Chile Forum

Choripan wrote:
Puerto Natales - man, I loved that place. It's the moodiest city on earth.

It's Wyoming with a sea-coast.
Natales wipes the smile from the face of moody.

I have been down here in Arequípa Peru for the last two months studying spanish. I also spent 5 weeks in Chile a year ago. The main reasons for sticking with Peru are

1. The food is edible and great restaurants are inexpensive.
2. No dogs in the street nor dog byproducts. This is the only place in SA I have seen dog leashes used.
3. Very little graffiti.
4. The mandarin restaurant in downtown that has the best chinese food this side of Beijing for $3-4 per person.
5. cost of living is half that of Chile
6. the Peruvians seem to be much easier to do business with as well. Renting an apartment in Santiago is a pain compared to Peru.

These are the things you will miss if you move to Chile. You might try Arequipa on your way down to Santiago. Be happy to show you around if you do.

helitool wrote:I have been down here in Arequípa Peru for the last two months studying spanish. I also spent 5 weeks in Chile a year ago. The main reasons for sticking with Peru are

1. The food is edible and great restaurants are inexpensive.
2. No dogs in the street nor dog byproducts. This is the only place in SA I have seen dog leashes used.
3. Very little graffiti.
4. The mandarin restaurant in downtown that has the best chinese food this side of Beijing for $3-4 per person.
5. cost of living is half that of Chile
6. the Peruvians seem to be much easier to do business with as well. Renting an apartment in Santiago is a pain compared to Peru.

These are the things you will miss if you move to Chile. You might try Arequipa on your way down to Santiago. Be happy to show you around if you do.

i was wondering that...... chile is too far gone to be a cheaper alternative to anywhere.....

Do you like the desert? Arica is one of the cheapest places to live in Chile. I used to get by on about 800 USD a month, but that was a few years ago. My buddy Tomas is the man with the Arica info: http://aricachile.wordpress.com/article/arica-chile-in-a-nutshell-lyuza29o3r5u-2/

I have lived in Lima and Viña del Mar and now live in Santiago. They each had their advantages and disadvantages.

For me, Viña had the least going for it. The geography was great but it is basically a small town (looks big in the summer when the tourists are there) with all that implies. Medical and dental was not that good. If people want better medical and dental they take a bus to Santiago. It is nice living by the sea and there are nice areas to get out into in the surroundings. The people are very conservative (Navy town) and everyone is related to everyone else. My first experience living somewhere other than the capital city and my last.

Lima is where I lived the longest and so I have memories which tied me to it in ways which someone arriving later for a shorter time would not have. That colours how you see and experience a place. I probably accepted all sorts of things which bothered others simply because it was home. Looking back I think Lima was not that healthy a place to live. The food was great but maybe you didn't want to see it being prepared. The damp got into your bones. No rain to wash everything down. I loved it anyway but would not now want to go back to live there.

Santiago gets a lot of criticism on here but it suits me fine. It is a city which is better for living than visiting. I find most people very friendly but I think you have to find the rhythm of any place you live. That can take a bit of time or can happen immediately. You have to go out and find Santiago. Santiago has a very rich cultural life, lots of free events, some fun food events through the year, lots of places to go outside the city for the day. I don't have to commute, so one of the real downsides (public transport, especially at rush hour) doesn't bother me. I like that we can eat outside for so much of the year and that bad weather doesn't last a whole season. It is an expensive place to live. I can no longer compare with Lima as it has been too long and I don't know how much Lima has changed. People are more reserved, but a Chilean friend, once made, is there for the long term.

You can find the usual idiots, scammers, piss artists etc in all three places.

Coquimbo/La Serena are big enough cities that you might be able to find a job in whatever you work in, but doesn't have that "valley effect" for collecting smog since they're on the coast. I only spent a couple of days there, so i can't really tell you much about them, but it might be worth looking into!

I lived in Santiago for almost a year and now in Lima. There are things I miss from Santiago, but Lima is great too. Both cities have different pros and cons, but ultimately I find them pretty similar. Not a city fan, but that's where work is.

Things I love about Santiago include good food (yes, it exists), shopping, the metro and public transport (far from great, but still highly useful and functional) the mountains and close proximity to other nice places. Things I disliked included the stray dogs, wolf whistles from random men on the street, the swearing which has replaced normal vocab and the smog (worst smog I've personally encountered anywhere).

Things I love about Lima include the amazing food, overall low cost of living, no strays, cycling paths and plenty of parks. Things I dislike include the traffic (worst for me ever out of everywhere I've been), not a big fan of the humidity, bad road maintenance and public transport generally and slow! shop attendants. I have yet to encounter any smog in this place, I hear it gets bad in winter.

My two cents/pesos/soles...

maybe im biased cause im chilean (and iv been many times in peru), but i wouldnt live in any peruvian city but cuzco and the very rich quarter of lima (san isidro and la molina). in chile i would live in almost any city over 120,000 inhbs. but calama and osorno. Temuco is poluted but is a city of a perfect size and very beauty. concepcion is cool too.

ps: the peruvian food in peru is overrated, you will find better peruvian restaurants in santiago. probably because chilean seafood is better and bigger (colder waters).

but if you are looking for price, choose lima anyday.

Real State wrote: Temuco is poluted but is a city of a perfect size and very beauty.

To paraphrase Px, I must be thinking of another Temuco... The one I know couldn't be described as having much beauty. Some, but not very much.

Around Temuco, that's another story.

What is Talca like, and how does it compare to the other cities being discussed?

wendyann wrote:What is Talca like, and how does it compare to the other cities being discussed?

Not in the same league as a capital city. Talca is a pleasantly boring, average, comparatively slow-paced provincial backwater where you can still (at least recently) find a cheap residencial for 10 lucas. On foggy nights it can still smell of fertilizer and pesticides wafting in from the nearby agricultural countryside. Cheaper, quieter, arguably cleaner than Santiasco (but still a bit trashy), but hardly more than a town in comparison, though the traffic congestion can be serious. Intra-town buses tend to be old and creaky and have that standard chilean armpit smell. A lot of the streets and sidewalks show the usual acceptance of letting things decay as they might. Given the time for visits to ten shops, you may find the air-filter for your vehicle, or perhaps not. The primary contribution of the university seems to be nose-rings and noise, the latter mostly in the form of all-too-frequent rock concerts that you can hear 10 km away. Others who spend more time there may have additional opinions.

wendyann wrote:What is Talca like, and how does it compare to the other cities being discussed?

Downtown Talca has been reconstructed after the earthquake and is a pleasant area to walk, shop, and eat. In general, the city of Thunder is small (pop. about 250,000) and quiet, but offers sufficiently everything that you can have in Chile.
TP