Chile - a conclusion

We have decided to write a short summary in the form of a questionnaire for each country or group of countries we visited on our trip. This serves as a reminder for us, as a summary for you, and hopefully provides some tips for any of our readers who may someday travel to the same region. By the way, we answered the questions separately in writing to avoid influencing each other. It's interesting how similar our answers turned out to be, but see for yourself:

Favorite place/city

Tabea: Pucón, because of the great atmosphere in the town and the nature surrounding it

Tim: Pucón with its beautiful mix of water, mountains, and city

Best accommodation

Tabea: "El Arbol Ecolodge" in La Serena

Tim: La Serena (El Arbol Ecolodge) - a beautiful oasis in the middle of nowhere

Best restaurant/cafe

Tabea: "El Chancho Seis" in Santiago with exciting vegetarian food

Tim: Border Café in Pucón - finally good coffee in Chile and a feeling like in Berlin

Favorite of the category local dishes/snacks/drinks

Tabea: Mote con Huesillo (a kind of non-alcoholic peach punch with wheat grains inside - sounds strange, but it's really good)

Tim: Empanadas con Queso

Most amazing nature experience

Tabea: Climbing up the Villarica volcano in Pucón through snow fields

Tim: The ascent of the Villarica volcano

Most beautiful experience overall

Tabea: When we got off the bus in the middle of the night in Valle de Elqui at the observatory and above us thousands of stars and the Milky Way were shining brightly.

Tim: the sight of the starry sky in Valle de Elqui.

That surprised me

Tabea: how much more Spanish you can learn by staying with a host family compared to daily individual lessons.

Tim: that there are more French tourists in Chile than Germans.

The Chileans are...

Tabea: crazy about things described as "artesanal," which means "handcrafted." This can apply to crafts, as well as food and drinks.

Tim: seemingly even bigger bread lovers than the Germans (but only wheat, nothing but wheat...).

Chile is...

Tabea: an incredibly elongated country, which can therefore boast the most diverse climate zones.

Tim: the place where there was still something left of everything when the Earth was created, which leads to an incredible diversity of landscapes.

A thought on traveling from our time in Chile

Tabea: "Slow travel," meaning traveling by means of transportation such as buses and trains, is absolutely possible here and not at all annoying. This may be due to the ingenious long-distance buses in Chile, but also because we were able to take a whole month to explore about 2/3 of the country.

Tim: it's incredible how such an extensive bus network can function smoothly without any lines, numbering, or passenger information.