Interurbanos

There are not that many train tracks in Chile, so to get from city to city there is a network of bus lines. These are called interurbanos and they are quite a bit more comfortable than a city bus. First you take a local transport to a " terminal de buses" and there you buy a ticket at one of the counters of the bus enterprises that share that terminal. Some of the bigger names are "TurBus", "Pulman" and "Linea Azul". When you buy your ticket you can select a seat number and if you want you can keep the return "blanco" so you can confirm later (or just hop on a passing bus and take an empty seat).

 foto by Jorge Gutierrez Pere, found here

There are several types of buses, depending on the distance of the trip. There are the buses with inclining chairs, where the inclination angle increases with the price for a ticket. These buses travel on the overnight long routes, which I took to Puerto Mont (13 hours). And there are the normal coach type buses, which I take twice a week to Valparaiso. These buses leave Santiago every 15 to 20 minutes, all day long. These buses are actually pretty comfortable and you can easily get some work done. All buses have a couple of television sets and TurBus is experimenting with free wifi internet with a mobile adsl hookup in each bus. It takes me about one and a half hour to get from Santiago to Valparaiso and it costs me about 6.75 Euro for a return trip, which doesn't have to be the same day.