drawn by the abundance of marine life provided by the cold Humboldt current in the Pacific. Some of the earliest evidence of humans in Chile has been found in the north, both on the coast and in the parched Atacama Desert. The coastal people lived on shellfish gathered by the shore and on fish and sea-lions speared from inflated seal-skin rafts.

One such group, the Las Conchas people, migrated from the inland valleys to the coast near Antofagasta around 7500 BC. They were one of the first peoples in South America to take hallucinogenic drugs. Many graves excavated in this region contain mortars, which may have been used to grind up seeds also found nearby. These seeds contained an alkaloid similar to that found in the ayahuasca plant, which is still used for its hallucinogenic effects by the Shuar in Peru – indeed, the Shuar are believed by some to be descendants of these Atacameño peoples, having migrated to the Amazon in order to hide from the Spanish. Some specialists believe that the many geoglyphs of the Atacama Desert – the most famous ones being the Nazca Lines in Peru – were maps for shamans undergoing the hallucinatory experience of flight after taking drugs such as ayahuasca.

It appeared that the July 2002 ruling would finally allow some distance to be put between Chile and its troublesome former President. However over the next two years a series of human rights abuse charges were made against Pinochet, Each followed the same course as the last; first Pinochet had to be stripped of immunity for a particular charge, then he was indicted and placed under house arrest before being ruled too infirm to stand trial. For some time Chileans had been cynical about the prospects of ‘Pinocchio’ ever being brought to justice and the ruling simply seemed to confirm most people’s suspicions. Indeed, ‘the old man’ still retained sizeable support amongst large sectors of the population who maintained that his acts were justified in as much as they were borne of patriotic ideals and served to save Chile from communism and transform it into the modern country of today. However all this changed in 2004 when it was discovered that Pinochet had stashed away US$27 million in secret foreign bank accounts. He was charged along with his wife and four of his children (one of whom laughably tried to claim political asylum in the US) for tax evasion and holding false passports. Now, suddenly, the same people who had defended Pinochet’s murders were aghast at the idea that he may have been stealing money from them. To add further fuel to the fire, in July 2006, Manuel Contreras, the former head of the DINA, claimed that Pinochet made this money by the large-scale production and sale of cocaine to Europe and North America. This new case was never resolved, Pinochet dying under house arrest on 10 December 2006 to a bizarre mixture of raucous celebration and quasi-religeous grief, never having been brought to justice but equally failing to end his life with the respect and authority he had tried to develop. Denied the state burial he craved, he was nevertheless buried with full military honours

Back to 2002 and President Lagos urgently needed to concentrate on important national economic issues: in particular, the impact of the economic meltdown in neighbouring Argentina – Chile’s main trading partner and the source of the majority of its overseas visitors. As political uncertainty increased across the continent – with coups and counter-coups in Venezuela, the collapse of Argentina and the victory of the left in presidential elections in Brazil – 2002 was a difficult year to be steering the Chilean ship. The government’s decision in August 2002 to freeze the minimum wage in an effort to reduce unemployment caused widespread protests, largely because most people’s experience of economic realities did not match the government’s subsequent statements as to the “improving situation”.

The early months of 2003, however, saw Lagos able to reassert his statesmanship through his renewed importance on the global stage: Chile now occupied one of the 15 seats on the UN Security Council. As the international crisis over Iraq reached a head, Lagos did not desert his old support base, with Chile proving to be one of the most intractable of the “six undecided council members”, and putting forward a strong case against pre-emptive military invasion. This resistance to pressure from the ‘yanquis’ and the Brits reflected the mood in the country and enhanced Lagos’s popularity. But opposition to war in Iraq did not come without a price; the Americans subsequently postponed signing a free trade agreement with Chile.

In his last two years of office, president Lagos concentrated on important social and democratic themes. The Plan Auge aimed to create a more European-style healthcare system heavily subsidising treatment for an increasing number of illnesses to low-income families and in some cases allowing them access to private clinics, while the justice system was shaken up in an effort to speed up processes that had often seen prisoners on remand for longer than they were finally sentenced for. Agreement was finally reached to phase out the system of appointed senators, paving the way for a return to true democracy, while in 2005 the president was at last given the authority to dismiss leaders of the armed forces, once again making the military subordinate to democratic institutions. When President Lagos finally stepped down, he enjoyed the highest popularity rating of any Chilean leader.

The most recent elections, at the end of 2005 threw up a three-way contest. The Concertación put forward the Socialist Michelle Bachelet, while the right put up two candidates, Joaquín Lavín for the UDI and Sebastián Piñera for the RN. After Lavín was knocked out in the first round, the final result seemed too close to call. Over a series of television debates, Piñera, owner of Chile’s national airline and a major television channel, came across as a slightly false patronising and domineering figure, and in the end Bachelet won by a comfortable 7%.

In many ways Bachelet has broken the mould in Chilean politics. A woman president in a still very much male-dominated country, Bachelet was not a career politician. Tortured alongside her father (a military man who had remained loyal to Allende), she worked for many years as a paediatrician before being made Health and then Defence Minister under Lagos. Although she had a quiet start to her presidency she has continued the progressive reforms of her predecessor. On the domestic front she has the advantages of record copper prices filling the treasury coffers enabling the country to weather the 2009 global economic crisis much better than most of her South American neighbours, while internationally she has tried to balance Chile’s reputation as a stable neo-liberal trading partner with her relations with ever more left-leaning populist governments in the region.

In 2010 centre-right candidate Sebastian Pinera won the presidency, the first democratically elected conservative leader in Chile for over half a century.

The first Spanish expeditions to Chile were led by Diego de Almagro and Pedro de Valdivia, both of whom followed the Inca road from Peru to Salta and then west across the Andes. Almagro’s expedition of 1535-1537, which included 100 Spaniards, African slaves, crypto-Jews and some thousands of indigenous Americans – many of whom perished – reached the heartland but, bitterly disappointed at not finding gold, returned to Peru almost immediately. Valdivia’s expedition then carried out what initially appeared to be a swift and successful conquest, founding Santiago in February 1541 and a series of other settlements in the following years. But, in the 1550s, these Spanish settlements were shaken by a Mapuche rebellion, which led to the death of Valdivia.

The two major indigenous figures in this early resistance to the Spaniards were the caciques Lautaro and Caupolicán. Lautaro was an interesting case: initially an adjutant of Pedro de Valdivia (known by the conquistador as Felipe), he turned against Validivia and led the expedition that captured him in 1553. Lautaro went on to lead several successful campaigns, before being killed by the Spaniards in the Mataquito Valley in 1557. Caupolicán fought alongside Lautaro, but was eventually captured in the cordillera in 1558 and impaled on a stake by the Spaniards. Nevertheless, the two Mapuche heros had successfully undermined the Spanish colony and their struggles set the tone for the colonial period in Chile. Lacking precious minerals, threatened by the warlike Mapuche and never less than four months’ journey from Europe, the colony was of relatively little importance to Spain, except as a frontier zone.

The motivation of these early expeditions – as in Mexico and Peru – was greed. The Spanish crown did nothing to finance the ventures, so all the risk was shouldered by those who participated, who therefore had a pressing need to find silver and gold to recompense themselves. Nevertheless, a fifth of all gold and silver that was found in the New World went into the royal coffers; an influx of precious metal that was urgently needed to prop up the falling value of coinage in Europe at this time.

The greedy motivations of the early arrivals made control in distant Chile difficult for the Castillian crown to exercise. Chile was effectively run by men such as Francisco de Aguirre, a conquistador who had accompanied Pedro de Valdivia’s initial expedition. As one of the first Spaniards on the scene, Aguirre was made Governor of Tucumán – just across the Andes in modern-day Argentina – and later founded La Serena. He was, however, deeply anti-clerical and proclaimed himself “Pope and King” in Chile, saying that he would rather have a farrier than a priest. The Inquisition eventually caught up with Aguirre in the Río de la Plata in the 1570s and he died poor, bitter and disgraced in La Serena.

In addition to trying to exert effective control over the Spaniards in their territory, one of the main concerns of Chile’s Spanish governors after Valdivia was the war against the Mapuche successors to Lautaro and Caupolicán. Known by the Spanish as Araucanos, the Mapuche were fearsome opponents. In 1598, they began a general offensive that destroyed all of the Spanish settlements south of the Río Biobío, revealing the weakness of a colony whose Spanish population was under 8000. Pushed back into the northern part of the Central Valley, the Spanish were forced to build a string of forts along the Río Biobío, guarded by a frontier army of 2000 men, the only force of its type in Spanish America, financed by a special subsidy from the viceregal capital of Lima. However, Chile was not important enough to warrant a full-scale Spanish assault on the Mapuche and, for the rest of the colonial period, the Spanish presence south of the river would be limited to the island of Chiloé and to the coastal city of Valdivia.

Gradually, the settled life of agricultural subsistence took over from the more nomadic hunting lifestyle. Remains of slingshot stones and what seem to be bolas (weights attached to cords used to bring down prey by entangling their legs) have been found alongside bones of mastodons in Monte Verde, near Puerto Montt. Other remains found nearby included agricultural tools and medicinal plants, hearths and house foundations, all indications that the site was inhabited for some time by one community. Crop seeds have also been found, including those of potatoes, evidence of very early contact with cultures from as far afield as the Central Andes. Some of these remains were found in a remarkable condition, owing to being buried in a peat bog; mastodon bones even had traces of meat on them. It is widely agreed that the site was settled 10,000 years ago, although lower levels have been controversially dated from as early as 34,000 years ago.

By about 2500 BC, agriculture was practised throughout much of Chile, as it was across the rest of the continent. Maize, beans and squash have been found in northern Chile from as early as 5000 BC. However, people in the south only turned definitively to agriculture at a much later date. In Araucanía, horticulture was not practised until around AD 500. These people also had unusual burial practices, placing the body in an urn inside a funerary canoe, perhaps reflecting the local dependence on fishing for their livelihood. Elaborate artefacts found in some graves, such as stone and copper jewellery and ceramic offerings, suggest a stratified society of both rich and poor.

