Backpacking in Chile- The Top 5 Highlights

Firstly, I must say, at the risk of sounding cheesy and predictable, that Chile is the most beautiful country I’ve ever visited. And that’s pretty much for one reason alone: The Andes. They’re enchanting, breathtaking, and pretty much omnipresent in Chile- just take a look at the map. The country is bordered by the Andes to the East forming a natural border with Argentina, legendary for its precarious mountain crosses, which claimed the lives of many Spanish conquistadores. If all goes to plan I’d like to return to South America to trek in the Andes and take in their beauty in Argentina and Peru also. The mountains have a spirit, echoed by the friendly people you meet all over Chile, and that sort of sentimental kindness is infectious- I’m surprised they haven’t tried to bag it! So, with the Andes as my absolute number 1 highlight, here are my real top 5 destinations I visited during my time backpacking in Chile, from Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama…

Stunning Andes

Nadie espera la revolución española: Nobody expects the Spanish Revolution

Jose Maria Montiel es licenciado en Administración y dirección de empresas y  graduado en Gestión Internacional de la Empresa. Actualmente reside y trabaja en los Emiratos Árabes Unidos.

El acontecimiento social conocido como “la primavera del 68”, fue un momento histórico que tuvo su origen en Francia y en el cual las clases oprimidas por un sistema capitalista injusto y desigual, se levantaron y protestaron masivamente en contra de la burguesía y del imperialismo. Aquel movimiento pacífico se extendió a otros países del mundo protagonizando una ola de protestas (especialmente por parte de la juventud) a nivel mundial.

La acampada en Puerta del Sol

Hoy en día, tras las revueltas en el mundo árabe – las cuales es necesario valorar en términos internacionales – parece ser que en España la población (hasta ahora dormida)  ha empezado a despertar y reaccionar.

Durante estos días y a la vista de las próximas elecciones municipales del 22 de Mayo, están teniendo lugar en muchas ciudades de España históricas concentraciones y manifestaciones de miles de personas que exigen un cambio del sistema. Quizá la más representativa concentración es la que está teniendo lugar en Madrid, en la céntrica puerta del Sol, de manera continuada, una acampada multitudinaria que se prevé se mantenga hasta el día de las elecciones, al más estilo Plaza Tahrir de El Cairo.

The Lorca quake: what we never knew about Spain

The 5.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Lorca on Wednesday, killing nine victims, came as a shock to the Spanish community and beyond. The tremor was felt from its epicentre in Murcia, sourthern Spain, to as far away as Madrid. A small medieval town of 90,000 inhabitants, Lorca lies near the Tercia mountain range in a region of Spain that, it transpires, is relatively prone to earthquakes. For those of us who have visited Spain but were not around to witness the last significant quake, over fifty years ago, this might come as a shock.

Zapatero inspects rubble in Lorca

The Daily Telegraph’s Fiona Govan in Madrid wrote: “Spain is at moderate risk of earthquakes. On average every 200 years an earthquake of over six on the Richter scale occurs.”

Rousseff leads Brazil in mourning Rio shooting

The sad events that unfolded in Realengo, a working-class district of Rio de Janeiro, on Thursday not only stunned Brazil’s very Catholic, very moral population, but also presented a test to their newly incumbent president, Dilma Rousseff.

Relatives mourn 14-year-old Luiza Paula da Silveira Machado

The shooting of 12 children, all aged between 10 and 13, at the Tasso Silveira school by a former pupil, 24-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, was a crime of unprecedented proportions in Brazil. The media captured the panic and anxiety of relatives as they waited outside the school gates for news of their loved ones. A sense of their grief was shouldered by the whole of Brazilian society, seen in the mass funeral for the victims, attended by hundreds of mourners, when rose petals were released from a military helicopter flying overhead.

Rousseff addresses the nation after the shooting

Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, who has been in government since January, reacted to the tragedy both as a statesman and as a mourner. In a position where her femininity could easily be criticised, she still allowed herself to show emotion when addressing a grief-stricken nation. Her eyes flooded with tears, she said: “This kind of crime is not usual here in our country and that’s why I think that everyone here, all of us, men and women, must unite to condemn this act of violence, to condemn this violence against unprotected children.”

Spanish students cause a stir in their search for ‘picaderos’

Those who have lived or travelled in Spain will know that the Spanish are hardly shy of a good public display of affection, especially when the sun is shining on Madrid’s Retiro park. But Spanish students have recently made headlines with their search for ‘picaderos’, or places to have sex, and certain universities are scrambling to stem the trend.

Joke warning for a national picadero

For many years the Complutense University campus, situated in the vast Ciudad Universtaria in the North West of Madrid, has operated as a university by day, but something very different by night. A recent article in El Mundo revealed the extent to which the campus is used by students for sex, claiming, in a somewhat mocking tone, that “any area that is slightly dark and away from the road is a suitable place to unleash your passion”. [“Cualquier zona que esté algo oscura y apartada del tránsito es un lugar idóneo para desatar la pasión.”] The article implies these students’ escapades outdo George Michael in “Let’s go outside”, and we all know where that adventurous attitude landed him.

