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11 April - back to Blighty
On Friday morning it was time to head back to La Serena, from where I had a midday coach booked. Since I was really eager for a final swim in The Pacific before heading back to Santiago, it was a relatively early start for a colectivo. Around 20km from the city we entered the coastal mist, which is very common here thanks to the cold ocean, but the forecast gave me confidence that it would burn off by late morning.
I searched for a half decent looking café in the worn colonial city centre streets for breakfast, before grabbing an empanada for the journey back to the capital. I then walked to the impressive looking 1950s Faro de La Serena lighthouse (although purely an unlit monument for most of its life!), retracing my footsteps from when I was here in 2017. On the beach I found someone to keep an eye on my bags while I enjoyed a 10-15 min swim in the Pacific (ignoring the usual 'beach not suitable for bathing' sign; Chileans are not known as swimmers!), which wasn't as cold as I'd expected. After drying off in the persistent mist, and trying to remove the sticky sand from between my toes (reminding me why I'm very happy with pebbly Brighton beach), I head to the coach terminal, being directed by my app via a dusty and dirty street of car repair garages, some of which clearly hadn't been in business for a while.
The coach journey back was fairly uneventful other than spotting that we were doing 115kph at one point (25kph over the limit) alongside a coach in the other lane; a passenger smoking weed; experiencing the sea mist disappear and reappear; observing several 'health and safety' moments, including food vendors standing in the outside lane of the motorway while waving flags to entice customers; and, the classic South American 'don't throw litter' sign surrounded by litter. After hitting the Friday evening traffic I arrived back into Terminal San Borja at the respectable time of 7pm, four hours before the metro shut :) Passing through the sketchy Estación Central and the metro station entrance, I was greeted by the familiar chaos of vendors selling the usual combination of face masks, chocolate, other snacks and tat.
After my pre-packing exercise (knowing that it would be a challenge to squeeze my belongings, plus collection of maps and tacky fridge magnets, into my hand luggage) I spent the afternoon with Daniela and Sofia exploring the Franklin barrio markets. These contain nearly 15 huge flea and other indoor markets, selling a variety of food, clothes, furniture, antiques, and junk, along with the adjacent lively streets lined with chaos. Very broadly, the markets felt like a combination of old and new Spitalfields, Greenwich Market and Brixton Village.
After passing through plenty of edgy looking streets, I was happy when we found calmer areas, including one where we bumped into the somewhat crazy 'queen' of the market, who apparently was responsible for establishing the more vintage style area we were in. I bought some merkén (the common Chilean smoked chili pepper used as a condiment) to bring home, and some obligatory tat for a friend.
Feeling somewhat exhausted, my farewell Saturday evening was spent enjoying Filipe's selection of beers and some pisco sours, prepared very skillfully by Daniela and Sofia. It was the first night during my Santiago stay that I'd shut the window to keep out the cool of the night. Autumn was making its mark in the capital!
I woke up on Sunday feeling a little bunged up and queasy. It would be easy to blame the pisco sours but I discovered later in the day that it was the arrival of a cold. This explained the tiredness the previous evening (and the more than usual sneezing the day before). Feeling a bit rubbish I was happy that I didn't need to undertake any PCR tests before the return flight, and hoped as I left for the airport that I hadn't left the C word with Daniela and Sofia (it was later confirmed that I hadn't).
While their dog Janita was being her usual affectionate self, they asked if I was feeling sad about leaving. The truth is that I've had a really amazing two and half months, and felt like I've discovered and visited all the places I'd hoped to on this trip. While I would love to return again (especially to Patagonia), I was feeling ready to head back…helped for sure by knowing that, before returning to regular working life, I'll be spending some time exploring more of Europe.
At Santiago airport it was a very speedy passage through passport control and security before I commenced my search for pisco to bring home. I was initially concerned on learning that the first duty free store didn't stock alcohol, and finding the adjacent alcohol store shut! However, the information desk directed me to another zone, where I found two bottles of a recommended brand :)
I caught up with messages and my blog during the generous two hours before boarding, and was very pleased that the empty seat between me and the guy in the aisle remained vacant after the doors shut. As on the outbound flight, some extra space to spread out during the 13 hour flight (an hour or so quicker heading east).