As in the other colonies in the Americas, Chilean society under Spanish rule was not the two-sided world of Spanish settlers and Amerindian peoples that official histories would have us believe. From very early on, two other groups became increasingly important: marranos – or forced converts from Judaism to Christianity, who had fled Inquisitiorial persecution in Spain and Portugal – and slaves from West Africa. The marranos controlled large parts of the trade in South America and suffered bouts of persecution from the Inquisitional office in Lima, while the Africans did much of the manual labour in the colony. Although both groups eventually became absorbed into Chile, the legacy of their presence can perhaps be felt today in the widespread stereotyping of Africans and Jews in mainstream Chilean society.

African slaves started arriving from very early on in the colonial period, principally because the Spanish found that the indigenous people were not hardy enough to do the work required of them. By the end of the 16th century, Africans in Chile were working as cattle ranchers and as stevedores, and as blacksmiths, tailors, carpenters and servants in every city. They were mostly sold as contraband, brought over from Buenos Aires instead of through the ‘official’ port of entry at Cartagena, Colombia, and originated from all parts of the West African coast, from Senegambia to Angola.

By the turn of the 17th century, much of the trade of the fledgling colony was in the hands of the marranos, who were prohibited from holding positions of authority. Their main port of entry was Buenos Aires, from where they travelled overland to Potosí and Lima by way of Tucumán.

In the following years, colonial Chile achieved a degree of stability and developed as a compact society; most of its population inhabited the Central Valley and most trade was through Valparaíso. By the end of the 17th century, there were few people of pure indigenous blood, most having died, inter-married or escaped south of the Río Biobío. The majority of the population was mestizo (mixed race), though the society was dominated by a small white elite. Chile was, however, highly isolated, being cut off from the rest of the continent in winter. People dared not use the lower passes to the south for fear of the Mapuche, and the high passes near Mendoza and Santiago were blocked by snow for months at a time.

During the colonial period, the hacienda, or landed estate, was the most important feature of rural society in the Central Valley. In the 17th century, Chilean agriculture expanded to meet demands for wheat, tallow, salted beef and cattle hides from Peru; hides were also sent to Potosí and mules to the great fair in Salta. These exports and the need to feed the frontier army led to the development of large-scale agriculture. As the haciendas grew, small farmers and tenants were gradually forced to become inquilinos, a class of peasants tied to the land. The inquilino is regarded as the ancestor of the huaso, the Chilean cowboy, a figure seen as resourceful, astute, cunning and archetypally Chilean.

Although haciendas grew in response to food shortages, they were very self contained, with their own supplies of food and clothing, their own vineyards, forges and workshops. Ownership of a hacienda was one of the clearest marks of upper-class status, although many were the property of religious orders. The hacienda remained at the centre of rural life in the Central Valley and social relations between landowners and inquilinos changed little until the Agrarian Reforms of the 1960s. Although no colonial haciendas remain, a few dating from the 19th century can be visited, notably Villa Huilquilemu, near Talca .

Chile was governed as part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, with its capital in Lima; until the 18th century, all trade with Spain had to pass via Lima and trade with other countries was forbidden. This led to uncontrolled smuggling and, by 1715, there were 40 French vessels trading illegally along the Chilean coast. In 1740, direct trade with Spain was permitted for the first time and, in 1750, Chile was allowed to mint her own currency.

Despite the apparently inhospitable conditions, these regions were home to a sizeable population of hunting, fishing and gathering peoples from very early times continuously up to the 19th century AD. Bones of horses and extinct giant sloths, dating from approximately 8000 BC, have been found near to stone arrowheads in sites such as Fells’s Cave and Pali Aike Cave on the Magellan Straits – evidence of the earliest hunters.

Four distinct cultures developed here: the Haush, Ona, Yámana and Alacalufe. The oldest of these was the Haush, nomadic hunters of the guanaco mainly confined to the farthest southeastern tip of Tierra del Fuego, in present-day Argentina. The Haush hunted with bows and arrows, using guanaco skins for clothing and sometimes for covering their stick-framed houses. They also gathered shellfish and caught fish by the shore, using spears and harpoons.

The Ona people also hunted guanaco, ranging on foot across most of the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego in family groups. They were strong runners and tall people, some of them 6 ft tall; in fact, all these hunters and gatherers are thought to have been the tallest of the first South American peoples. They wore guanaco skin robes, fur side out, and also guanaco fur moccasins, known as jamni. They made open-topped shelters out of guanaco skins, which were weatherproofed with a coating of mud and saliva, and sometimes painted red. The Ona did not use harpoons or spears and only collected shellfish from beaches at low tide.

The Yámana were nomadic coastal hunters, travelling in canoes up and down the coasts of the Beagle Channel and around the islands southwards to Cape Horn. They caught otters, fish and seals, using spears and harpoons, and used slings and snares to catch birds. The Yámana houses were simple, made of sticks and grass, and they wore little clothing, perhaps a small seal skin and skin moccasins in winter.

Like the Yámana, the Alacalufes were also nomadic coastal peoples, roaming from Puerto Edén in the Chilean channels, to Yendegaia in the Beagle Channel. There was some contact with the Yámana, with whom they would sometimes exchange goods and inter-marry. The Alacalufes had similar lifestyles to the Yámana but developed various additions, such as raising a sail on their canoes and using a bow and arrow in addition to the sling when hunting birds or guanaco.

Allende’s popularity in some quarters was demonstrated by the March 1973 Parliamentary elections, at which the Unidad Popular polled 43.4% of the vote, 7% more than in 1970. Nevertheless, the coup of 11 September 1973, led by General Augusto Pinochet (born 1915), was widely expected, the armed forces having received open encouragement from Allende’s opponents in Congress, including the Christian Democrats, and from opposition groups on the streets; it later became clear that the CIA had had a major role in fomenting the unrest that led to the pre-coup stand-off.

The brutality of the coup shocked people who were accustomed to Chile’s peaceful traditions. Left-wing activists and people mistakenly identified as leftists were arrested, thousands were executed, torture was widespread, with at least 7000 people held in the national football stadium, and, by 1978, there were 30,000 Chilean exiles in Western Europe alone. With political parties and labour unions banned, the government adopted neo-liberal economic policies under the influence of the ‘Chicago Boys’ – local economists who had been trained at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Milton Friedman.

Pinochet installed himself as the undisputed head of a military junta. Those who did not approve of his methods often met grisly ends, including the former head of the Army, Carlos Prats, who was assassinated by a car bomb in Buenos Aires in 1974. Pinochet increased his hold on power by his control over the regime’s notorious secret police, the DINA, which was headed by a close colleague, General Manuel Contreras, while silencing exiles and international critics through Operation Condor, an international anti-leftist terrorist movement. Under a new constitution, adopted in 1980, Chile became a ‘protected democracy’ based on the exclusion of political parties and the ‘guardianship’ of the armed forces, who put forward a single candidate for an eight-year presidential term in 1981. To no one’s surprise that candidate was Pinochet, who, during his second term (1981-1989) became the longest-serving Chilean president. With his stern features enhanced by dark glasses, Pinochet became the stereotype of the South American dictator. Often seen as a bluff, no-nonsense character, he was also noted for his astuteness, his suspicious mind, his ruthlessness, his hatred of communism and distrust of democracy.

It would be wrong to see his dominance as merely the result of repression and fear. For many Chileans, who had hated Allende and feared his liberal policies, the human rights abuses and destruction of democracy were seen as a price worth paying. In spite of his widespread vilification in much of the Western press, Pinochet retained popularity among many Chileans, polling 44% of the vote in a plebiscite in 1988. This bid for a further eight-year term was unsuccessful but, when the first results came in, the military government initially tried to maintain that the ‘si’ vote (yes to Pinochet) had triumphed. Even when this position became untenable, the constitution of 1980 ensured that Pinochet still had 18 months before he had to relinquish power.

Eventually, presidential and congressional elections were held in 1989. A veteran Christian Democrat politician, Patricio Aylwin Azócar, the candidate of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD, or Concertación), was elected President and took office in March 1990 in a peaceful transfer of power. General Pinochet remained as Army Commander, although other armed forces chiefs were replaced. The new Congress set about revising many of the military’s laws on civil liberties and the economy, but in December 1990, questions in Congress and in the press about financial scandals involving army officers and Pinochet’s own son-in-law led the Army Commander to order all troops to report to barracks. In May 1993, Pinochet surrounded the Ministry of Defence with soldiers and ordered generals to wear battle dress to work for a day.

In 1991, the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (the RETTIG Commission) published a report detailing those who had been killed under the military regime. The RETTIG commission established that 3197 people had died as the result of the violation of human rights, but opposition by the armed forces and an amnesty law protecting members of the military prevented mass human rights trials. At this time, prosecution of those guilty of human rights abuses in Chile was widely seen as impossible.

Presidential elections in December 1993 resulted in victory for the Christian Democrat, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, candidate of the Concertación coalition but, in congressional elections held at the same time, the Concertación failed to achieve the two-thirds majority required to reform the constitution, replace the heads of the armed forces and end the system of designated senators whose votes enabled the right-wing parties and the military to block reform. As a result Frei’s presidency became an exercise in balancing the demands of the parties of the Concertación against the entrenched power of the military and the right-wing. Although the Concertación won a comfortable victory in congressional elections in December 1997, it still failed to achieve the majority necessary to break the deadlock; the position of the military was strengthened in March 1998 when General Pinochet retired as Army Commander-in-Chief and, as a former president who had held office for six years, took up his lifetime seat in the Senate.

In October 1998, General Pinochet was arrested in London at a private clinic, while recovering from a back operation. The arrest warrant had been issued by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón, for murder and torture of Spanish citizens under the military regime. Pinochet’s arrest put the Frei government under great pressure: Pinochet’s supporters demanded action, while some of the government’s supporters, especially those in the Socialist party, were privately delighted. Meanwhile, the families of those who had disappeared during Pinochet’s regime continued to demand news of the whereabouts of the victims’ corpses, and the prosecution of those responsible. Combined with the worsening economic situation and the choice of the first Socialist to head the Concertación into presidential elections, these dramatic events made the December 1999 poll unexpectedly close. The Concertación candidate, Ricardo Lagos, eventually won with a tiny majority in a second-round ballot against the populist Mayor of Las Condes, Joaquín Lavín (one of the bright young ‘Chicago boys’ of the 1970s), although Lavín had won more votes in the first round of polling.

