odysseyone

Imagine a theme park for nature lovers - with every outdoor activity you can think off all on offer under the one roof -and you have Chile. Chile is very narrow but what it lacks in width it more than makes up for in the diversity down the length of the country, which is longer than Australia. We travelled the length of the country, mostly overland, and I would almost have to check my passport to see I didn’t change countries without knowing it because it is so different from north to south. The arid, inhospitable landscape of southern Peru continued when we crossed the border into Chile but greenery began to appear in patches as we neared Santiago. As we travelled south from Santiago it got more and more green and lush as we travelled through the Lakes District, with endless small towns situated on lakes and surrounded by active volcanos, fishing villages and eventually reached the bottom of the world Patagonia, notorious for high rainfall and blow-you-over winds.

Physically little changed when we crossed into Chile from Peru but there were plenty of other noticeable differences, the most being prices. We had been warned but you can’t really prepare yourself for the shock of the cost of staying and eating in Chile after paying less than half the price in Peru for the same thing. But we finally came across hostels with kitchens, so we were able to take advantage of the great fresh produce on offer in Chile.

Our first stop was the border town of Arica, which is a pretty strange place as it is on the coast but when you stand on the beach and look inland, you stare straight up at brown desert hills. It was the first time we had been near the ocean in weeks and for Justin, watching other people surfing was like dangling an ice cream in front of a kid. Fortunately Yoyo came to the rescue. Yoyo is Chile’s version of a beach bum with his white-rimmed sunglasses, waist length matted hair and enough green and gold zinc cream to make any Australian proud. Yoyo initially approached us on the beach on our first day in Arica and offered to rent Justin a board. He was a bit of an enigma after that though and we had trouble tracking him down to take him up on the offer. When we did seen him on the beach he seemed more interested in inside information from our hostel. It seems it was a hangout for Yoyo until the NZ owner went on holidays and the husband of one of the staff died the week before so she was apparently in a dark mood- all information we didn’t really need to know. He quizzed me quite heavily on what was served for breakfast, did it include yoghurt, was it a big breakfast because Mr Ross serves a good breakfast when he is here. I was a little scared of getting the staff in trouble so I stayed vague with Yoyo when it came to insider information on the hostel breakfast.

We found Yoyo’s car in the hostel car park that night but he was nowhere to be seen. We figured he was out partying so we left a note on the windscreen saying Justin wanted to rent a surfboard the next morning before we left Arica. Justin was going to wait on the beach at 7am to see if Yoyo showed but unbeknown to us daylight savings began the next morning and instead we woke to Yoyo knocking on our door! He was in a flap, telling Justin he thought our note was a parking ticket and explained spent Saturday night “… in Peru, buying toilet paper and s*#t for the house.”

It was great for Justin to get in the water again after such a long time and despite the cool air, the water temperature wasn’t too bad. He shared the very small waves with paddle boarders from all over the country who travelled up to Arica for the national titles. We gave up waiting on the beach for Yoyo to collect the mal but ended up bumping into him outside the bus station as we were leaving and he gave Justin a huge pile of business cards for his surf school to hand out as we travelled down the country. My name escaped him every other time we had met and that day was no different, with Yoyo farewelling me in the usual manner… “Ciao lady.”

We spent a couple of days in the busy seaside city of Iquique, which is unusual because of the enormous sand dune which looks over the city. From there we caught a bus as far east as possible in Chile to San Pedro de Atacama. The Atacama desert is the driest in the world and since we had seen so many other ‘est’ icons all over the world – longest, highest, deepest, lowest, smallest, biggest etc – we figured we should see this one as well. It wasn’t such a smart move as we made the trip into the middle of Australia last year and lets be honest, a desert is a desert. We didn’t love it at home so I’m not sure what made us think we would like it here. When you’re not a desert lover its difficult to get excited about the attractions on offer but we did make the effort to see the geyser field, the highest in the world at 4300 m.a.s.l. They were impressive in that there were so many of them (although they didn’t ‘perform’ like the one in Iceland) but what wasn’t impressive was the effort required to see them. We caught an overpriced tour that left San Pedro at 4am in order to see the geyser field at sunrise when the steam is still visible because of the cold. I was wearing all my winter gear but it did very little in the –10 degrees temperature in the early morning darkness, the coldest I have ever been in my life. I spent all my time walking around the geyser field just wanting to get back into the bus. When we left an hour or so after sunrise, it had warmed to a much more tolerable 2 degrees.