If El Mundo is on some kind of moral campaign to stamp out this sex ‘al fresco’, they’re sure to lose. Not just students, but adults all over Spain in search of a good picadero have taken their search multimedia thanks to a site much like Google Maps, devoted to helping people locate the best places for shagging. The site, www.mispicaderos.net, was created by Josean Gutiérrez, 35, who felt it could prove useful to frisky students. There are over 6,000 people registered on the site and it’s growing in popularity. Each week five or six new locations are added. Gutiérrez said: “It was born as an experiment and it turned out to be useful and people think it’s quite a fun idea.” [“Nació como un experimento y resulta que está siendo útil y a la gente le parece graciosa la idea”] He’s also created an app for the iPhone and Android.

Fernando Alonso to the rescue over Spanish speed limits

It makes you wonder whether Zapatero saw this coming. As Prime Minister it mustn’t be fun when any of your proposals are met with widespread rejection by the public, but when one of Spain’s national heroes, in the form of Formula One driver Fernando Alonso, comes forward to join the dissenting throng, you must know you’ve got something wrong.

National treasure: F1 driver Fernando Alonso

In the wake of unrest in the Middle East causing oil prices to soar, Zapatero’s PSOE announced last week that they will lower the speed limit on Spain’s motorways to help save energy. From Monday 7 March the limit on Spanish motorways will no longer stand at 74.5mph, or 120kph, but 68mph, or 110kph. A recent survey by the AA revealed that 59% of UK drivers asked would slow down to save fuel. Amusingly, the AA advised that driving at 80mph uses a quarter more fuel than driving at 70mph, as well as being illegal.

Peru leads the way against Colonel Gaddafi

Peru's President Alan Garcia

It looks like Peru’s President Alan García could teach the UN Security Council a thing or two. After a week of increasing bloodshed in Libya, as Colonel Gaddafi lives up to his promise of fighting demonstrators down to the last bullet, President García cut diplomatic ties with the country, while the UN Security Council still stands dumb. His was the first nation to do so.

García condemned Gaddafi’s violent tactics of ordering army units and trained militia to attack anti-government protesters and mourners. Earlier this week he said: “Peru expresses its most energetic protest at the repression carried out by the Libyan dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi against his people, who are demanding democratic reforms to change a government led by the same person for 40 years.”

Easter Island Rapa Nui clan in clashes with Chilean police

The island known to most as Easter Island, which lies 3,200km off the west coast of Chile, is officially named Rapa Nui along with the Polynesian people that live there and the language they speak. Sixty per cent of Easter Island’s 4,000 population are descended from the indigenous group. Most of their income is gained from tourism as people travel to the Unesco World Heritage Site to see the Moais, giant carved stone figures which date from sometime between 1250 and 1500. The Rapa Nui have lobbied the Chilean government for independence since the island was annexed in 1888. And in recent years the struggle has grown more pronounced.

The Maois

On Sunday the most recent clash saw police evict a group of Rapa Nui, the Hitorangi clan, from a luxury hotel which they had been occupying since August in protest. They claim the hotel was built on land which had been illegally seized from their ancestors. For months they have been protesting against plans to develop the island for further tourism. The Hangaroa Eco Village and Spa where the group were camped out was brought from the Chilean government by the Scheiss family, a powerful investment group, in the 1990s. Hotel owner Jeannette Scheiss was quoted in the Santiago Times saying: “If someone feels they have a claim to our land, they have to prove it through judicial procedures”. Rodrigo Gomez, a lawyer for the group, said up to 50 armed police had broken into the hotel to remove the final five occupiers who were arrested and released pending court hearings. Mr Gomez said the operation, which took place two days before the group were due to appear in court to discuss the land ownership, had been “utterly irregular and illegal”. A statement on the Save Rapa Nui website claimed that another of the group’s lawyers had been prevented from visiting his clients in jail.

Top Gear crosses the line with racist Mexican comments

Clarkson immitates the Mexican ambassador who he expects will be sleeping and miss the comments

Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the sometimes bumbling middle-aged presenters that make up the Top Gear trio, are hardly known for the most clean of humour. But their comments characterising Mexicans as  ‘lazy’ on Top Gear last Sunday, 30^th January, have proved a step too far. While discussing a Mexican sports car, the Mastretta, Hammond took the opportunity to (rather ineloquently) criticise the Mexican people as a whole: “Mexican cars are just going to be a lazy, feckless, flatulent oaf with a moustache leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat”. May joined in by describing Mexican food as ‘refried sick’ and Clarkson, positively gleeful at his colleagues’ outbursts, said he was confident the BBC would not receive any complaints because the Mexican ambassador would be asleep.

Could Brazil’s landslides have been prevented?

Since the Rio de Janeiro region of Brazil was hit by severe flooding and landslides on 12^th January after a prolonged period of heavy rainfall, more than 13,000 people have lost or abandoned their homes. From the towns of Nova Friburgo, Teresopolis, Petropolis, Sumidouro and Sao Jose do Vale do Rio Preto the death toll has reached 676. The rescue effort has been criticised as people have been forced to wait so long for food, medicines and water it is feared they may resort to drinking the muddy flood water. In Teresopolis the city council has been forced to bury the dead before they have been identified as the mortuaries are filled to capacity. Some remote mountainous areas have been cut off for five days, and it is feared that more bodies could be found there.

Teresopolis after a landslide on 12th January

But could these floods, or the level of destruction caused by them, have been prevented? Brazil’s rainy season is often aggressive with rivers bursting their banks and a certain number of deaths. In January last year heavy rains killed dozens of people living just south of the towns currently affected. More planning and management might not have prevented this disaster, as a month’s worth of rain fell in just eight hours, but it surely would have limited the number killed and left homeless.