The ructions caused by the Pinochet affair were significant. Having allowed the extradition process to continue, Jack Straw, the British Home Secretary, permitted Pinochet to return to Chile on grounds of ill health in March 2000. However, a legal case started by Judge Juan Guzmán Tapia in the Chilean courts in January 1998 meant that Pinochet still faced a legal challenge. In July 1999, the Supreme Court ruled that, in cases where the fact of death could not be certified, amnesty did not apply, thereby laying Pinochet and the military open to charges regarding the ‘disappeared’. This was followed in June 2000 by an Appeal Court ruling that stripped Pinochet of his immunity from trial. The decision was confirmed by the Supreme Court in August, and Pinochet was finally indicted by Judge Guzmán on 29 January 2001. The charges of kidnapping and murder related to the infamous ‘caravan of death’ in 1973, when many political detainees ‘disappeared’ in the north of the country. However, in July 2001, the court ruled narrowly that Pinochet’s worsening health meant that he was not capable of mounting a proper defence and that the case could not be continued. Judge Guzmán was soon forced to take sick leave as a result of stress induced by the case. Although appeals were mounted by the families of victims of the military government, Pinochet eventually won the right not to stand trial under a Supreme Court Ruling in July 2002, although he resigned his position as senator for life.

Independence came to Spanish America as a direct result of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain. As Spanish guerrilla forces fought to drive the French out, these events led the colonial elites to debate where their loyalties lay: to Napoleon’s brother Joseph, now officially King? Or to the overthrown king, Ferdinand VII, now in a French prison? Or to the Spanish resistance parliament in Cádiz?

In 1810, a group of leading Santiago citizens appointed a Junta to govern until Ferdinand returned to the throne. Although they protested loyalty to Ferdinand, their move was seen as a challenge to the crown by the viceregal government in Lima, which sent an army to Concepción. War broke out between the Chilean Patriots and the Royalist troops supporting Lima. The defeat of the Patriot army led by Bernardo O’Higgins at Rancagua in October 1814 led to a restoration of colonial rule, but O’Higgins was able to escape across the Andes to join forces with Buenos Aires’ liberation hero, José de San Martín. The turning point came in 1817, with the invasion of Chile from Mendoza by San Martín’s Army of the Andes, a force of 4000 men, which defeated the Royalists at Chacabuco on 12 February 1817. A Royalist counter-attack was defeated at Maipó, just south of Santiago, on 5 May 1818, putting an end to Royalist power in the Central Valley. The victory of the small Patriot navy led by Lord Cochrane at Valdivia in January 1820 helped clear the Pacific coast of Royalist vessels and paved the way for San Martín to launch his seaborne invasion of Peru.

In the years before the First World War, the income from nitrates helped build a large railway network, roads and ports and the best education system on the continent. However, the collapse of the industry during the First World War led to worker and student unrest, which brought down the constitutional system in 1924 when the military intervened. A new constitution restored the strong presidency, which had apparently served Chile so well in the 19th century, but the Great Depression brought further economic stress, which resulted in a series of short-lived governments, including a military-led 100-day Socialist Republic in 1932.

As economic conditions recovered in the 1930s, Chile once again became a model of political stability. Between 1932 and 1970, Chile developed a complex multiparty system: two left-wing parties, the Socialists and Communists, representing the urban workers and miners; the Conservative and Liberal parties, dating from the 19th century, representing the landowners; and the Radicals, a centre party representing the middle classes. The Radicals became the key to power, winning the presidency in 1938, 1942 and 1946. However, one major group remained excluded from political life: the peasants, whose votes, controlled by their landlords, gave the Liberals and Conservatives their representation in Congress and enabled the landlords to block rural reform.

In the 1958 election, the Socialist Salvador Allende only narrowly failed to defeat the Conservative Jorge Alessandri. This shook both the right-wing parties and (in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution), the US government. In 1964, the US and the Chilean right-wing threw their weight behind Eduardo Frei Montalva, a Christian Democrat who promised a ‘revolution in freedom’. Frei Montalva’s achievements in office were impressive: state ownership of 51% of the copper industry; minimum wage and unionization rights for agricultural workers; and the 1967 agrarian reform, which began replacing the haciendas with family farms. However, these measures raised hopes that could not be satisfied, especially in the countryside where workers now enjoyed rights and pushed for faster land reform. Hostility from the landowners was reflected in Congress where the National Party, formed in 1966 by the merger of the Conservatives and Liberals, denounced the government. The President’s Christian Democrat Party was divided between supporters and opponents of reform. Nevertheless, Frei Montalva has been an enduringly popular President – his memory was widely seen as a key factor in the landslide victory of his son, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, in the 1993 presidential elections.

The 1970 election was narrowly won by Salvador Allende, polling just over 36.3% of the vote, with the electorate split in three. Allende headed a left-wing alliance called Unidad Popular, which launched an ambitious programme of reforms: banking, insurance, communications, textiles and other industries were taken over in the first year and the nationalisation of copper was completed (this last even with the support of the right-wing parties). After that, the government ran into major problems: the nationalisations had depleted Chile’s currency reserves, while hostility by domestic business groups and the US caused capital flight and a US-led boycott on international credit. In Congress, an alliance between the Christian Democrats and National Party impeached several ministers. At grassroots level, a series of anti-government strikes by truck drivers and professional groups brought the country to a halt in October 1972 and again in August 1973, while the supplies in shops were unable to keep pace with the wider purchasing power of many social classes, leading to long queues for foodstuffs and a rise in annual inflation to over 300% in 1973.

Despite these negative effects, Allende’s Socialist experiment did have a measure of success: agricultural production increased and, by 1972, there were 27% more foodstuffs available in Chile than there had been in 1970. However, even this increase in supply was outstripped by the demand caused by a real rise in wages among the poor. This was a sign that Allende’s goal of eradicating poverty was bearing some fruit, with per capita consumption rising for all foodstuffs except red meat. The upper and middle classes who bemoaned the queues in the shops were, in fact, venting frustration that their customary position at the head of affairs was finally being usurped.

It is only to be expected that a country that stretches over 4000 km from north to south will provide a wide variety of climatic conditions. Annual rainfall varies from zero in northern Chile to over 4000 mm on the offshore islands south of Puerto Montt. Rainfall is heavier in the winter months (May to August) throughout the country, except for in the northern altiplano where January and February are the wettest months.

Variations in the Chilean climate are concentrated by two significant factors: altitude and the cold waters of the Humboldt Current. The Andes, with their peaks of over 6000 m, are rarely more than 160 km from the coastline. On average, temperatures drop by 1°C for every 150 m you climb. The Humboldt Current has perhaps even more impact. The current flows in a northeasterly direction from Antarctic waters until it meets the southern coast of Chile, from where it follows the coastline northwards. Cold polar air accompanies the current on its journey, eventually colliding with warmer air moving in from the southwest. The lighter warm air is forced to rise over the dense cold air, bringing rainfall all year round to the area south of the Río Biobío and rain in winter further north in the Central Valley.

Paradoxically, the ocean also has a moderating effect on temperatures, which are not generally extreme and decrease less than might be expected from north to south. As a result of the Humboldt Current, temperatures in northern Chile are much lower than they are for places at corresponding latitudes, such as Mexico. In the far south, the oceans have the opposite effect and temperatures rarely fall below -6°C despite the high latitude. Detailed temperature and rainfall patterns are given in the text.

Chile is an ecological island. Fauna that is commonplace in neighbouring countries has not been able to migrate here because of the Andes, the desert, the ice and the sea. This explains why there are no land tortoises, squirrels, jaguars or poisonous snakes in the country. Surrounded by natural barriers on all sides, its isolation has contributed to a range of endemic wildlife – something that Darwin glimpsed in microcosm on Chiloé in 1835, when he observed a fox unique to that island.

The one geographical constant from top to bottom of the country is the Pacific Ocean, the world’s richest ocean for marine species. Coldwater species live near Chile’s mainland, feeding off the rich nutrients in the Humboldt Current, while subtropical species inhabit the warmer waters around the Juan Fernández archipelago, and tropical species can be found in the waters around Easter Island. This explains the diversity of Chilean marine life, from hake, swordfish, bream and bass to countless shellfish, such as abalones, mussels, sea urchins, lobsters and a variety of crabs. Nine of the world’s 18 species of penguins also live in Chile. The Humboldt penguins can be found between Arica and Chiloé, while the King, Adelia and Emperor penguins live solely in Antarctica. There are numerous colonies of sea-lions up and down the coast; dolphins are often seen off the shore of Chiloé and even killer whales abound.

Inland, there are some 680 species of mammal, amphibian, reptile and bird. In the north, the camelids predominate among mammals: the alpacas, guanacos, llamas and vicuñas, with the guanaco also being found as far south as Tierra del Fuego. These South American camels are adapted for the mountainous terrain by having narrower feet than the desert forms of the species. All four species can be seen in Chile, although three are found only in the north. Like horses and donkeys, all the camelids can breed with one another, arising to some confusion as to their origins. There is a long-held view that both the llama and the alpaca are descended from wild guanaco.

Guanaco, coffee coloured with a dark head and tail and weighing up to 55 kg, were once found throughout Chile except in rainforest areas. Both grazers and browsers, they live in deserts, shrub land, savannah and occasionally on forest fringes. In many areas hunted to extinction, an estimated 20,000 now survive in the far north, especially in the Parque Nacional Lauca, in coastal and mountain areas between Antofagasta and Lago Rapel and in parts of the far south, such as the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine.

Vicuña, weighing up to 20 kg, are like half-sized guanaco, although with a much finer yellower coat and coffee-coloured head and tail. Hunted almost to extinction, there were only around 400 in Chile in 1970. Protection has increased their numbers to around 12,000, mainly in the far north at altitudes of 3700-4800 m.