While regularly having to blow my nose (for the first time during my trip!), I enjoyed the views of the multicoloured mountains of the Andes as we crossed into Argentina, before heading over Brazil and into the Atlantic. After a couple of movies I took a cat nap before waking to a period of turbulence as we passed to the west of the Canaries. Although (thanks to arriving during an easterly wind) I didn't get to enjoy the usual view of the central London and River Thames approach to Heathrow, the spring sunshine morning was a very nice welcome back.
In spite of the UK airport chaos I'd learnt of, it was a breeze through Terminal 5 arrivals, before returning to the familiar feel of the Piccadilly Line, on which virtually no one (other than airport arrivals) was wearing a mask, a complete contrast to what I'd experienced in Chile. One and a half hours later I was back in sunny Streatham, wondering where the past 2.5 months had gone!
Thanks for following my blog, and bearing with the detail (if you did!). I hope that it's inspired you to experience some of Chile for yourself! And if you need more travel inspiration and reading, a reminder of my previous South American blogs…
South west Brazil/Argentina/Chile/Uruguay (2016/17)
www.carryonabroad.tumblr.com
Northern Argentina/Bolivia/Peru/southern Ecuador (2018)
www.carryonuptheandes.tumblr.com
Happy traveling, and until my next adventure!
Paul
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4 April - El Valle del Elqui
It was an early start on Monday morning for Daniela and Sofia preparing for another week of work, while I was packing (relatively) light for my journey of around 600km north to the small town of Vicuña in the Elqui Valley, my final destination of this trip. I was initially in touch with the very friendly Adeline of the Elki Magic tour agency back in autumn 2021 to seek advice, ahead of the arrival of Omicron, on the current ease of travel and tourism in Chile. Over six months later, I was finally heading to Elqui Valley, known particularly for one of the clearest night skies in the world, and the production of pisco.
I head back to the coach Terminal San Borja; the area felt far less intimidating during Monday morning. The journey along the Ruta 5 Pan-American Highway passes through plenty of parched scrubby land, occasionally skirts the impressive breakers of the Pacific, and carves through a few mountain ranges. We were overtaken at one point by a coach proudly displaying to all drivers its speed on the rear, but showing that it was exceeding the 90kph limit for coaches. While writing this on the return trip to Santiago I see that we're traveling at 110kph: I'm not convinced that the speedometers on public display have any impact on safe driving!
We pulled into the La Serena coach terminal at around 4pm and I enquired about the next bus to Vicuña, around 60km away. I was to learn that due to a problem with a vehicle there were no more departures that day, and no other companies providing the service. Instead I was advised to walk into the city centre to take one of the colectivos (shared taxi). This seemed strange since I had understood from the hotel that there was a bus around every 30 mins and two companies operating. Judging by the number of buses we passed on the road to Vicuña, I guess the colectivos I was directed to are operated by the bus company I spoke to!
Arriving at the street I'd understood that I needed to wait on, a lad advised me that I needed to look out for a yellow colectivo. After 15 mins of several passing by (but to other destinations) I enquired again and was on the wrong street! I found the departure point on the parallel street, established the vague queuing system, and soon I was off. The elderly gentleman I was sat next to made me smile very much when the silence was broken by the Pet Shop Boys's Go West ringtone of his incoming call.
An hour later, after skirting the depleted Embalse Puclaro reservoir, we pulled into pretty looking Vicuña, surrounded by sun parched mountains, which along with the sky, were of a spectacular colour as the sun was setting.
I checked into Hotel Halley, just two blocks from the Plaza de Armas. The hotel was my bargain find (well, by Sofia) of my trip, £9 a night for an ensuite double room with breakfast! The hotel also came with a small pool! An Airbnb offer meant it was a third of the usual price, and nearly half of what I'd been regularly paying for a bed in a dorm room without breakfast. I would miss out on the social atmosphere of a hostel but happy for a little luxury to round off my trip.
After checking in I head to the office of Elki Magic and finally met Adeline in person. Adeline, originally from France, established over 10 years ago with her partner Lincoln (who she met when in the town on her travels), the first tour agency in Vicuña. As during my phone conversations, she was just as helpful and patient with my queries about how to spend my three days in the Elqui Valley, once I'd given her a rundown on my two months down south! While in the office, Adeline calmly noted that we were experiencing an earthquake, the first I had felt here. Later that evening I discovered that it was a 4.2 magnitude centred on the nearby coast. I later learnt that the locals are not concerned by anything under magnitude 6. I also awoke to a mild tremor in my room one night. While tremors are frequent here, they generally are never as powerful as those south of Santiago.
