Chile

Chile
Santiago (27-29Nov, 5-6Dec, 13Dec, 9Jan)

by Adrian

We flew into Santiago from Lima, thereby missing out the whole of northern Chile. This was disappointing, but the country is just too long to see, with Santiago about half the way down (4300km long)! After Peru, Chile was a complete change. Seeing the city with its wide streets, shiny buildings, traffic and shopping malls it could have been anywhere in Europe or North America, so it felt much less adventurous and more like a trip from home than an adventure like Peru. The people are also more European in their behaviour and appearance, not shouting at you to buy things all the time and it felt much safer walking about, even in Santiago, than it did in Peru where people were always jostling you all of the time. In addition, we were able to blend into the population and "pass" as locals--that is, until we started talking.

We had a look around the city, visiting a few sights and enjoying riding on the swish underground. It was here we visited the last Inca museum of the trip, which had a special exhibit of Quipu - pieces of Inca string with knots in, that are supposed to be some form of as-yet undeciphered writing, as well as calculation and accounting devices.

Interesting facts about Chile No. 1 All of Chile is east of New York

Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and La Campana (30-4Dec) by Adrian

As we had to wait a few days to go to Easter Island we decided to visit the coastal towns of Valparaíso (or Valpo as it's called) and Viña del Mar. These both came to prominence when ships going round the Horn stopped there, but all that finished in 1911 when the Panama canal was built, so now tourism (mostly of wealthy Chileans) is the main industry. In Valpo there are some older large buildings from that time as well as a group of "Asensores" - giant elevators that take people up and in some cases, across the hillsides that surround the town. We took a day trip out to one of Pablo Neruda's houses, known as Isla Negra and filled with his collections of ships-in-bottles, ship figureheads, and other nautical and non-nautical things.


Valparaiso

Between Valpo and Santiago is a park called La Campana, which has a mountain in it that we set about climbing. This is a popular pastime of Chileans also, but they like to leave their names on the top of it, with paint. Some of the dates were quite old so they made interesting reading, but generally I reckon it's a bad thing to write your name all over a mountain. Charles Darwin climbed this mountain when he visited (though we never found his name) and wrote about the view from the top in positive terms. And he was right - we could see both the Pacific Ocean and the peaks of the Andes in Argentina: the width of the country! The park itself was full of plants and trees that would not look out of place in California - oaks, broom and lupine, and even the weather was the same, which made Carrie homesick!

Easter Island (7-12Dec)
By Adrian P. Martin

As part of our round the world flight ticket, we were able to visit this unusual island. It is the most remote inhabited place in the world, being 1900km to the nearest place - even smaller Pitcairn Island (from Mutiny on the Bounty)--and flying there took 5 hours. In appearance it looks similar to Hawaii - volcanic and warm, but it has very few trees and grass covers most of the land.

Of course Easter Island is most well known for the giant stone statues (or moai) that are found on the island as well as the stories associated with them. This turned out to be fascinating, but more than that, Easter Island is a beautiful place, so the week there was very pleasant.


A Moai


The Moai waiting in the "shop"


An Inca-like masonary join on Easter Island


A Moai in the quarry, half carved.

We started by staying in the "city" of Hanga Roa, which is the only place the 4000 people live. It's a very informal place, where houses don't have numbers and people see each other often. Tourism is pretty much the only industry and when planes arrive (which everyone knows about because they can hear them) many people go to the airport to meet friends, sell things, or to offer lodging. We spent a day walking close to the town and back, observing some of the moai and wondering why and how they got there. The next day we took a tour of the eastern part of the island with an excellent guide who not only showed us where the most interesting areas were, but had a good knowledge of the island's history and the current ideas surrounding the demise of the peoples.


A fully restored Moai with pukao and eyes.


Row of moai

It looks like the island was once covered in trees, which were used to build boats and houses and to move the statues about the island, but once the trees were all chopped down, the population descended into warfare, one clan toppling the moai of another until almost all the population had died or been killed. At around this point the first Europeans turned up but, unusually, it doesn't look like they had a hand in the demise. Quite a lesson for everyone about resource usage!

Now some of the moai have been re-erected and look very impressive indeed. Originally a row of several of them, each resembling a leader from a generation, would have had eyes made from coral (white) and obsidian (black) and look over each village, to keep the people under control as it were, so pushing them over must have been considered a big insult.


