Your very own 8-day bus tour of Chile!! - Day 1 - Bahia Inglesa

Welcome to your very own 8-day bus tour of Northern Chile!! First things first, introductions... your guides - the driver Rodrigo (really cool guy and very responsible), the guide Jorge (knowledgeable, but a little unprofessional at times), and the guide in training Hector (interesting fellow with dreadlocks that believes that Marijuana is not a drug and was put on this earth to be smoked). Next, your tour mates... your really good friend(Shannon in my case), the 2 jolly Germans (a young couple that are dangerously close to becoming alcoholics), the 2 crazy Danes (two older ladies from Denmark with no shame), a Switzerland nurse (who takes more pills everyday than anyone I've ever met), an Auzzie (young guy who is mentally unstable), 2 Brazilians (quiet reserved young couple), a lady dentist from London (who happens to have the most piercing painful laugh I've ever heard), one more guy from England (nice guy who gets along with all), and finally a girl from Holland (the most obnoxiously rude girl ever).

Now sit back and relax because your on a tour! (You are actually getting a sweet deal, because you get to see everything without actually having to sit on the bus for hours on end, dealing with a rough group of tour mates.)

Here we go - the first day you arrive in Bahia Inglesa, a pretty little town on the beach. Bahia Inglesa is located the nearby town of Caldera. Caldera was the first mechanized port in South America and was used to export minerals. It has attractive houses from the XIX century, and a church built by the English railroad carpenters. This day you tour both towns on foot - Bahia Inglesa and Caldera, take a few walks along the beach of Bahia Inglesa enjoying the ocean and the sunshine, find some neat seashells, and as the sun starts to go down you change into warmer clothing for the evening. The tour guides are preparing a Chilean barbecue tonight and you can start to smell all the delicious meat as you help prepare the salads and vegetables. Dinner is finally ready, so you dig into Chorripan (sausages in bread w/ fresh avacado and tomato), grilled chicken, grilled steak, ensalada chilena (tomato and onion salad), potatoes, grilled red and green peppers, and grilled zuchinni. Mmmm good.... After you finish you help clean up, then take a hot shower across the campground. Trek back to your A-cabin where you are sleeping with your really good friend and the 2 crazy Danes.

The rest of the tour mates stay up drinking and chatting till early in the morning, which by this time you have been long asleep. Until...the Danes arrive in your cabin, fall asleep, and of course one of them is a snorer. And loud too! So for the next 4-5 hours your in and out of sleep due to the noise. First day complete.

*All these pictures were taken at Bahia Inglesa