Information for the Chile Traveler

CHILE FACTS AND TRAVEL TIPS

Population 15.5 million (Santiago 5 million)

Area 748,800 sq km

Religion 89% Roman Catholic, 10% Protestant, less than 1% Jewish

Climate/ Seasons  Chile's geographical variety can make a visit rewarding in any season. Santiago and Middle Chile are best in the verdant spring (September through November) or during the fall harvest (late February into April), while popular natural attractions like Parque Nacional del Paine in Magallanes and the lakes region are best in summer (December through March).
Conversely, Chilean ski resorts draw many foreigners during the northern summer (June through August).

Chile's climate is as varied as its terrain, with arid but surprisingly temperate areas in the north, a heartland which enjoys a Mediterranean climate, and the wind, rain and snow-battered lands of Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in the south. The rainy season in the heartland is from May to August when temperatures are cooler, getting down to an average maximum temperature of 10°C (50°F) in July. January's average is 28°C (82°F). Chilean Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego have summer averages of just 11°C (52°F) but if you think that's manageable, muff up and get ready for the wind chill.

Health/ Immunizations Depending on your itinerary, your personal risk factors, and the length of your visit, your health care provider may offer you vaccination against hepatitis A, typhoid, hepatitis B, rabies, or influenza.  Routine immunizations, such as those that prevent tetanus/diphtheria or "childhood" diseases, should be reviewed and updated as needed. Quite a few diseases, including hepatitis A and typhoid fever, are transmitted by unsanitary food handling procedures and contaminated water. Food and beverage precautions are essential in order to reduce chance of illness. Anti-diarrheal drugs may be prescribed by your provider. The dusty, dry climate may affect persons with allergies, bronchitis, or sinusitis.  Ask your physician during your pre-trip physical check-up.

Insurance We highly recommend that all travelers are adequately covered by Medical, Accident, Travel, and Rescue Insurance.  American Alpine Club is well known for their world-wide rescue insurance program.  World Travel Center offers great travel/health coverage for adventure traveler.

Visas  Citizens of the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and most Western European countries do not require a visa although US citizens do pay a US$100 levy (cash only). Canadians pay a $US55 levy and Australians $US34, while there is no levy for EU and New Zealand residents. A 90-day entry permit, renewable for another 90 days, is received on entering the country.

CHILE'S ECOLOGY
Making up the left-hand side of South America's tapering tail, Chile's lean strip has been described by author Benjamín Subercaseaux as an extravaganza of 'crazy geography'. It extends some 4300km (2666mi) from the desert north to the glacial south, is bordered by the Pacific Ocean on the west and shuttered by the Andes on the east. Chile shares most of its extensive eastern border with Argentina, and borders Peru and Bolivia in the north. Rarely extending beyond 200km (124mi) in width, Chile makes up for longitudinal mincing by rising rapidly from sea level to 6000m (19,680ft) while the country's latitudinal extremes give it a formidable array of landscapes. Snow-capped volcanoes plunge to river canyons; the Great North, where some weather stations have never recorded rainfall, is counterpoint to storm and snow-prone Patagonia; and Chile's razored and sculpted coastline has endowed it with beaches and bays perfect for fishing and swimming.

Chile also lays claim to the offshore territories of Easter Island (3700km/2300mi west), Juan Fernández (700km/434mi west) and half of the southern island of Tierra del Fuego (which it shares with Argentina).

The variety of habitat supports distinctive flora and fauna, which are protected by an extensive system of national parks - one of the country's major drawcards for visitors. In the parks, animals such as the endangered vicuña (a wild relative of the alpaca), the Patagonian guanaco (a wild relative of the Andean llama), flamingos, pelicans, penguins, otters and sea lions do the food chain thing. Chilean plant life includes stands of araucaria (the monkey-puzzle tree), cypress and rare alerce trees (similar to the giant redwoods of California). Outside protected areas, extensive logging denudes the landscape at an alarming and increasing rate.