Alpaca are domesticated animals, weighing 20-30 kg, but seeming to be much larger because of their wool. Colours vary between black, coffee coloured, mahogany, grey and white. An estimated 20,000 can be found in drier parts of the northern altiplano.

Llama are also domesticated and are usually found with alpacas. Larger than alpacas and weighing up to 55 kg, their wool varies in colour but is shorter than that of alpacas. They are found only in the area of their domestication, which first occurred around Lake Titicaca some 4000-5000 years ago. Used as pack animals, males can carry loads of up to 40 kg. There are some 40,000 in the Tarapacá and Antofagasta regions of Chile.

Perhaps surprisingly, the north is also one of the avian capitals of Chile, with three of the world’s six species of flamingo – the James, Chilean and Andean – all to be found around the saltpans of the Atacama. The Parque Nacional Lauca is also exceptional for birdlife, with over 120 species of either resident or migrant birds .

As the land becomes more humid, south of the desert, there are naturally many changes in wildlife. One of the few constants is the famous puma, which is found in the cordillera all the way from Arica to the Straits of Magellan, albeit in increasingly small numbers; the puma is understandably shy of humans, and is rarely spotted. There are several species of fox, particularly in the mountains, and the Central Valley is also a haven for spiders, including dangerous arañas de rincón and tarantulas.

Further south, in the lush forests of the Lake District and down towards the Carreterra Austral, two of the most interesting creatures are the huemul and the pudú. Both are species of deer. The huemul’s northernmost group is found around Chillán; it is a medium- sized creature, well adapted for life in the mountains. The pudú is an extraordinary creature, a deer just 40 cm high, very shy and extremely difficult to spot, although it can sometimes be seen in the more remote parts of Chiloé and the Carreterra Austral.

The Parque Nacional Torres del Paine is a haven for wildlife, sheltering guanacos, condors, pumas and foxes. On Isla Magdalena and Seno Otway, both near Punta Arenas, there are famous Magellanic penguin colonies, while Isla Navarino has a colony of beavers (unintentionally introduced from Canada), as well as some fantastic birdlife including petrels and even – on a good day – albatrosses.

The diversity of Chilean flora reflects the geographic length and climatic variety of the country. Although the Andes constitute a great natural barrier, there are connections between the flora of Chile and that of the eastern side of the mountain range, most notably in the far north with the Bolivian altiplano and in the south with the temperate forests of Argentina.

The Quaternary Period, 1.6 million years ago, was marked by the advance and retreat of the Antarctic Ice Sheet which, at its maximum extent, covered all of the Chilean Andes and the entire coastline south of Puerto Montt. However, although there are surface remnants of older rock formations, most have disappeared with the dramatic creation of the Andes, which started around 80 million years ago and continues to this day. The South American Plate, moving westwards, meets the Nazca and Antarctic plates, which are moving eastwards and sinking below the continent. These two plates run more or less parallel between 26°S and 33°S and the friction between them creates a geologically unstable zone, marked by frequent earthquakes and volcanic activity. The area of Concepción has been particularly susceptible to both land and undersea quakes and the city was twice destroyed by tidal waves in the 18th century before being moved to its present site.

All of the Chilean Pacific islands were formed by underwater volcanoes associated with fracture zones between the Nazca and Antarctic Plates. Easter Island gained its characteristic triangular shape from the joining together of three lava flows.

Chile is a major producer and exporter of fine wines. The fine wine-producing area stretches from the valley of the Río Aconcagua in the north to the Maule Valley in the south. Grapes are also produced outside this area, notably around Ovalle and in the Elqui Valley near La Serena, which is the main production centre for pisco, a clear distilled spirit commonly drunk with lemon as pisco sour, although the distillery that many hold to be the best is Alto del Carmén, in the upper reaches of the Huasco Valley.

The great majority of Chilean wines come from the Central Valley. The hot, dry summers guarantee exceptionally healthy fruit. Chilean wine is famous for being free from diseases such as downy mildew and phylloxera. As a result, growers are spared the costs of spraying and of grafting young vines onto phylloxera-resistant rootstocks.

There are eight denominated wine-growing regions, based around the valleys of the Ríos Limarí, Aconcagua, Casablanca, Maipo, Cachapoal, Colchagua, Curicó, Maule and Biobío. The heartland of Chilean red wine production is the Maipo Valley, just south of Santiago, which is home to many of the most prestigious names in Chilean wine. Although the Maipo produces far less wine than the regions to the south, it is considered by many experts to produce the best wines in Chile as a result of the lime content of its soils. In recent years the Casablanca Valley has emerged as a fine producer of Chardonnay and crisp Sauvignon blancs, while the recent rediscovery of the lost Carmenere grape is helping to give Chilean wine its own identity.

The main harvest period begins at the end of February, for early maturing varieties such as Chardonnay, and runs through to the end of April for Cabernet Sauvignon, although there are regional variations. Harvest celebrations are often accompanied by two drinks: chicha, a partly fermented grape juice, and vino pipeño, an unfiltered young wine which contains residue from the grapes and dried yeast.

Although the vine was introduced to Chile in the mid-16th century by the Spanish, the greatest influence on Chilean vineyards and wine making has been exerted by the French. In the 1830s, one prominent Frenchman, Claudio Gay, persuaded the Chilean government to establish the Quinta Normal in Santiago as a nursery for exotic botanical specimens including vines. In the 1970s domestic consumption of wine dropped and wine prices fell, leading to the destruction of many vineyards. In the last two decades, however, large-scale investment, much of it from the United States and Europe has led to increases in wine production, increasingly of quality wines destined for export. Chilean wines are now widely available around the world; they are also very popular within Latin America.

Chileans are justly proud and are increasingly becoming connoisseurs of their wines. More and more top-end wines are sold on the domestic market each year. However, there remains a marked distinction between these fine wines and wines sold in tetrapacks and grown exclusively for mass domestic consumption. The most commonly planted grape variety is still the dark-skinned Pais, found only in Chile, and thought to be a direct descendant of cuttings imported by Spanish colonists. Although Chilean wines, especially those produced for export, are typically very clean and fruity, they have only recently developed a full-bodied structure. Most export wines are red Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carmenere and white Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc.

Four large companies now account for 80% of all the wine sold inside Chile: Concha y Toro, Santa Rita, San Pedro and Santa Carolina. There are perhaps a hundred other smaller producers, many of which concentrate on the export market.

The Pinochet affair forced Chileans to confront their recent past. Although old wounds reopened, the increasing political apathy of the young, which was apparent in the early 1990s, was nipped in the bud. While the presidencies of the Concertación continued the Pinochetista neo-liberal policies that made Chile such a banker’s favourite in the 1980s, these have been accompanied by a genuine attempt at more inclusive government, including significant increases in the national minimum wage, at rates well above that of inflation. With a pension system on which countries such as Britain have modelled their own ‘stakeholder’ schemes, urban Chile is now, for the most part, modern and dynamic.

There are, however, several problems that the government needs to address. While there has been a limited rise in living standards among the inhabitants of Santiago’s callampas (shanty towns), urban poverty remains widespread. Problems in Santiago are due in large part to the over-centralisation of the country: over a third of the population live in the capital or the surrounding Región Metropolitana, and Chile’s unusual geography means that Santiago is a natural focal point, on which the rest of the country is all too dependent.

Chile managed to weather the short ‘crisis económica’ at the beginning of the decade caused largely by weaknesses among Chile’s main trading partners: the crisis in the Far East had major ramifications in Chile, while the devaluation in Brazil, followed by the subsequent economic crisis in Argentina, led to the temporary rise of the US dollar against the Chilean peso from 2001 to 2004. The government did extremely well to stave off the inflationary pressures of these developments, and buoyed by the rise in copper prices the steady constant growth and prosperity that characterised the 1990s has in some senses returned. However, although this might be the case on a macro level and although Chile’s economy remains the most stable in South America, the economic situation of the lower and middle classes remains tough. There is an all too apparent wealth gap, while the working week is a hefty 45 hours (reduced from 48 by Lagos). In order to avoid having to make redundancy payments, jobs are often offered on short-term contracts, and it is not surprising that people talk about the difficulty of finding – and keeping – work.

Chile’s income tax system is symptomatic of the country’s traditional conservatism. Direct income tax is exceptionally low and business tax is almost non-existent. While Chile’s lower and middle classes can clearly not afford to pay more income tax, this is far from true of the country’s upper classes. The inability of recent governments to tackle this subject is evidence both of the oligarchic stranglehold that the Chilean aristocracy retains on the state and of the taboo status of even the slightest economic redistribution – thanks to the ‘anti-Communist wars’ waged by the military government in the 1970s and 1980s and to the psychological scars caused by the Allende government’s economic policies and their consequences.

Perhaps the most fundamental long-term problem, however, is that Chile’s wealth depends in part on the ongoing rape of its extensive natural resources, often by multinational companies; industries such as logging and intensive fishing, while successful at present, have the potential to ruin Chile’s future. One example is the ongoing plan to built a series of huge hydroelectric plants in the Aysen region in the far south, which would destroy the pristine ecosystems of Chilean Patagonia. There has been widespread local opposition . According to one estimate, Chile lost 80% of its marine life in the 1980s and its native forests continue to disappear at alarming rates. Environmentalists have joined forces with farmers to highlight the environmental damage caused by introduced species such as the eucalyptus, which extracts most of the goodness from the soil, and by plantations of pine, which acidify the soil. Chile’s Free Trade Agreements with Europe, North America and China are not seen as beneficial in all quarters.

However, these moves are symbolic of Chile’s increasingly outward-looking mentality. After four centuries characterized by isolation and insularity, the ramifications of Chile’s recent history have put the country onto the international map in an unprecedented manner. Whereas, until recently, Chileans compared themselves to Europeans, they now take increasing national pride in their own achievements. Even though Pinochet was not put on trial in Chile, the case and its consequences mean that the country is at the vanguard of one of the most significant human rights movement in history; one that, in a short space of time, has already had repercussions for repressive former heads of state in the Central African Republic and Yugoslavia.