Adrian and Moai


Anakena


The Beach at Anakena


Preparing dinner at Anakena

During our tour we decided to stay on the north side of the island, at the site of the island's only beach, where there is a small campsite. There was hardly anyone around, and it was just the warm wind and waves with us. And a few moai looking over us. We stayed there for 3 days before returning to the city for another night, just in time to see Boeing testing a new aircraft at the airport (see interesting fact #2). Fantastic.

Interesting facts about Chile No. 2 Easter Island's airport was specially lengthened as an emergency landing strip for the space shuttle. Concorde has landed there also.

Chiloé (14-19Dec)
special section by guest writer Carrie

After returning from Easter Island/Rapa Nui, we headed south immediately. We made for the archipelago of Chiloé, where we spent two nights in residenciales and two camping. We had heard that the area was reminiscent of Seattle, and when we played our wonted game of "If you did not know where we are, where would you think we were?" (in Spanish of course, so as to make use of the subjunctive), we both came up with Alaska. Very green, grey skies, lots of water. We enjoyed the little towns of Ancud and Castro, where the people were friendly and helpful (this might have given us a clue that we were not in that northern state), and we had a good time on a little camping trip on the western coast of the island, in Parque Nacional Chiloé. Here, as in Galapagos and PN Campana, we were following in Darwin's footsteps (and quite muddy ones too); he spent a lot of time on Chiloé during his trip round the country. We found the beach walking easy going and unlike anything we'd experienced before. Huge, generous expanses of beach, and layer after layer of breakers going far out into the Pacific gave way to cliffsides of a jungle-like growth, with red-barked trees which tinted the rivers and parrots shrieking overhead when we passed. We had seen shark sacs before, at my parents' beach house, but here we found them in rather scary numbers.


Camping on Chiloe

Puerto Montt and the trip to Puerto Natales (20-25Dec)
also by Carrie

Following the camping trip on Chiloé, we spent a few nights in Puerto Montt, where we once again blessed the Lonely Planet (penultimate edition) for its spot-on recommendation of lodging at Hospedaje Rocco. We had a wonderful rest with the Chilean owner and her Californian boyfriend, who during his visits is in charge of preparing delicious breakfasts. When he's not there, guests are nonetheless made content with the "real coffee" advertised as a selling point on the hostal's flyers. (It's still Carrie writing now, and let me stress, real coffee is NOT something to sneeze at when travelling in South America.) Puerto Montt is a pleasant, but not remarkable town and notable mainly for views of nearby Volcan Osorno and as a starting point for the ferries south…


On the ferry, going south.

(Adrian back again): Before arriving in Chile we had heard about the possibility of taking a ferry around the islands of southern Chile. This serves the purpose both of seeing the landscape there, and getting to the south, which we wanted to visit. It is not possible to drive to the south through Chile, as there are no roads, only via Argentina which takes 2 days, so it seemed the better option. The boat, it is stressed, is a cargo ship equipped for passengers, not the other way round, so we were only tagging along for the ride. However, it felt very similar to the ferry ride we took in Alaska (from Washington State to Juneau) and was comfortable, warm and enjoyable (except the bit where the ship has to leave the sheltered waters around the islands and head out into the real ocean). The islands of southern Chile are very remote, but also somewhat cold and windy and very wet, it seemed, even though it was midsummer. During the trip, we spent a while comparing notes with other travellers and made some friends who we would bump into again over the coming days. As we were on the boat for Christmas Eve, the crew organised a party on board, complete with fruitcake and Abba. There was a true feeling of seasonal harmony as we joined our voices with random Europeans, South Americans, and Indians in singing the chorus of "Summer Lovin'".


Black necked swans in Puerto Natales

Torres del Paine (26-29Dec)