Vicuña is the birthplace of the (first Latin American) Nobel Prize winning (in 1945) poet, Gabriela Mistral. Along with astronomy and pisco, the town and surrounding area makes good use of her name for branding, and the street on which the museum devoted to her is located was renamed in her honour. She certainly deserves the accreditation though; a humanist and educator, she spent her years teaching in local towns and cities across the country, devoting her life to improving the education of children and women. She later lived in a number of overseas countries where she sought to improve the education system, and was a diplomat representing Latin American culture, before settling in New York, where she passed away in 1957. She was a close friend of the fellow poet Pablo Neruda.
I sampled a fascinating new (open two weeks!) addition to the town, the Universo Elqui exhibition. Developed by a keen astrologist with some local university funding, Rodrigo gave us a guided tour of several rooms detailing the history of observatories in the valley (some of which are owned by NASA, with a new one currently under construction), the Big Bang and creation of stars and the universe, and the process and impacts of climate change. It was rounded off with a complimentary bottle of beer brewed on the premises.
The first evening I walked up to the Cerro de la Virgen lookout to check out the changing colours of the surrounding landscape as the sun set for the day. At the lookout was a local who runs there every other day, and advised me that I had 30 mins more light. I took what I had understood to be a shorter and easier route back into town, but got a little lost as the darkness set in! My maps app and the torchlight came in very handy.
The following morning I head back to the Elki Magic office and met four fellow travelers joining me for a 55km (mainly) downhill cycle ride from Alcohuaz, nearly 2,000m above sea level in the Elqui Valley, back to Vicuña at 600m. Along the Circuito Gabriela Mistral on the Ruta de las Estrellas (Route of the Stars) we passed through Pisco Elqui (renamed to put it on the tourist trail) and Montegrande, where Gabriela spent her childhood, which is also now her resting place. During a sunny 30C day complemented with a gusty warm wind from the Andes, we passed alongside the arid mountains with patches of green in the valley bottoms where vegetation sits, including the grapes grown for pisco. There were also some avocado plantations clinging to a mountainside.
We stopped off at the small artesanal Dona Josefa pisquera for a free sample and tour, where I purchased a couple of small bottles to share with friends back in Santiago. Bottles for myself would have to wait until duty free since I'm traveling with hand luggage only. In spite of it mainly being a descent, the heat, lack of shade, and gusty headwind, did make it hard going. I did though manage to cool down a little by lying in the gentle and shallow waters of the Rio Claro (Clear River), in a zone of some natural pools. We all chose to bypass the vineyard tour and save ourselves for the Guayacán craft brewery towards the end of the ride, where we were relieved to take a break from the saddle, heat and wind, to enjoy a variety of samples, one of which included the ingredient 'Nottingham yeast' no less! The beers boosted the energy supply for the final 30 minutes along the direct (but busy) road back into Vicuña as the blindingly bright sun was setting behind the mountains beyond the town.
The third and final day, after some gentle breaststroke (I wasn't convinced by the pool water quality for submerging my head!), was a lazy one, returning to enjoy some good coffee I'd found on the plaza, returning to a top notch cheap veggie café, searching for the obligatory fridge magnets, failing to find postcards of the town/valley, and having a good conversation in English with Filipe, the guy working in the tourist office, who happens to also brew beer! I returned later in the day to buy a pack of his Jarropato variety to also enjoy back in Santiago with friends.
Last, but certainly not least, I finished my stay with an evening visit to the Pangue Observatory, 17km out of town at 1,900m, and owned by a very eccentric French guy Eric, who's lived in the town for many years. With his website on which it's impossible to find the booking or contact details, and his old skool (or maybe hipster?) Nokia brick mobile, he's quite a character! His tour had been recommended as an alternative to the better known (and more mass tourism) Mamalluca or other options.
There were just three of us for the tour; I was joined by a couple from Viña del Mar. With a second astronomer, our car climbed the sandy and stony roads surrounded by mountains with a stunning glow, as the sunlight disappeared. The moon (a few days after new moon) shone above Vicuña. Traveling through the cactus filled dusty arid landscape, it really did feel like we'd entered another planet. The most recent rainfall was last year, when a whole 6mm fell. During the past five years the area has received a total of around 50mm, less than 10% of the historic annual average of 150mm.