Chile is governed under the 1980 Constitution, introduced by the military government of General Pinochet and approved in a plebiscite on 11 September 1980, although important amendments were made during the transition to civilian rule in 1989-1990. The constitution provided for an eight-year non-renewable term for the President of the Republic, a bicameral legislature with a Congress and a Senate and an independent judiciary and central bank, although it was only after the rejection of Pinochet in the 1988 vote that most of the provisions of the constitution come into operation. A two-thirds majority in both houses of legislature is required to reform the constitution. In February 1994, the legislature cut the presidential term of office from eight years to six, and in 2006 it was further reduced to four years. Presidents are prohibited from holding two consecutive terms of office. The legislature is composed of a 120-seat Chamber of Deputies and a 47-seat Senate.

The dominant political party in Chile is the Christian Democrats, a centre party that grew rapidly after its foundation in 1957. The Christian Democrats welcomed the overthrow of Allende but later became the focus of opposition to the dictatorship. Not strong enough to rule on its own, since 1990 the party has contested elections in an alliance known as the Concertación. The other members are the Socialists, a centre-left party traditionally split between the Radicals and the Partido por la Democracía, a centre-left grouping led by ex-Socialists. The main opposition to the Concertación comes from the right wing, which is divided into two main parties, Renovación Nacional and the ever stronger Unión Democrática Independiente. In recent elections, they have formed an alliance called the Alianza para Chile.

Chile is divided into 15 regions, usually referred to by Roman numerals (although they also have names). The government of each region is headed by an intendente, who is appointed by the president.

The emergence in recent years of several small independent breweries means that Chilean beer is no longer as bland as it used to be, and makes a fresh change from the previous situation whereby CCU, the country’s largest brewery, had bought out the regional competition one by one and either discontinued or standardized their beers. Chile’s best-selling beer is the rather insipid Cristal. Escudo is slightly more full bodied, while Royal Guard has a more flowery flavour. Austral brewed in Patagonia is good, but mediocre elsewhere. Báltica is good, stong and cheap. Heineken and Brahma are also good, but Dorada is best left for the drunks. Kunstmann is the best of the nationwide beers. Malta, a dark beer, is recommended for those wanting a British-type beer; however, there are different breweries, and the Malta north of Temuco is more bitter than that to the south. Of the regional beers, Cerveza del Puerto (Valparaíso), Kross (Curacaví), Los Colonos (Llanquihue) and Imperial (Punta Arenas) are all recommended. European beers are increasingly available. A refundable deposit is required for litre beer bottles (about US$0.50). Disposable bottles are sold, but these are more expensive, as are cans and smaller bottles. Draught lager is generically known as Schop.

While Argentine cafés have excellent coffee, if you ask for coffee in many places in Chile you will get a cup of boiling water and a tin of instant coffee, even in quite high-class restaurants. There are espresso bars in major cities, elsewhere specify café-café, espresso. A cortado is an expresso with hot frothed milk served in a glass. Tea is usually served with neither milk nor lemon. If you order café, or té, con leche’, it will come with all milk; to have just a little milk ask for your tea or coffee ‘con un poco de leche’. After a meal, instead of coffee, try an agüita – hot water in which herbs such as mint, or aromatics such as lemon peel, have been steeped. A wide variety of refreshing herbal teas is available in sachets.

Away from alcoholic drinks, Chile does not perhaps take as much advantage of its variety of fruits as it should. Unlike in Mexico, say, cheap and freshly squeezed juices are uncommon, though of course there is nothing to stop you buying a job lot of fruit from the market and preparing juices for yourself. Note that a jugo natural is fresh fruit liquidized with water and sugar added. If you want a 100% pure fresh juice you should ask for a vitamina. Mote con huesillo, made from wheat hominy and dried peaches, is very refreshing in summer. Families tend to drink a lot of sugary soft drinks, picking up on the usual international brands.

The most famous spirit is pisco, made with grapes, usually drunk with lemon or lime juice as pisco sour. Pisco is also often mixed with coca cola or sprite. Pisco is graded in strength from 30-46°; surprisingly, the stronger versions are much more pleasant and easy to drink, as they have generally had more time to mature in the barrel. Recommended brands of pisco are Alto del Carmen and Bauzá; avoid the ironically named Pisco Control, especially at 30°C. Local rum and brandy are very cheap and tend to lead to poisonous hangovers. Manzanilla is a local liqueur, made from licor de oro (like Galliano). Two delicious drinks are vaina, a mixture of brandy, egg and sugar and cola de mono, a mixture of aguardiente, coffee, milk and vanilla served very cold at Christmas. There are many seasonal fruit liqueurs which are delicious; eguindado, made from cherries, is particularly recommended. Chicha is any form of alcoholic drink made from fruit; chicha cocida is three-day-old fermented grape juice boiled to reduce its volume and then bottled with a tablespoonful of honey, while chicha fresca is fresh fermented grape juice. Cider (chicha de manzana) is popular in the south.

The international reputation of Chilean wine continues to grow every year. The last 25 years have seen radical modernization and innovation in production techniques and processes putting Chile firmly on the world wine map. Chilean reds tend to be full bodied with lots of tannins and high alcohol content. Production centres around the great Bordeaux grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chilean wine’s latest claim to fame, the lost Carmenère grape, wiped out in France over a century ago and rediscovered in Chile a decade ago. Pinot Noir is also now being successfully produced. Chilean whites are also getting better every year. Sauvignon Blancs from Casablanca and San Antonio tend to be crisp and fruity and are excellent when drunk young, while the Chardonnays have been winning awards for years. The very best wines can sell for upwards of US$50 a bottle, while a good reserve wine might set you back around US$10. Anything over US$3 should be perfectly drinkable, and even cheaper wine sold in tetrapacks (US$2.50 a litre) can sometimes be surprisingly good. Anything cheaper than this should be avoided.

Away from seafood, savoury Chilean dishes tend to be creative. Specialities include humitas (mashed sweetcorn mixed with butter and spices and baked in sweetcorn leaves), pastel de papas (meat pie covered with mashed potatoes), and cazuela, either de ave (chicken) or de vacuno (beef); it’s a nutritious stew with pumpkin, potato, coriander and rice, and maybe onions and green peppers – the most common everyday dish. In central and southern Chile stews with beans (porotos) are common. A typical (and unhealthy) dish from Valparaíso is the chorillana: chips covered with sliced steak, fried onions and scrambled eggs. Pastel de choclo is a casserole of chicken, minced beef and onions with olives, topped with polenta, baked in an earthenware bowl. Prieta is a blood sausage stuffed with cabbage leaves. Bife or lomo a lo pobre (a poor man’s steak) is just the opposite: it is a steak topped by two fried eggs, chips and onions. A paila can take many forms (the paila is simply a kind of serving dish), but the most common are made of eggs or seafood. In the north, paila de huevos (scrambled eggs with hallulla – a kind of bread) is common for breakfast. A paila marina is a delicious shellfish stew.

Chileans tend to have a very sweet tooth, and their desserts can be full of manjar (caramelized condensed milk).

Perhaps the most outstanding type of food is the seafood. Although there are good fish restaurants in Santiago, and fine seafood can be found at the Mercado Central, naturally the best seafood and fish is found on the coast. The excellent fish restaurants between Playa Ancha and Concón, near Valparaíso, are especially popular with Santiaguinos. Almost every port on the Chilean coast has a small market or a row of seafood restaurants where excellent seafood can be eaten very cheaply; in smaller harbours, it is often possible to eat with the fishermen. Most of these seafood restaurants receive their supplies of fish and shellfish from local fishing boats that land their catch every morning in the harbours. Watching the unloading at a port such as Talcahuano can be fascinating. If you have the courage to bargain you may be able to pick up some delicious, fresh fish from the boats or from the stalls along the harbour; whole crates of shellfish go for the equivalent of a few dollars.

In the north, great seafood can be had at Caleta Hornos, north of La Serena, and at Huasco. In the centre and south the best seafood is to be had at Concón, Valparaíso, Constitución, Talcahuano, Angelmó (Puerto Montt) and on Chiloé, where you should try the famous curanto, a stew of shellfish, pork, chicken and other ingredients. Beware of eating seafood that you have bought unofficially in the far south because of the poisonous marea roja.

The most popular fish are merluza (a species of hake inferior to European hake), congrio (kingclip or ling), corvina (bass), reineta (a type of bream), lenguado (a large kind of sole), albacora (sword fish) and salmón. Merluza, which is usually fried, is an inexpensive fish, found in ordinary restaurants. Congrio is very popular, and particularly delicious served as caldillo de congrio, a soup containing a large congrio steak. Albacora is a delicious fish, available mainly in quality restaurants. Ceviche, fish marinated in lemon juice, is usually made with corvina.

There is an almost bewildering array of shellfish. Look out for choritos, cholgas and choros maltón (varieties of mussel), ostiones (queen scallops), ostras (oysters) and erizos (sea urchins). Prawns are known as camarones, but these are often imported from Ecuador and can be tasteless and expensive. Chile’s most characteristic products are the delicious erizos, machas, picorocos and locos, which are only found in these seas. Machas a la parmesana are a kind of razor clam prepared in their shells with a parmesan cheese sauce, grilled and served as a starter. Picorocos (giant barnacles), which are normally boiled or steamed in white wine, are grotesque to look at but have a very intense taste: it may be very disconcerting to be presented with a plate containing a rock with feathery fins but it is well worth taking up the challenge of eating it. Note, only the white fleshy part is edible. Locos, a kind of abalone, are the most popular Chilean mollusc, but because of overexploitation its fishing is frequently banned. The main crustaceans are jaiba (purple crab), langosta (lobster) and the centolla, an exquisite king crab from the waters of the south.