We can confirm that this place is even more impressive than the pictures. We chose to attempt the popular 'W' circuit - which was named such before the well known and not liked (amongst us) president adopted the name. The 3 prongs of the W visit different attractions in the park - Torres del Paine, Cuernos del Paine and the Grey Glacier. (Carrie here): as Adrian noted, the w is a cursive, rather than a printed, letter, which entails a backtracking after each attraction. We found the circuit quite easy and spectacular; as well, we were extremely lucky with the weather, which held off on raining pretty much our whole time in the park. We had our first glimpse of the striking Torres, which are long, thin, and resemble high Sierra fingers, from the bus which left us at one park entrance, and then found them coming in and out of view as we assayed the first day's hike. Most impressive (a highlight of Chile) was the sudden reappearance of the Torres when we scrambled over the lip of moraine and found them confronting us, grey and icy, from the mist behind a shivery-blue-grey glacial lake. The hundred or so other trekkers enjoying the sight did not diminish the experience, but added to it with their colourful outdoor garments and harmony of different languages. The second day, we made our way down and across on the well-maintained trail, which led between a series of lakes and the dramatic geology (I think the whole thing is called a "massif") of rock towers and spires, to the Valle Frances. En route, we enjoyed beautiful views of the Cuernos, or horns, del Paine, which are especially impressive because they are made of rock in dramatically different colors. We saw a condor soaring high up near the horns, and though we watched for many minutes we never saw him flap.


Torres del Paine

On the third day, we made our way up by the furious glacial-fed river of Valle Frances to a viewpoint of the Torres from the other side to that visited earlier, and listened to the rumbling of bits of ice and rock coming loose from the fields across from us. In its imposing size and wonderful desolation, this valley reminded me of some high Sierra spaces, but it was at once greener and bleaker. We spent our last two nights in a maintained camping area, where we had the use of a kitchen and hot showers, so it was not exactly roughing it (far from it), although the wind was such that we were forced to take down the tent and sleep on it for fear of it breaking or blowing away! We visited the Grey Glacier, which was blue, and were almost blown over on the hike there. The views of Lake Pehoé from our tent were gorgeous, the bluey-green water set off by the sharp black peaks, dotted with snow, rimming the lake. As Adrian can tell you, I am spoiled by having grown up camping in California, but our experience in Torres del Paine was a pleasure even for tenderfoot me--great trails, awesome views, perfect weather (well, perfect for Patagonia). It was strange to be hiking with so many other people, and funny to hear so many different languages, but this added to the experience as well.

Interesting facts about Chile No. 3The smallest Chilean coin, the one peso, which is sometimes given as change, is worth a sixth of a cent or 0.1p.

Punta Arenas (30-4Jan)

by Carrie, with A's invaluable editorial support

Arriving in Punta Arenas when we did, we soon found that it would be difficult to get anywhere or do anything for a few days. At this stage we were winding down our South America tour, and we were happy to take it easy. After one night in an inferior accommodation, we consulted the Lonely Planet (as we should have done in the first place) and found our way to Hospedaje Manuel--one of the highlights of our residencial experience. There were several factors in this. Many places which claim to have a "family atmosphere" in fact mean that you will be staying in a private home, and will, like as not, be in the way of the family as they try to go about their business of smoking, cooking, and (often) not cleaning. In Hospedaje Manuel (as in H. Rocco) the family atmosphere was genuine and meant that we felt very welcome in the kitchen, where we were often joined by the owners, with whom we were able to have interesting, in-depth conversations. When, on the plane departing from Chile, we made a list of the 5 People We'd Like to Meet Again, Manuel was one of only two who made it onto both of our lists. He was a fantastically gifted raconteur, who peppered his lengthy anecdotes with gestures, sound effects, and bits of drama but never seemed overbearing or less than entertaining; he also proved interested in what we had to say. In other words, when (not if) you go to Patagonia, make sure to include Hospedaje Manuel on your list of must-visits.


An internet cafe - this one in Punta Arenas

Other highlights of Punta Arenas included the Menendez-Braun mansion, a sort of national trust house which was once the residence of wealthy sheep-owning families and was full of elegant art deco takes on Louis XIV decorating; the local cemetery, where we spent several hours on New Year's Day reading the tombstones and observing the photographs, which attested to the town's diverse immigrant past, with names like Svejic, Harrison, and Jensen as common as more Castilian names; and the nearby penguin colonies. Although I'd like to see how much farther I can go with the semi-colon, the penguin colonies deserve a sentence (or few) of their own. We took a boat out to an island which is home to around one hundred thousand of the little guys, and spent an hour with fellow-gawkers in a state not dissimilar to that in which we found ourselves on Galapagos: trying to avoid stepping on the creatures, and taking photo after photo. As we approached the island, we had seen little black forms leaping out of the water, and dipping in, rather ducklike. When we came ashore, we found a few thousand in or near the waves at the edge of the water, adjusting to land mobility with varying degrees of grace and seeming eager to greet us. The penguins we saw were Magellanic penguins (spheniscus magellanicus), which are also called jack-ass penguins because they have a comic habit of lifting their beaks vertically skyward, tipping their wings behind them, and emitting a series of bray-like calls. Comic is certainly the best word to describe these animals, if you (like Adrian) have an aversion to the more obvious "cute." They are both, and they are also, strikingly, penguinesque. If you want an image, think of penguins waddling. That is what they were like, all one hundred thousand of them.