There was a surprising amount of animal life for the world’s driest desert. We saw the usual vicunas and llamas, as well as ducks and flamingos surviving in streams that freeze over each night. I was surprised to see any water at all in this desert.

We returned to San Pedro to live television broadcasts in every restaurant of the miners’ rescue. More than 30 miners had been trapped underground since August so their two day rescue was big news in Chile. We knew almost the exact moment the last miner was rescued because a siren was broadcast throughout the town to mark it, waking us up in the middle of the night.

The only way to and from San Pedro is via bus. We had seen enough of the desert and had heard from other travellers that the trip south to Santiago was more of the same brown nothingness, so we opted for a 16 hour first-class bus ride to get it over and done with. We travelled as far as La Serena, taking a break for a night just six hours out of Santiago. We were pretty out of it when we arrived in the morning darkness but woke pretty fast when we set off the car alarm of our hostel owner while waiting inside the car, waking the neighbourhood.

We were pretty happy to get out of La Serena after a day and finally hit some greenery outside of Santiago. The desert finally ends a few hours out of the city and the mountains become green, making it a really scenic drive along the main highway, which runs right alongside the Pacific coast before it heads inland to the capital.

The Swiss do most things better than anyone else and their hostels in Chile are no exception. For whatever reason, the Swiss have fallen in love with Chile and seem to love opening budget accommodation there. We found our first Swiss hostel in Santiago’s upper class Providencia neighbourhood and kept our eye out for them in the other places we visited. Santiago is not a stand-out city but it’s pleasant enough and we did the few things on offer like visit the city lookout under the watchful eye of a Mary statue (Mary and/or Jesus statues featured in many of the places we’ve visited), walked around the European-style government buildings and palace and visit the fish market, which was buzzing with diners and had sea creatures I’d never seen before on sale. My knowledge of South American history before we arrived was very poor so it was interesting to be in the city and have a bit of a living history lesson walking around buildings linked to Augusto Pinochet’s military regime.

We met a retired British couple at the Swiss hostel who inspired Justin to start dreaming up future adventures, ones that require a lot of money! This couple sailed their boat from the UK through the Mediterranean, to the Caribbean and finally to Panama, where it is currently docked. They’ve been taking their time – its taken three years just to get halfway around the world – and took a few months away from the boat to travel through South America. When we met them they were headed south like us but all the way to Antarctica on a cruise boat. They plan to eventually sail to NZ or Australia so we swapped details, hoping they might take us for a sail when they arrive!

It wouldn’t be a trip to Chile without visiting an active volcano and we couldn’t pass up the chance to possibly see lava spewing in the air- this turned out to be a bit of a pipe dream. We joined a tour to hike Volcano Villaricca, which hasn’t had a major eruption in about 15 years. We weren’t rewarded with lava but the volcano is constantly emitting toxic gases and smoke which we could see from the closest town of Pucon. Pucon is the major town in the Lakes District, which is really beautiful and similar to NZ’s South Island and has similarly unpredictable weather. We waited in Pucon for two days before we even saw the volcano. The weather cleared and it was a perfect day to hike the volcano on our final day in town. It was more like ice climbing than a hike and it was the first time either of us had hiked in snow shoes or used crampons and I’m surprised I didn’t freak out walking almost vertical in ice up the side of a mountain. I didn’t make it to the top but Justin slogged it out the entire 1600m vertical climb to spend a few minutes on the top and was rewarded with an asthma attack from the toxic gases emitting from the crater. He did see a piece of volcanic rock shoot up out of the crater which made it all worth it.

By this time we had booked a flight to southern Patagonia but were unsure of what to expect down there. We knew little about South America before we arrived and had no concrete plans except I was keen to get to this Patagonia place, which I knew little about but had seen pictures and it looked beautiful and rugged. We didn’t know if we would have time or what it would cost, but figured it would be better to try and get there now than on a shorter trip if we return. We still hadn’t met anyone who had been done there or even planned to go and had heard reports it was still snowing, which is never good when you want to go hiking.

We had a few days to use up before our flight south so we caught a bus on a small ferry – they don’t even bother making you get off the bus when it is on the ferry – to Chiloe island, the largest island in Chile. It is supposed to be the wettest place in Chile but we had nothing but perfect weather while staying a couple of days on the ocean in Ancud, a tiny fishing village. We found another relaxing Swiss hostel where we finally met a young German who had just come from Patagonia and Torres del Paine, the park we wanted to visit. His weather reports weren’t fantastic but it was great to finally meet someone who had made the journey south.

