3 Weeks in South America: Peru, Brazil, Uruguay & Chile

[Mattg]

Valparaíso was another city full of fabulous street art...

 

[Mattg]

We also had a bit of time for sightseeing in Santiago...

Plaza de Armas, the main square in Santiago:





Other sights around the city:

 

[Mattg]

Unless the pollution in Santiago gets particularly bad (admittedly a common occurrence, I'm told), the mountains are always visible in the background...




Santiago benefits from something that much of South America does not - an excellent public transport system. There is an extensive metro network, and trains come every two minutes.


Santiago metro

I bought a reloadable "Bip" card and found this to be a good option. I loaded the equivalent of around $10 onto my card, and it was enough for 3 days.

 

[Mattg]

After a couple of days in Chile, my time in South America had come to an end!

This had truly been a fantastic trip and I look back on it now with fond memories. There's a certain charm about South America and I cannot wait to return!

I flew Qantas back to Sydney in Economy.

Flight: QF28 Santiago - Sydney
Boeing 747-400ER
Departure time: 13:30
Arrival time: 17:45 (next day)

Our aircraft arriving in Santiago:



For this flight I was right up the back of Economy, in row 72! This may not sound great, but I was pretty happy with it. I was in one of the "pairs" of seats at the back of the 747, meaning I had extra room to the side of my window seat. I also had a shadow, meaning I had direct aisle access and could stretch out over the two seats. I considered myself very lucky as the flight was ~95% full in Economy.

This was the view from the back of the plane...



At the start of the flight the captain informed us that we'd be flying as far as 71 degrees south. This was apparently as far to the south as we were "allowed" to fly. When I flew from Sydney to Johannesburg last year, we flew "just" 65 degrees south and had some great views of the Antarctic icebergs. As this was a daytime flight, I was hopeful of once again seeing some icebergs along the way!

We had some nice views right after take-off:

 

[Mattg]

This was the menu for the flight:


I had the Chilean beef & corn pie for lunch. It tasted much better than it looked:



Dinner was served about 2/3 of the way through the flight. I chose the salmon, which again was nice:



Corn empanadas were served in cardboard boxes shortly before arrival.

There were a mixture of Qantas mainline and (much younger) Kiwi Jetconnect crew on this flight. The service was fine, although I did feel it could have been a little more... enthusiastic. I don't really blame the crew - they probably had a short layover in SCL and the difference in time zones (Chile is 14 hours behind Australia) can be brutal.

 

[Mattg]

As promised, we did fly very far south. In fact, we spent close to 5 hours flying over icebergs!

However, as it was the middle of winter, it got quite dark out the window... even though it was technically the middle of the day. It was still possible to see a bit, but most passengers had their window shades down for the whole flight and would have been completely oblivious to the views!

As it was pretty dark, my photos unfortunately didn't turn out that well. But I can imagine that this would be a great flight in the summer, just like QF63 (SYD-JNB) is.

The icebergs first came into view around this point:






The sun came back up as we began heading north a few hours out of Sydney.



The sun then set again a couple of hours later, after we made landfall over Tasmania.

This was the complete flight path:



We arrived in Sydney about 15 minutes late. For the first time in ages, I wasn't eligible to use a smart gate as I'd been to one of the South American countries on the "yellow fever risk" list in the past 6 days. I had to actually speak to a Border Force officer and produce a yellow fever certificate. This wasn't a problem and I was soon on my way home.

And with that, this trip came to an end! I hope you enjoyed my trip report & thanks for reading.

 

[drron]

Just loved it.

 

[kermatu]

Nice report.

 

[Steady]

Very enjoyable - thanks Mattg

 

[Major]

Great report...good photos and I enjoyed the read

 

[JohnM]

Great TR, as usual, Matt . Plenty of familiar and also some not familiar images - I must get to Uruguay one day and spend some more time in Brazil.

 

[Myrna]

Thanks Mattg for the trip report. Enjoyed reading the bits about Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu. Looking forward to be there in less than 2 months

 

[ellen10]

Great report, enjoyed all the photos too.

 

[craven morehead]

Outstanding work mattg thanks heaps!

 

[LadyC]

Thanks very much for posting. You have provided many new places to add to the bucket list!

 

[Mattg]

Thanks everyone.

Thanks Mattg for the trip report. Enjoyed reading the bits about Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu. Looking forward to be there in less than 2 months ��

I know you're going to have a wonderful time!

 

[RooFlyer]

I go away for a couple of days and then its bloody all over! Nice report - thanks.

 

[Boca68]

Kudos Matt!

Another ripping TR.

 

[bPeteb]

Great report Matt. I better get my travelpod blog finished and then get my South America TR up here.

Pete

 

[boomy]

Very nice TR, just the right amount of photos and commentary. I've enjoyed reading it on my flight this morning