Packages of dried seaweed, particularly cochayuyo (which looks like a leathery thong), are sold along coastal roads. Both cochayuyo and luche are made into a cheap, nutritious stew with vegetables, and eaten with potatoes or rice; these dishes are rarely available in restaurants. Until recently salmon was available only in the south where the rivers and lakes are full of ‘wild’ salmon that has escaped from farms. It is now farmed extensively in the south and can be found on menus in many parts of the country.

Among the many snacks sold in Chile, the most famous are empanadas, pastry turnovers made de pino (with meat, onions, egg and an olive), queso (cheese) or mariscos (shellfish). The quality of empanadas varies: many are full of onions rather than meat; by the coast the empanadas de mariscos are delicious and usually better value.

Chilean sandwiches tend to be fairly substantial: the churrasco is a minute steak in a bun and can be ordered with any variety of fillings. Chacareros contain thinly sliced steak and salad; barros lucos have steak and grilled cheese; and barros jarpas have grilled cheese and ham.

Completos are the cheapest and most popular snacks: betraying the German influence on everyday food, these are hot dogs served with plenty of extras, including mustard, sauerkraut, tomatoes, mayonnaise and ají (hot sauce). An Italiano is a completo with avocado and without the sauerkraut. Avocado is very popular at family onces, mashed up and served on bread. Bread itself is plentiful and cheap, and comes in pairs of fluffy rolls (marraquetas) or as a crisper slim roll (hallullas). Most large cities also have many ice cream stands doing a roaring trade.

Directions Unlimited,123 Green Lane, Bedford Hills, NY 10507, T1-800 533 5343. A tour operator specializing in tours for disabled US travellers.

Disability Action Group, 2 Annadale Av, Belfast BT7 3JH, T01232-491011. Information about access for British disabled travellers.

Disabled Persons’ Assembly, PO Box 27-524, Wellington 6035, New Zealand, T04-801 9100, http://www.dpa.org.nz. Has lists of tour operators and travel agencies catering for the disabled.

http://www.btha.org British Travel Health Association.

http://www.cdc.gov US government site that gives excellent advice on travel health and details of disease outbreaks.

http://www.fco.gov.uk British Foreign and Commonwealth Office travel site has useful information on the country, people, climate and a list of UK embassies/consulates.

http://www.fitfortravel.scot.nhs.uk A-Z of vaccine/health advice for each country.

http://www.travelscreening.co.uk Travel Screening Services gives vaccine and travel health advice, email/SMS text vaccine reminders and screens returned travellers for tropical diseases.

Temperate regions of South America, like Patagonia, present far fewer health risks than tropical areas to the north. However, travellers should take precautions against: diarrhoea/intestinal upset; hanta virus (carried by rodents and causing a flu-like illness); hepatitis A; hypothermia; marea roja; rabies; sexually transmitted diseases; sunburn (a real risk in the far south due to depleted ozone); and ticks.

Politeness – even a little ceremoniousness – is much appreciated in Chile. Men should always remove any headgear and say ‘permiso’ when entering offices, and be prepared to shake hands; always say ‘buenos días’ (until midday) or ‘buenas tardes’ (in the afternoon and evening) and wait for a reply before proceeding further. Remember that the traveller from abroad has enjoyed greater advantages in life than most Chilean minor officials, and should be friendly and courteous in consequence. Never be impatient, and do not criticize situations in public: the officials may know more English than you think (especially when it comes to swearwords) and they can certainly interpret gestures and facial expressions. You should be aware that the stereotype of the corrupt Latin American official does not apply in Chile, where most officials are scrupulously honest.

Politeness should also be extended to street traders; saying ‘No, gracias’ with a smile is better than an arrogant dismissal. Bargaining is not as commonplace in Chile as in some other South American countries, and very low offers will be seen as contemptuous, even in markets.

Begging is rare outside Santiago. Whether you give money to beggars is a personal matter, but locals may provide an indication of whether people are begging out of genuine need. In Santiago, beggars get onto buses and sing or sell tiny religious calendar cards; Santiaguinos are often generous towards them.

Urban Chileans are very fashion conscious. You should dress reasonably smartly in the towns and cities as scruffiness will make things needlessly difficult. People tend to dress smartly at bars and clubs in urban centres – Santiago, Viña del Mar, La Serena and Iquique being particularly swish. Away from the cities, though, and in areas where there are many foreign tourists, people are less concerned about such matters.

There are several types of police operating in Chile: Carabineros (green uniforms) handle all tasks except immigration; Investigaciones (in civilian dress) are the detectives; Policía Internacional, a division of the Investigaciones, handle immigration and customs.

If you get into trouble with the police, the worst thing that you can do is offer a bribe to get yourself out of trouble. Chilean police are very proud of their office and will assume any attempt to bribe them is both an insult and an admission of guilt. Legal penalties for most offences are fairly similar to what you might expect in a western European or North American country, although be advised that the attitude towards possession of soft drugs, such as cannabis, is very strict. If you get into trouble, your first call should be to your consulate, which should be able to put you in touch with a lawyer who speaks your language.

In restaurants 10% is a good tip, but you should only leave about 100 pesos (US$0.15) in bars and fuentes de soda. Taxi drivers are not tipped.

Santiago daily papers are El Mercurio (centre-right, a heavyweight broadsheet), La Nación (the official state newspaper, liberal-left and worth buying on Sun), La Segunda (middle-market tabloid), La Tercera (more serious tabloid), La Cuarta (salacious and gossip-mongering) and Las Ultimas Noticias. Look out for The Clinic, a satirical weekly paper named after the hospital at which General Pinochet was arrested in 1998. Recent international newspapers can sometimes be bought at kiosks on the Paseo Ahumada in Santiago.

South America has more community radio stations than practically anywhere else in the world. Visitors to the region are recommended to bring or buy a compact portable radio, with digital tuning and a full range of short-wave bands, as well as FM, long and medium wave, as a practical means to brush up on the language, sample popular culture and absorb some regional music. International broadcasters such as the Voice of America (6130 or 7370 KHz), Monitor Radio International (operated by Christian Science Monitor in Boston, Mass (15.30 or 9.755 MHz) and the Quito-based evangelical station, HCJB, keep the traveller abreast of news and events, in both English and Spanish. Unfortunately the BBC World Service has stopped broadcasting to Chile, although it can be heard over the internet. In small regional centres, the local radio station is a very effective medium for sending a message to someone else in the area; go to the studio and make the request in person.

There are 6 domestic terrestrial channels. Soap operas (teleseries) and soccer constitute the most popular programmes. Cable television is widely available. Channels vary from region to region, but there are usually some channels in English, French, Italian and German.

The easiest way to obtain cash in Chile is by using ATMs. These are situated at the major banks and often in other locations, especially in shopping malls, bus stations, at the larger supermarkets and at many petrol stations. You can choose to be guided through the transaction in English. ATMs operate under the sign Redbanc; both Cirrus (MasterCard) and Plus (Visa) are accepted for daily transactions of up to US$500. The exception to this is the Banco Estado whose Redbanc machines accept MasterCard but not Visa. A full list of Redbanc machines in Chile is listed by town at http://www.redbanc.cl.

Most major currencies can be readily exchanged in tourist centres, but rates for the US dollar and, increasingly commonly, the euro, remain much better than for any other currency. US dollars and euro are widely accepted by banks, casas de cambio and some hotels, but rarely if ever by shops and other establishments. Foreign notes are often scrutinized carefully and rejected if torn or marked in any way. Before changing currency, check whether any commission is charged. If crossing to Argentina take some low-value US dollar bills.

Visa and MasterCard are readily accepted but American Express and Diners’ Club are less useful. Credit-card use does not usually incur a commission or higher charge in Chile. In shops, identification is usually necessary to use credit cards; places accepting Visa and MasterCard usually display a Redcompra sticker in the window. In case of loss or theft of your card make sure that you carry the phone numbers necessary to report this; make a photocopy of the numbers and keep them in a safe place. Some travellers have reported problems with their credit cards being frozen by their bank when a charge is incurred in a foreign country. To avoid this problem, notify your bank before departure that you will be making charges in Chile (and other countries, where applicable). To avoid charges from your bank, top up your credit card account with sufficient cash before departure. If you will need to make very expensive one-off purchases, you may want to specify that your daily spending limit should not be applied to the amount by which your account is in credit, although this will prove dangerous if your card is stolen.

Exchanging traveller’s cheques is possible in most large cities, although the rate will be up to 5% lower than for cash. It is generally not advisable to change cash or traveller’s cheques in banks as the rate is much worse than at casas de cambio.

The minimum wage in Chile is approximately US$300 per month, while the wage for relatively senior office workers may be around US$900 per month. This is low considering the general cost of living in the country. The cost of accommodation or rent is higher in Santiago than elsewhere – around US$250 per month for a basic 2-room unfurnished flat as compared with half that in the provinces. Many office workers eat out for lunch, and you can usually find a basic meal for around US$3. City bus fares are US$0.80 in Santiago, less in the provinces. Someone living in Santiago and earning a reasonable salary (by Chilean standards) will find that they have little spare change at the end of the month; holidays and weekends away are a definite luxury.

Prices for food and other consumables tend to rise in proportion to the distance from central Chile (being highest in Punta Arenas), although accommodation is cheaper outside the capital. In Santiago itself, the eastern part of the city, encompassing Vitacura, Las Condes and to a lesser extent Providencia are much more expensive than the rest of the city.

Chile is more expensive than much of South America and southern Chile is even more expensive from 15 Dec to 28 Feb. A budget of US$300 per person per week will allow for basic lodgings, food, overland transport and an occasional tour. With a budget of US$600 a week, you will be able to stay in nice hotels, eat in smart restaurants and not stint on excursions.

The unit is the peso, its sign is $. Notes are for 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000 and 20,000 pesos; coins come in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500 pesos. Inflation is low. Official exchange rates for many currencies are quoted in the press, and the best rates are to be had in Santiago. Travellers to rural areas should carry supplies of 1000- and 2000-peso notes; higher denominations are difficult to change. This is also good advice when travelling on local transport or when shopping in small stores early in the day.