The flight to Punta Arenas, the last major town at the bottom of Chile, was like a scenic flight because it flew over the snow-capped Andes and the volcanos and lakes along the Chilean border, with the ocean visible to the east. Southern Patagonia is notorious for its weather – wet and very cold in winter and dry with extreme winds in summer – so when we landed in rain at Punta Arenas it was no surprise. We had planned to hike the W Circuit at Torres del Paine, Chile’s biggest tourist drawcard, rain, hail or shine. It is a four day, 76km trek and we figured that if we got even one day of good weather it would be worth it. We were blessed with really unusual weather and it was almost perfect, save for a very short, light shower of rain on our final day. We were beginning to doubt what we had read about the weather for the south because it was so good for us in Chile and Argentina Patagonia, but locals kept telling us the weather wasn’t normal.

If you love the outdoors and natural beauty then Torres del Paine is a must on your list of ‘things to do before I die’. I have seen a lot of things in the nine months we have been away and the longer we are gone, the harder it is to impress me. But without question, Torres del Paine is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Every day you had seen the most beautiful thing you had ever laid your eyes on, only for it to be topped the next day and the day after that. We started our first day climbing up to the viewpoint for the icons of the park, the three towers which are granite spires soaring straight up into the air, another two kilometres higher than the viewpoint. Day two we walked alongside two big, turquoise blue glacier lakes with deep green coloured islands in the middle of them. We saw our first avalanche as well, which was exciting for us but not so exciting for the couple whose lunch Justin interrupted by shouting and pointing ‘Avalanche!’ We found out later from the manager of the hut we stayed in that there are dozens of small avalanches every day. Day three we climbed up into French Valley, where we walked alongside a huge glacier and watched more avalanches even closer up; the sound is like a cannon ball. When we finally reached a clearing in the valley we were rewarded with the most amazing 180 degree vista of snow-capped granite spires. The day was topped off – if that is even possible – with Lake Pehoe, the most brilliant turquoise lake I have ever seen. Our final hut was on the shores of the lake and it was incredible to be staying in the wilderness, sitting in a hiker’s lodge by the fire and starring through the huge windows watching the sun set. Our final day was another 20km+ day, hiking up to the terminal face of Glacier Grey. Along the way we walked alongside Lake Grey with enormous icebergs floating in it.

We developed a bit of camaraderie with some of the other walkers who did the circuit in the same direction and each night in the huts we had the chance to chat with people from all over the world. Most of the other hikers were Europeans and Australians. We had the Germans who found the energy to down a few bottles of red after a hard day’s walk and we shared a dorm for two nights with a French mother and son who took breaks on the track not to catch their breath, but for cigarettes. Then there were the two Korean families, who added a lot of weight to their packs by bringing along their own supply of ramen. We shared a dorm with the elderly parents the first night and Justin woke to find the father starting the day with tai chi-type moves in the middle of the room. When that was over, he and his wife then put the pillows on the floor (which some poor person had to sleep on the following night) and put their feet on them.

While waiting to leave the park on a ferry, we met an Australian guy who had done the W trek as well but with a tent and sleeping gear and no food. He was incredibly unorganised when he arrived in Chile and had little money and just a packet of biscuits to last the entire three days of walking. When we offered him some food on day four he declined, saying he was full because he’d found another packet of biscuits. For someone who had eaten little food in four days, we discovered he still had the strength to talk a lot and we had trouble losing him!

The ferry ride out was incredible and the owners obviously knew it as they’d priced it like a scenic boat ride. We left via Lake Pehoe, with the brilliant turquoise water, and were able to see the highlights of the walk in fast motion on the boat.

Returning to the nearby town of Puerto Natales was a shock after four days of quiet walking. We ended up on a packed minibus with a speeding driver who was almost taking the corners on the dirt road through the park on two wheels; I wondered if Torres del Paine would be my final resting place. His driving didn’t improve once we hit the bitumen and the only time he slowed was when we passed a police road block where paramedics were treating a tourist on a stretcher, who looked like she was in a lot of pain, and her car was on its side in a ditch.

We were surprised at how much there was to see in Chile and how much time you need to even scrape the surface. Even with so many highlights, we still had to leave so much out of our trip, which gives us a reason to come back – hopefully soon – to one of the most beautiful countries on earth.