We passed through a couple of locked gates to access Eric's observatory, then admired the silhouette of surrounding mountains (some of which host NASA telescopes) as the final colours of sunset faded. The show itself was spectacular, including looking at the sky with the naked eye, where there is no Plough or equivalent of the North Star to be found. Sailors had a tougher job of negotiating the southern oceans! But we could clearly see the brightest star (Sirius) in the universe and the nebula cloud of the Large Magellanic Galaxy. Through the telescope, we got to see the various shades of the gas clouds according to density, different coloured stars according to age, the Acrux twin stars, the Eta Carinae star which is causing some excitement as a supernova is expected 'soon', and of course the detail of the moon, where the pin prick looking impact craters are at least 5km in diameter, increasing to up to over 200km. Being rather ignorant of the universe surrounding us, I got to learn plenty during the evening, and was probably asking too many silly questions! The evening was a very special way to end my second Chilean adventure, other than a half weekend back in Santiago.
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1 April - Back to the capital
The 13 hour coach journey for the 1,000+ km ride back to Santiago was no April Fool, especially with an extra three hours delay enroute. It pulled off the main highway to serve bus stations in a long list of traffic choked cities and towns, in addition to plenty of roadside stops on the main Ruta 5 Pan-American highway, which continues to Colombia. I did have the option to take an overnight bus (with a flat bed), as most do, but for me it simply means spending the following day exhausted. So I opted for what I understood to be the only day bus between Puerto Montt and Santiago.
The LCD speedometer screen at the front of the coach informed us that we were being driven by Luis Ignacio, along with the amount of time he'd been driving the coach this morning, before being replaced by his co-driver. All part of South American road safety measures... although I doubt that the locals take much notice of the stats.
The coach at least came with very comfy wide seats and I had power points to keep my phone going. I spent half the journey starving once the early breakfast porridge had worn off, due to a combination of bus station cafés being shut due to Covid (I learnt when asking why!), and the bus running late meaning that we didn't have the usual 15-20 minute rest stops. Later in the journey I joined fellow passengers running to a take away café to buy some snacks, to supplement the banana and emergency nuts I'd already consumed.
In Santiago I was staying with Daniela and Sofia, who had offered dinner on arrival, which was very gratefully accepted! Their place is normally a straightforward metro ride from the coach terminal. We arrived just before midnight, nearly one hour after the last metro train. It's really hard to believe (and even more so at the weekend) that the Santiago (population 6+ million) metro system closes at 11pm! The coach terminal Borja (by the Estación Central) is not where you want to be hanging around, especially at night. We were told that the terminal had closed for the day as we alighted the coach onto a parallel street.
For the first time on my trip I felt very anxious, knowing that this is one of the worst areas of the city to be wandering around. Even worse at midnight and obviously being a foreign tourist. There were some official looking taxis at a rank but I wasn't going to take the risk. Instead it was an uncomfortable five to ten minute fast walk, loaded with my backpacks, along a virtually deserted street lined with shuttered frontages, and some suspicious looking characters hanging around. I was relieved to arrive at the busier Alameda main street, where I negotiated the litter, broken glass, and steel barricades taking up the entire pavement space in front of the Estación Central (erected following the 2019 riots), where buses and taxis approached from behind as I walked in the bus lane! Continuing along litter and broken glass strewn pavements I arrived at the bus stop from where a direct bus runs to where Daniela and Sofia live, bizarrely accessed via Coventry Street!
Initially I opted for an Uber but when the vehicle pulled up without a front or rear number plate I decided to wait for a bus, alongside respectable looking students, who lessened the anxiety. Soon after rejecting the Uber the bus arrived and I boarded with a feeling of relief, and more so once the bus started following the route on my travel app, and we entered the better neighbourhoods to the east of the city centre. I was surprised to find that Daniela and Sofia had waited for my arrival (after 12.30) to eat. After catching up for an hour or so over a well needed beer, I slept very well that night!
After being affectionately awoken on Saturday by their excitable young dog Janita, and a lazy breakfast, we visited the Artequin, a gallery housing a wide range of reproductions of famous 19th and 20th Century international artworks, aimed more at the education of children than adults! It's housed in the Eiffel-esque cast iron and glass structure used for Chile’s pavilion in the 1889 Paris Exhibition. I found it closed back in February.