Before leaving your home country, find out whether any Chilean bank is correspondent to your own bank. Then, when you need funds, arrange for your bank to transfer the money to the local bank (confirming by fax). Be sure to provide the exact details of the SWIFT code of the receiving bank. Funds can be received within 48 banking hours. This is useful for transferring large amounts. Otherwise, money can be sent within minutes (and with a very large commission) through Western Union (in Chile operated by Chile Express, http://www.chilexpress.cl); if collecting money in a city with more than one Western Union agent, you can go to any one of them to receive the money.

International roaming is becoming more common, although buying a cheap local pay- as-you-go may be a cheaper option. Major airports and hotels often have rental desks, or can advise on local outlets.

Australian Andean Adventures, Suite 201 level 6, 32 York St, Sydney, T02-9299 9973, http://www.andeanadventures.com.au. Specialists in trekking in South America for Australians.

South America Travel Centre, 104 Hardware St, Melbourne, T03-9642 5353, http://www.satc.com.au. Good, individual, tailor-made trips to Chile.

4 Star South America, 3003 Van Ness, NW Suite S-823, Washington, DC 20008, T1-800 747 4540 (North America)/T0870-711 5370 (UK)/T+49-700 4444 7827 (rest of Europe), http://www.4starsouthamerica.com. Tour operator and flight consolidator.

Discover Chile Tours, 5775 Blue Lagoon Drive Suite 190, Miami, FL 33126. T305-266 5827 (local), T1-800 826 4845 (toll-free), http://www.discover-chile.com. Has a range of tours, including good ski trips.

International Expeditions, 1 Environs Park, Helena, AL35080, USA, T1-800 633 4734, http://www.internationalexpeditions.com. Travel company specializing in nature tours.

Ladatco Tours, 2200 South Dixie Highway Suite 704, Coconut Grove, FL 33133, T1-800 327 6162, http://www.ladatco.com. Specialist operator based in Miami, runs explorer tours themed around mysticism, wine, etc.

Mila Tours, T1-800-367 7378, www.mila tours.com. Arranges a wide variety of tours from rafting to photography.

Mountain Travel Sobek, 6420 Fairmount Av, El Cerrito, CA 94530, T1-888-MTSOBEK (toll-free)/T1-510-527 8100, www.mtsobek. com. A specialist in Chile, offering a range of trekking tours.

Myths and Mountains, 976 Tee Court, Incline Village, NV 89451, T1-800-670 6984, http://www.mythsandmountains.com. Cultural, wildlife and environmental trips.

South American Explorers Club, 126 Indian Creek Rd, Ithaca, NY 14850, T1-607 277 0488, T1-800-2740568 (toll-free in USA), http://www.saexplorers.org. Gives good advice.

Wilderness Travel, 1102 Ninth St, Berkeley, CA 94710, T510-558 2488, T1-800-368 2794 (toll free), http://www.wildernesstravel.com. Organizes trips worldwide, including very good tours of Patagonia.

CAT Argentina and Chile, Av Presidente Roque Sáenz Peña 615, Of 718, Buenos Aires, http://www.cat-travel.com. With offices in several Latin American countries, this Dutch-owned and run company offers tailor-made trips.

Austral Tours, 20 Upper Tachbrook St, London SW1V 1SH, T020-7233 5384, http://www.latinamerica.co.uk. Specialist company with a wide range of activity holidays.

Condor Journeys and Adventures, 2 Ferry Bank, Colintraive, Argyll PA22 3AR, T01700- 841318, www.condorjourneys-adventures. com. A wide range of specialist tours on offer.

Cox & Kings Travel, Gordon House, 10 Greencoat Place, London SW1P 1PH, T020-7873 5000, http://www.coxandkings.co.uk. Exclusive set tours all over the continent.

Exodus Travels, Grange Mills, Weir Rd, London SW12 0NE, T0870-240 5550, http://www.exodus.co.uk. Experience in adventure travel around the world; good trips to all parts of Chile.

Journey Latin America, 12-13 Heathfield Terrace, London W4 4JE, T020-8622 8464/ T020-8747 8315, www.journeylatin america.co.uk. Long-established company running escorted and bespoke tours throughout the region, and offering a wide range of flight options.

Last Frontiers, Fleet Marston Farm, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire HP18 0QT, T01296-653000, http://www.lastfrontiers.co.uk. Tailor-made Latin American travel.

Pura Aventura, 18 Bond St, Brighton, East Sussex BN11 1RD, T0845-225 5058, http://www.pura-aventura.com. Small Chilean specialist with a wide range of organized and tailor-made tours.

Scott Dunn (formerly Passage to South America), Fovant Mews, 12a Noyna Rd, London SW17 7PH, T020-8682 5030, http://www.scottdunn.com. Wide range of tailor-made packages throughout the region.

Select Latin America, 79 Maltings Place, 169 Tower Bridge Road, London SE1 3LJ, T020- 7407 1478, http://www.selectlatinamerica.co.uk. Specialist in tours to Latin America.

South American Experience, 47 Causton St, Pimlico, London SW1P 4AT, T020-7976 5511, http://www.southamericanexperience.co.uk. Books flights and accommodation, and offers tailor-made trips.

Steppes Latin America, 51 Castle St, Cirencester, Gloucester GL7 1QD, T01285- 885333, http://www.steppestravel.co.uk. Tailor- made holidays including Patagonia escorted tours, horse-riding trips and birdwatching.

Trips Worldwide, 14 Frederick Place, Clifton, Bristol BS8 1AS, T0117-311 4400, http://www.tripsworldwide.co.uk. Specialists in tailor-made holidays.

There are a great many sites about Chile that surfers may wish to explore, but note that you may have to weed out the sites related to chilli peppers!

Useful sites specifically covering all Chile: http://www.visit-chile.org and http://www.sernatur.cl. Other sites dealing with specific destinations in Chile include, from north to south: http://www.arica.cl

www.iquique. cl
http://www.iquique.travel
http://www.sanpedroatacama.com
http://www.calamacultural.cl
http://www.municipalidaddeantofagasta.cl
http://www.laserena.cl
http://www.vinadelmarchile.cl
http://www.vinadelmar.cl
http://www.ciudaddevalparaiso.cl
http://www.valparaisotimes.cl (in English)
http://www.ciudad.cl
http://www.santiagotimes.cl (in English)
http://www.municipalidadpucon.cl
http://www.puconturismo.cl
http://www.pucononline.cl
http://www.sietelagos.cl
http://www.ptovaras.cl
http://www.puertovaras.org
http://www.puertomonttchile.cl
http://www.chiloe.cl
www.pat agoniachile.cl
http://www.patagonia-chile.com
http://www.rapanui.co.cl

http://www.chileaustral.com

Sites relating to accommodation include:

http://www.chile-hotels.com Reservations for many hotels in Chile (particularly upmarket ones); prices may be cheaper booking direct.

http://www.hostelworld.com Useful for finding cheaper accommodation. http://www.backpackerschile.com and http://www.backpackersbest.cl For finding good hostels and guesthouses.

Specialist sites include:

http://www.ccv.cl Website of the Chilean wine- making association, for wine enthusiasts.
http://www.desaparecidos.org/chile Background on the Pinochet years and human-rights situation.
http://www.greenpeace.cl Up-to-date information on environmental issues.
http://www.mapuche.cl Information on Chile’s Mapuche people.
http://www.surfchile.cl For surfers.
http://www.trekkingchile.com For trekking in central Chile.

For a full and updated list, see http://www.chileabroad.gov.cl.

Argentina, Tagle 2762, Buenos Aires 1425, T011-4808 8601, data@embajadade chile.com.ar. Also consulates up and down the country.

Australia, 10 Culgoa Circuit, O’Malley Act 2606, PO Box 69, Canberra, T02-6286 2430, chilemb@embachileaustralia.com. Also in Melbourne and Sydney.

Austria, Lugeck 1/3/10, Vienna A-1010, T43-1-5129208, echileat1@chello.at.

Belgium, 160 rue des Aduatiques, 1040 Brussels, T32-2-743 3660, http://www.embachile.be.

Bolivia, Av San Martín Esq 2 anillo, Edif Torres Equipetrol, piso 9, Santa Cruz, T591-3-334 1251, http://www.consulado-chile.scz.com. Note this is only a consulate; there are other consulates in La Paz and Cochabamba.

Brazil, Ses, Av Das Naçoes, q 803, Lote 11, CEP 70.407-900, Brasília, T55-61-2103 5151, embchile@embchile.org.br. Consulates throughout the country.

Canada, 50 O’Connor St, Suite 1413, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L2, T1-613-2354402, www. chile.ca. Also consulates in several other cities.

Denmark, Kastelsvej 15, III, 2100 Copenhagen, T45-3538 5834, http://www.chiledk.dk.

Ecuador, Juan Pablo Sanz 3617 y Amazonas, Edificio Xerox, piso 4, Quito, T593-2-249403. Also consulate in Guayaquil.

France, 2 Av de la Motte Picouet, 75007 Paris, T33-1-4418 5960, http://www.amb-chili.fr.

Germany, Mohrenstrasse 42, 10117 Berlin, T49-30-726 2035, www.embajada consuladoschile.de. Also consulates in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich.

Ireland, 44 Wellington Rd, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, T353-1-667 5094 http://www.embachile-irlanda.ie.

Israel, Beit Sharbat, 8th floor, Kaufman 4 St, Tel Aviv 68012, T972-3-510 2750, consulad@inter.net.il.

Italy, Via Po 23, 00198 Roma, T39-6-884 1449, http://www.chileit.it Consulate in Milan.

Japan, Nihon Seimei Akabanebashi Building 8F, 3-1-14 Shiba, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0014, T81-3-3452 7561, http://www.chile.or.jp.

Mexico, Andrés Bello 10, Edificio Forum, piso18, Col Polanco, CP11560, DF, T52-55-280 9681, http://www.embajadadechile.com.mx. Also consulates in Guadalajara and Monterrey.

Netherlands, Mauritskade 51, 2514 HG, The Hague, T31-70-312 3640, www.e chile.nl. Also a consulate in Amsterdam.

New Zealand, 19 Bolton St, Wellington, T64-4-471 6270, http://www.embchile.co.nz.