CHILE'S HISTORY
Pre-Columbian Chile was peopled by a variety of ancient cultures, many of them politically subject to the Incas who they predated by many centuries. The country's varied topography governed the character of its population groups and the extent to which they were subject to Inca aggression. Native groupings included Aymara farmers in the desert north, who cultivated maize and tended flocks of llamas and alpacas; fisherfolk in the coastal areas; Diaguita Indians in the mountainous interior; Araucarian Indians in the center and south, whose fishing and agricultural settlements were barely touched by Incan incursions; and numerous groups of archipelagic hunters and fishers in the remote south.

All territory west of Brazil was granted to Spain by the 1494 Spanish-Portuguese treaty. The Spanish assigned the task of conquering Chile to Pedro de Valdivia, whose expedition reached Chile's fertile Mapocho Valley in 1541. Santiago was founded in the same year, with the cities of La Serena, Valparaíso, Concepción, Valdivia and Villarrica following soon after. The Río Biobío marked the southern extent of Spanish incursions, where they were barred by the resistance of the fierce Mapuche tribes. Valdivia rewarded his followers with enormous land grants, which resembled the great feudal estates of his Spanish homeland. Although mining and business outstripped agriculture as Chile's merchant megaliths, it was the social structure of the estates which shaped colonial Chile. The native population was devastated by the unwitting introduction of infectious diseases, and the mestizo population, the offspring of Spanish and Indian unions, were used as tenant laborers on these huge estates, many of which were still intact in the 1960s.

By the 1820s, the cumbersome methods by which taxation was extracted by a stagnant and complacent Spain allowed a flowering pan-American identity to blossom into a push for full independence. Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín led armies of freedom fighters from Venezuela to Peru, and from Argentina into Chile. Bernardo O'Higgins, son of an Irish immigrant and erstwhile viceroy of Peru, became supreme director of the new Chilean republic. The newly independent Chile was a fraction of its eventual size, consisting of Santiago and Concepción, and with fuzzy borders with Bolivia and Argentina. The coming of the railways and military triumphs over Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific (1879-83) incorporated the mineral-rich Atacama desert to the north and the southern temperate territories. Chile quickly achieved a degree of political stability and relative democracy, enabling rapid agricultural development and the advancement of mining, industry and commerce. The now empowered working class and the nouveau riche both challenged the political power of the landowning oligarchy in a brief but bloody civil war in the 1890s.

The first half of the 20th century saw the political climate swing between right and left with no government having sufficient support to cement large scale reform. Infrastructure development was generally sluggish, leading to rural poverty and urbanization through desperation. It was not until the 1960s that social reforms were successfully instituted by the Christian Democrats, who targeted housing, education, health and social services. These policies threatened the conservative elite's privileges and also offended the radical left. Chile's politics were becoming increasingly militant, polarized and ideology-based when the Marxist Allende's leftist coalition of Socialists, Communists and extremists snuck to victory in 1970. Allende introduced sweeping economic reforms, including the state takeover of many private enterprises and the wholesale redistribution of income. The country was plunged into economic chaos and America was miffed by the expropriation of US-controlled copper mines, and also by Chile's conspicuously friendly relations with Castro's Cuba.

General Pinochet seized power in a bloody coup on 11 September 1973 using jets to bomb the presidential palace. Allende died, apparently by his own hand, and thousands of his supporters were murdered. Dark days followed, with assassinations, purges and enforced exiles commonplace. It is estimated that as many as 80,000 people were tortured or murdered. Rumors of CIA involvement in the coup were given credence by the US-instigated suspension of credit from international finance organizations, and the contemporaneous financial and moral support given to Allende's opponents.

At the head of a four-man junta, Pinochet dissolved Congress, banned leftist parties and suspended all opposition. Pinochet's monetarist economic policies brought stability and relative prosperity, but in a 1988 referendum to approve his presidency, voters rejected him by a majority of 12%. In the 1989 multiparty elections, Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin beat Pinochet's candidate, Hernan Buchi, and power was peacefully transferred. Democracy returned to Chile although many of the previous regime's power brokers wield a lingering influence.