After a peek at the home of President Boric we visited the very impressive Museo de la Memoria. This commemorates the victims of human rights violations during the military regime led by Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990, and tells the story of the (US backed) military coup in 1973 when the democratically elected socialist President Salvador Allende was removed from power, through to Pinochet finally being overthrown in 1990. Framed by candles, it includes the photos of some of the thousands who disappeared during this period. It also includes a map illustrating the destination of refugees fleeing the country, on which I was ashamed to learn that it wasn't until 1974, when Labour replaced the Conversative government in the UK, that we provided a home to those fleeing; one year later after our European neighbours opened their doors. Nearly 50 years on and we continue with our selfish and shameful ignorance of the desperate Ukrainians.
In the evening I joined a fun birthday celebration of a friend of Daniela and Sofia; the combination of the pisco sour, red wine and sangria, plus the extra hour with the clocks going back an hour, meant not feeling so fresh on Sunday. It was a lazy morning before a 15-20km cycle ride to visit the busy Parque O'Higgins, with its surprisingly healthy looking grass, thanks to the numerous sprinklers. On the cycle ride I smiled at the terrible design and state of some of the ridiculously narrow ciclovías (cycle tracks). We negotiated the constant hazards including the collection of trees, poles and posts (many leaning into the cycle track), parked vehicles, very undropped kerbs, and of course driver behaviour. Ok, it admittedly sounds very familiar, but I was very happy not to be using the cycle tracks in the dark, they are a death hazard. Along the route we did find a better stretch where we could smell the recent colourful coat of paint.
On Sunday evening I met up with Gulliermo and Yani, who I met in March in Villa Cerro Castillo. I excitedly updated them with the stories of my last few weeks of adventuring. While I continued having an amazing time, it turns out that Guillermo suffered a few days of stomach pain before being informed that it was appendicitis, and was rushed to hospital. He was lucky that it hadn't occurred a couple of weeks earlier, while being in deep Patagonia! Over a beer I highlighted my plans for part 2 travels in Europe. With their (standard Chilean) allowance of 15 holiday days, it was probably a little cruel. Next year they are planning to visit Europe for three weeks, and have many countries on their wish list, a pretty tall order!
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31 March - Puerto Montt
It's time to leave Patagonia after my incredible month of adventures in the beauty of the region. I've still only scratched the surface of what the Carretera Austral has to offer. As I'm leaving it for the second time, I'm hoping for another visit in the future. Anyone up for returning for a camper van or car plus tent tour? :)
After repacking my bags and saying farewell to Sebastian and Marjorie - the warm hosts of my home for nearly a week - I head to the bus station for the three hour journey to the city of Puerto Montt, lying at the start (or end in my case) of the Carretera Austral. The final stretch included another (more reliable!) ferry ride across a fjord, from where I looked back towards the snow capped Volcán Yate. The road for the final stretch of the journey hugged the large bay of Puerto Montt, passing some pretty sandy beaches.
Puerto Montt, a city of over 200,000 is bound to be a shock after a month in sleepy Patagonia. I visited briefly five years ago, when I saw clearly why it has the nickname Muerto Montt (Dead Montt, rather than the Port of Montt). There's no point beating around the bush, it's very fair to say that the city centre is a dump, looking very worn and uncared for. It at least doesn't come with any pretense! It's a world apart from pretty Puerto Varas less than half an hour away. A number of street works in the centre are adding to the sight for sore eyes. On the plus side, since it's so bad, it's great for snapping away at the dangling power cables, timewarp facades and the brutialist by default (rather than design) hotchpotch of buildings in the centre.
I stayed in a comfortable and friendly hostel for the night, where I met a fellow Canadian and Colombian backpacker. As recommended, I head for a cheap good quality lunch in a market opposite the bus station, but the quality was poor and I was ripped off thanks to my gringo looks. Welcome back to the city! It was also a return to being requested to leave my daytime backpack in left luggage when entering a supermarket. I successfully challenged this again, noting that the company should trust its customers, and was granted entry after the security staff realised that I'm a 'trustworthy' European'!
After buying the latest fridge magnet for the collection, I head for coffee in a surprisingly pleasant café for the city centre, located in an arts centre, where I came across a water themed exhibition which included a nice exhibit of a swimmer. Things continued to improve when I stumbled across opticians who were able to make my spectacles wearable again. During one day in Chaitén I managed, without realising, to tread on them in my hiking boots, thereby badly misshaping the arms. My daily contact lenses were about to run out, so I am pleased to have them in a wearable state again, and hopefully they will make it through to the end of my trip!
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