Norway, Meltzers Gate 5, 0244 Oslo, T47-2244 8955, http://www.chile.no.

Paraguay, Capital Emilio Nudelman 351, Esquina Campos Cervera, Asunción, T595- 21-662 756, echilepy@conexion.com.py.

Peru, Av Javier Prado Oeste 790, San Isidro, Lima, T51-1-611 2200, www.embajada chileperu.com.pe. Also consulate in Tacna.

South Africa, 235 Veale St, Brooklyn Gardens Building, corner of Veale St and Middel St, Block B – 1st floor, New Muckleneuk 0181, Pretoria, T27-12-460 8090, www.embchile. co.za. Also consulate in Cape Town.

Spain, Lagasca 88, 6 Planta, 28001 Madrid, T34-91-431 9160, echilees@tsai.es. Consulate in Barcelona.

Sweden, Sturegatan 8, 3rd floor, Stockholm 114 35, T46-8-679 8280, http://www.chileemb.se Also a consulate in Gothenburg.

Switzerland, Eigerplatz 5, 3007 Berne, T41-31-370 0058, embajada@embachile.ch.

UK, 12 Devonshire St, London W1G 7DS, T44- 20-7580 6392, http://www.embachile.co.uk.

Uruguay, 25 de Mayo 575, Montevideo, T598-2-916 4090, echileuy@netgate.com.uy.

USA, 1732 Massachusetts Av NW, Washington DC 20036, T1202-785 1746, http://www.chile-usa.org. Also consulates across the country.

Opportunities for work are not limited to language teaching. There is considerable scope for volunteer work in Chile, both in inner cities and on environmental projects. Those with appropriate skills and experience may also find work by approaching foreign companies (especially engineering or financial service firms) with offices in Chile (usually in Santiago).

Bus services in Chile are frequent and, on the whole, good. Buses tend to be punctual, arriving and leaving on time. Apart from at holiday times, there is little problem getting a seat on a long-distance bus and there is no need to reserve far in advance out of season. Services are categorized as salón-cama meaning 25 seats, semi-cama meaning 34 seats and salón-ejecutivo or clásico meaning 44 seats, all reclinable to a greater or lesser extent. There are also prémium services with seats that fully recline into flat beds. Premium and salón-cama services run between main cities and stops are infrequent; Tur Bus and Pullman Bus have nationwide coverage and are among the best companies.

With lots of competition between bus companies, lower fares are sometimes on offer, particularly just before departure, out of season. Prices are highest between December and March, and during the Independence celebrations in September. Students with ISIC cards may get discounts, except in high season; discounts are also often available for return journeys. Most bus companies will carry bicycles, but may ask for payment.

The best way of sending luggage around Chile is by Encomienda: your package is taken by bus from terminal to terminal and stored for up to one month at the destination (Tur Bus can deliver to a specified address). This means you can Encomienda bags when you don’t need them, and pick them up when you do, which is great if you only need camping or cold-weather gear for, say, Torres del Paine.

At first glance a bicycle may not appear to be the most obvious vehicle for a major journey, but given ample time and reasonable energy it is certainly one of the best. A mountain bike can be ridden, carried by almost every form of transport from an aeroplane to a canoe, and lifted across your shoulders over short distances. Cyclists can be the envy of travellers using more orthodox transport, since they can travel at their own pace, explore more remote regions and meet people who are less commonly in contact with tourists. Bring a tool-kit and as many spare parts as you can. Try not to leave a fully laden bike on its own, and always secure your bike with a lock.

Hitchhiking in Chile is relatively easy and safe, and when a lift does come along it is often in the shape of an exhilarating open-air ride in the back of a pickup truck. However, in some regions – especially in the south – traffic is sparse, and roads in places like Tierra del Fuego rarely see more than two or three vehicles per day. Drivers will sometimes make hand-signals if they are only going a short distance beyond – this is not a rude gesture.

Taxis usually have meters and can be engaged either in the street or by phoning, though they tend to be more expensive when booked from a hotel. A minimum fare is shown on a large sticker in the windscreen, with increments (usually per 200 m or 60 seconds) below. A surcharge (typically around 50%) is applied after 2100 and on Sunday. Agree beforehand on fares for long journeys out of city centres or for special excursions; also compare prices among several drivers for this sort of trip. There is no need to give a tip unless some extra service is performed. Bear in mind that taxi drivers may not know the location of streets away from city centres.

Colectivos (collective taxis) operate on fixed routes (identified by numbers and destinations) and are a good way of getting around cities. They are usually flagged down on the street corner, although in some cities such as Puerto Montt there are signs. The fixed charges are normally advertised in the front windscreen and increase at night and weekends. It is best to use small denominations when paying, as the driver takes the money and offers change while driving along. Yellow colectivos also operate on some inter-urban routes, leaving from a set point when full. They compete favourably with buses for speed but not for comfort.

Aeropuerto Arturo Merino Benítez (26 km northwest of Santiago at Pudahuel, help desk T02-690 1752, http://www.aeropuertosantiago.cl) handles both international and domestic flights, and is the only airport in Chile with intercontinental connections. It is a modern, safe and efficient terminal, recently voted the best airport in Latin America from a sample of 70,000 international businesspeople. Domestic and international flights leave from different sections of the same terminal. Procedures at customs (aduana) are quick and efficient. Facilities include ATMs accepting both Visa and MasterCard, fast-food outlets, a Sernatur tourist information office, which offers an accommodation booking service, a casa de cambio (poor rates) and several car-hire offices. Left luggage is expensive at US$9 per item per day (max 60 days). Outside customs there are kiosks for minibus and taxi companies serving Santiago, as well as car-hire companies; you are likely to be approached by people offering taxi and bus services as you emerge from the customs area.

Check-in time for international flights is two hours before departure, one hour for domestic flights. Some airlines have an online check-in option, after which they require you to be at the airport just 45 minutes before departure. Remember that some airlines require you to reconfirm bookings on international flights 72 hours in advance. Airport departure tax is US$30 for international flights; US$11 for domestic flights, as well as occasional fuel surcharges, all of which should be included in the price of the ticket when bought by the traveller. In theory, there are entry taxes (officially called reciprocity charges) to be paid in US dollars at all international borders, for nationals of Albania (US$30), Australia (US$62), Canada (US$132), Mexico (US$23) and the USA (US$131); however, in practice, this tax is only charged at airports and is valid for the lifetime of the passport. These charges vary according to the how much is charged to Chilean citizens for tourist visas to these countries.

LanChile flies from Tahiti (connections to Japan, Australia and New Zealand) to Santiago, with a stop at RapaNui/Easter Island. Qantas (http://www.qantas.com.au) and LanChile have a code-sharing agreement on flights between Sydney and Santiago via Auckland. There are also several weekly flights from Auckland to Santiago via Buenos Aires with Aerolíneas Argentinas. From South Africa it is possible to connect to Santiago through Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo on South African Airways from Johannesburg.

Flights from the UK take 18 to 20 hours, including a change of plane. It is impossible to fly directly to Santiago from London, so connections have to be made on one of the following routes: Aerolíneas Argentinas (http://www.aerolineas.com.ar) via Madrid and/or Buenos Aires; Air France (http://www.airfrance.com) via Paris; British Airways (http://www.ba.com) connecting through LanChile in Buenos Aires; Iberia (http://www.iberia.com) via Madrid or Barcelona; LanChile (http://www.lan.com) via Madrid; Lufthansa (http://www.lufthansa.com) code sharing with Swiss International Airlines (http://www.swis.com) via Zurich; TAM (http://www.tam.com.) br via Paris and São Paulo, or with one of the American carriers via New York, Atlanta or Miami.

Flights from Miami to Santiago take nine hours and are operated by American Airlines (http://www.aa.com) and LanChile direct from Miami, New York and Dallas Fort Worth. LanChile also has flights to Santiago from Miami and New York, as well as from Los Angeles, while Delta (http://www.delta.com) has a service from Atlanta. Additional flights from Los Angeles, Miami and New York to Santiago are operated by Copa (http://www.copaair.com) via Panama City. Taca (http://www.taca.com) via San José or San Salvador. AeroMéxico (http://www.mexicana.com) via Mexico City, have flights from several US cities.

From Canada, Air Canada (http://www.aircanada.com) has the only direct flights, from Toronto, connecting from all other major cities. LanChile offers connections with sister airlines from Vancouver to Los Angeles and thence to Santiago, or from Toronto to New York and on to Santiago. Both American and Delta also have services via the US.

There are about 75 flights per week to Santiago from Buenos Aires (Argentina), operated by LanChile, Aerolíneas Argentinas and Gol. There are also flights by LanChile from Bariloche, Córdoba, Mendoza and Rosario, and summer flights from Ushuaia. LanChile and Pluna run services from Montevideo (Uruguay). TAM connects with Asunción (Paraguay). Flights from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) are run by LanChile and Gol. There are also services from São Paulo by LanChile, TAM and Gol. Flights from La Paz and Santa Cruz (Bolivia) are offered by LanChile. There are many flights from Lima (Peru) by LanPeru, TACA and LanChile. Sky has a weekly service from Arequipa. From Ecuador, LanChilefly non-stop from Guayaquil or Quito. Avianca, AeroMéxico and LanChile also fly from Bogotá (Colombia), Caracas (Venezuela) and Havana (Cuba); Mexico City is served by AeroMéxico and LanChile with that latter also having flights from Cancún.

There are flights to Arica and Iquique from La Paz and Santa Cruz with LanChile. LanChile flies to Santiago from Stanley on the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) via Punta Arenas. DAP flies between Punta Arenas and Ushuaia.

The very busy seasons are 7 December to 15 January (until the end of February for flights within South America) and 10 July to 10 September. If you intend travelling during those times, book as far ahead as possible. From February to May and September to November special offers may be available. Fares vary from airline to airline and according to the time of year. Most airlines offer discounted fares of one sort or another on scheduled flights, and discounted fares are offered through specialist agencies, but always check the reservation with the airline concerned to make sure the flight still exists.