Eduardo Frei undertook the challenge of reconciling Chileans with their difficult past by accelerating human rights tribunals and inquiries into the fate of Chile's 3000 disappeared. Unfortunately, resistance from the political arm of the military machine severely hampered his efforts. Frei also struggled in matters of constitutional reform, failing to eliminate eight institutional senators appointed by Pinochet who are not subject to a popular vote. Frei's economic reforms, however, did help alleviate crushing poverty to some degree.

Newly elected President Ricardo Lagos, formerly Frei's public works minister, is the first Socialist to hold the highest office since Allende. He defeated his right-wing rival, Joaquin Lavin, by a thin margin, securing 51.3% of the vote.

The newest wildcard in Chilean politics is Pinochet himself, whose arrest in London in 1999 at the request of a Spanish judge investigating human rights violations unleashed an international furore. The general's temporary detention brought unresolved issues into the open for the first time in decades, but in February 2000 the general was pronounced too ill to stand trial and in early March he returned to Chile. With investigations into the disappearances that occurred during the Pinochet regime ongoing and a lawsuit filed in a US court accusing Kissinger and other high-ranking US officials of complicity in the events surrounding the overthrow of Allende, Chileans continue to grapple with their murky past.

CHILE'S CULTURE
Chile's European heritage is pervasive, meaning that Western travelers here are less conspicuous than in neighboring Peru and Bolivia. For centuries, the Paris education of many Chilean intellectuals influenced the country's art, music and architecture. Important art galleries, museums and a thriving theater scene are the result. The country's art, literature and music have been influential internationally. Chile has spawned the Nobel Prize-winning poets Gabriela Mistral and Pablo Neruda and, until the military coup of 1973, its cinema was among the most experimental in Latin America. Folk music has been an especially important outlet for the country's oppressed, and was frequently performed overseas by exiles during Pinochet's reign.

Over 90% of the population is Roman Catholic, though evangelical Protestantism is becoming increasingly popular. The country's Catholic architecture is impressive and ubiquitous, from grandiose colonial churches to roadside shrines, some of which are extraordinary manifestations of folk art. Spanish is Chile's official language, though a handful of native languages are still spoken. In the north, there are more than 20,000 speakers of Aymara, and in the south there are perhaps half a million speakers of Mapuche. The most intriguing linguistic minority is the 2000-plus speakers of Rapa Nui, the Polynesian language of most of Easter Island's population.

Chile's cuisine reflects the country's topographical variety, and features seafood, beef, fresh fruit and vegetables. Empanadas are large turnover snacks with a variety of fillings; humitas are corn tamales; and there are a variety of potato and flour-based breads. Chile's biggest standard meal is lomo a lo pobre - an enormous slab of beef topped with two fried eggs and buried in chips. The parillada, which will appall vegetarians and heart specialists, is a mixed grill including such delicacies as intestines, udders and blood sausages. Curanto, one of the nation's finest dishes, is an all-encompassing, hearty stew of fish, shellfish, chicken, pork, lamb, beef and potato. Chilean wines are arguably South America's best. A pisco sour is a popular drink which easily gets you piscoed - it's a grape brandy served with lemon juice, egg white and powdered sugar.

FESTIVALS AND EVENTS

The Easter and Christmas holidays are the most important national celebrations, but there's a conglomeration of secular holidays in September, including Fiestas Patrias (mid-September); National Independence Day on the 18th (a day of spirited partying and rodeos); and Armed Forces Day on the 19th. Of the innumerable local cultural festivals, the mid-north town of Andacollo's Fiesta de la Virgin del Rosario is perhaps the weirdest. Drawing pilgrims every December from as far afield as Bolivia, Asian-inspired team dancing fringes a procession of the Virgin's image to a huge shrine. Horse racing and cock fighting provide ancillary entertainment for the crowds camped on surrounding hillsides.