Penguins, on Isla Magdelena


Yet more penguins

Ushuaia and Argentina (5-7Jan)

(Carrie again--Adrian's being occupied by his parents, honing his Scrabble skills with his hustler of a mum)

As we were so close, we really wanted to make a trip to Tierra del Fuego. The most feasible way to do this proved to be by taking a marathon bus ride from Punta Arenas to Rio Grande, Argentina, and thence a "colectivo" (mini-van) to Ushuaia, "the most southern town in the world." The bus ride across the wilds of Tierra del Fuego from Chile and into Argentina was stark and lovely in a desolate way; once we'd left mainland Patagonia there was nary a ñandu to be seen, although we did view many sheep and herds of toasty brown guanacos, slender and more graceful than their relatives the llamas. We found the numerous border formalities tedious, especially as we had to complete them in reverse within the space of a few days, but no problem otherwise. In Ushuaia, we stayed at a camping site/lodge at the base of a ski lift. The views across town and the Beagle Channel to snowcapped mountains in the grey light were quite beautiful, and there was lupine everywhere, in many shades and extremely hardy. We were able to see the touristy town, interact with some friendly Argentines (whose Spanish, contrary to what we'd been given to expect by the rather nationalistic Chileans of the south, was quite comprehensible). We also visited the nearby Parque Nacional Tierra del Fuego, and took a several-hours-long hike in the hills and along the bay. We were surprised by the mild climate and abundant trees, with moss and flowers which Adrian found reminiscent of parts of England. Our sojourn in Argentina was too brief to give us any kind of feel for the country, but it was pleasant--yet another destination for a future trip!

Interesting facts about Chile No. 4 Father Christmas is known as "El Viejito de Pascua" or "The Little Old Man of Easter" in Chile.

The Return (8-10Jan)

summed up by Adrian

After all this excitement we had to leave South America and head to Europe, where we are now. It was sad to leave the Americas after almost 4 months there, having travelled nearly the full length of it with no major incident or mishap. We shall both miss not speaking Spanish and it would be good to return one day to fill in some of the countries we didn't visit.

Food and Wine Section. Free (to regular readers only) with the Chile newsletter.

By amateur oenophile and gastronome: Dr Adrian Martin

The food of South America was generally found to be not the most interesting part of the travelling experience, as it has been fairly monotonous with generally lots of fried stuff. And Chile was like that too, but they do have 2 areas of expertise (as I see it); wine and sweet cake things.

The wine of Chile is universally acknowledged to be good, so with that in mind we set about trying all the good wines available in supermarkets. Being strictly after quality, we avoided any plonk in boxes or with screw tops, but otherwise tried a bottle a day when not camping. As someone who is not used to drinking very much I was very surprised by how pleasant it was to drink a different wine every day, and started writing brief comments on each one in the trip diary, but not knowing the vocabulary, it descended into comments like "picture of cow in label" or "cork very stiff". We liked Santa Emiliana Merlot the best (I think).

The main street of even the smallest village in Chile will be equipped with a pastelería, selling quite large sweet pastries and other gooey objects of a miscellaneous nature. With adventure and the spirit of trying foreign food uppermost in my mind, I set about sampling a good selection of them. The main theme would appear to be 'manjar' a very sweet sticky substance, entirely made from sugar (ed. note: manjar is in fact another name for dulce de leche and is, this writer believes, caramelized milk or somesuch), which is used to stick together less sweet things, and which, when used creatively, can be used to make quite elaborate and tall items. I found that after one of these I was suffering from a sugar rush, so I don't know how the locals eat many of these, but they seem to.

Also available was 'Pan De Pascua', which is a type of fruit cake, sold all the year round and 'Stollen', a richer version of it. It was piled high in the supermarkets and seemed to be very popular. This was useful as camping food, and we saw one advertisement suggesting that it could be given to your mother in-law as a gift (of sorts). I believe this type of universal pastry availability should be imported to other countries.