Northern Chile
TL;DR -- we went to Mexico in November (on an A-321 with only 20 people, while the return trip had only 23!) with Omicron just starting to make headlines. We stayed in Mexico for three weeks, cancelled Israel due to a closed border, and then decided to head to a highly vaccinated country where our travel footprint could be minimized and would fill in a ten week itinerary.
Where was that you might ask? An attentive reader may already know the answer...
The plan would be to visit Northern Chile in a rental cargo van for ten days and then the Carretera Austral and Chilean and Argentinean Patagonia in a rental campervan for eight weeks. The crowning experience would be the final week, where we will hike the O Circuit in Torres del Paine National Park, a seven night backpacking trip through the heart of the mountains. So easy to type that out in a few sentences, compared to how difficult it was to research and plan!
We applied for the Chilean Mobility Pass as soon as we had an inkling we might go, and very fortunately were approved only a week later. We didn't actually know if we'd get to Chile or not as this was right during the huge wave of flight cancellations.
We left JFK on New Year’s Eve, transferring in Bogota, Colombia, and celebrated New Year’s half asleep on a plane in Spanish, between Bogota and Santiago. Both flights were not full, and the overnight flight we were lucky to have three seats to ourselves.
We arrived at Santiago at sunrise, took the mandatory (and free) PCR test, had our entry questionnaire checked by an army of workers, and then took a taxi to the apartment where we’d need to isolate until we got the results of our test back. My negative came later that afternoon (after a good nap), and Vitali got his later that evening.
The next day we walked around the neighborhood a bit, exploring Cerro Santa Lucia, an ancient volcano in the middle of town complete with fortifications and church. Everyone was wearing masks, even outside. We took note of the urban fabric -- quite busy with pedestrians, and many many vehicles. It seemed to be if you needed to park, you simply stopped where you were, and put on your hazards.
The next day we picked up our rental car, and I lost my fitbit somewhere in Santiago in the shuffle to get our bags into the van.
But today held a new challenge, for the both of us -- Vitali hadn't driven a manual in two decades and was about to drive the rental off the lot... and I was tasked with keeping him calm!
We experienced a wide range of emotions as we drove around the city trying to get to the grocery store. Eventually we made it, loaded up on food, and hit the road.
We headed north a few hours, on the PanAmerican Highway, Ruta 5 in Chile, passing through many tolls, and eventually came to Viento Sur Astrocamp, a small campground near a National Park (which turned out to be closed). It was very windy, our first taste of what I had read was a famously windy country during the summer.
Our first hours and days in Chile and we had already started to form opinions about the country – we watched the toll booth workers shine the steel guard rails in between lanes, watched masked workers pick up trash on the highway (alone!). Everything seemed very orderly, as evidenced by the thoroughness of officials, and the cleanliness of indoor places. Paradoxically, there was litter all over the side of the road and we would soon find incredible amounts of it in the public wilderness.
January 4th, 2022
We realized our van had low tire pressure and the host at the campground very kindly filled it up for us and we set out on our journey north, headed for a beach just outside Pan de Azucar National Park, where we could wild camp for the night.
I found this app called iOverlander which is a completely offline directory of places to camp, sources of water, warnings, everything an overlander would need, all over the world, with reports and reviews from users on safety, access, etc. Wild camping is legal (supposedly -- I tried to read the actual Chilean laws but could only find references), as long as the property is not private and is in the "countryside".
When I imagined a RTW trip I imagined doing this sort of go with the flow style of exploration, and it has thus far turned out to be a wonderful way to travel.
We arrived at the beach outside Chañaral and found a nice spot for the night, nestled between very interesting rocks of red, gray, green, and black.
It was on the widest white sand beach we had ever seen – it took at least 3 minutes of walking to get to the water (which was filled with jellyfish) and had very large waves. It also had some trash littered about, which was disappointing to see. Turns out, this would be one of the cleanest oceanfront camps we'd stay at.
It was completely overcast, but we explored the rocks around the area anyway. There was one other couple in a rooftop tent nearby, but no one else.
January 5th, 2022
We packed up on the morning of Vitali’s birthday and agreed we would pay for a campsite that evening. Little did he know I had booked a private room in a hostel! I thought about joking about wild camping in a ravine instead, but he looked kind of down, so I didn’t say anything.
We stopped by El Mano del Desierto, a giant sculpture in the Atacama desert. Various truckers posed with their rigs in front while we boiled eggs for lunch in the wind break of our van.
About an hour out from our destination we passed the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, which looked massive. Finally we arrived at San Pedro de Atacama, drove into the burgeoning village that still had an unpaved main street, knocked on an unmarked door, practiced my Spanish, and found ourselves in a private suite styled like a cave -- complete with spray foam insulation painted white and decorated with pictographs! The effect was actually quite charming.
SPA is the jumping off point and only point of services (and cell reception) in the middle of the Atacama desert, the driest non-polar desert on Earth. Some places receive only 1mm to 3mm per year, and occasionally areas go up for four years without a single drop. A COLD desert, San Pedro de Atacama sits at a healthy 7,900’, but we didn't feel too bad sleeping overnight. Due to the exceptionally dry conditions, a multitude of telescopes dot the landscape.
Curiously, a heat wave seemed to be moving through, and daytime highs approached 90 for the first few days, with nary an AC unit in sight.
We would come back to SPA every day, as we had to do our 10 day daily health check-in for the Chilean government, as well as refuel.
January 6th, 2022
We decided to drive out to El Tatio in the morning, the largest geothermal field in the southern hemisphere.
But FIRST – we were parked in. We had spent a few minutes attempting to converse and gesticulate with the hostel host yesterday -- some other guests were leaving at 5AM so he made sure that since we were leaving later, the single secured driveway would have the correct order of vehicles so no one was parked in.
We stood in the courtyard visually assessing the situation. There was a car parking us in. The struggled conversation was all for naught! Fortunately, we have learned that the natural order of plans is to be disrupted, so we were content to simply stare at our vehicle and await assistance.
Then a lady popped out of the door and asked us if we needed to exit (like everything else, in Spanish). Por favor!!!
So we drove north on a dirt road, passing by the most amazing of contrasts -- lifeless desert (by all appearances), threaded by a stream of pampas! grass, a thin line of life and green. The road, while unpaved, remained in good shape until we approached the small village of Machuca, and the road turned to probably the worst washboard we've ever experienced (for the next 60 miles!). So much so that the glass screen protector on my camera popped off!
We passed by a laguna where we had our first flamingo sighting. There are THREE types of flamingoes in Chile!
We continued ascending and reached the altiplano, the high plain, which topped out around 14,000’! The landscape was barren, filled with huge pastel vistas of rocky plain, mountains, and snow-capped volcanoes. Occasionally, we would cross a river, where the land would burst forth in a delta of green, attracting wildlife and photographers. We saw vicuñas for the first time, very lithe camelids who seemed a tad more intelligent than white-tailed deer. At least these guys would run away from approaching vehicles.
After a longgg hour and a half (and passing many tour buses coming back down) we finally approached El Tatio. It seemed deserted, and we stopped and looked into a building. Someone finally popped out and led us to fill out a form of health information, and to pay 15,000 pesos per person. We didn’t have enough money so Vitali went back to the car and they quickly offered us 10,000 a person, with the caveat we couldn’t use the hot springs and could only stay an hour.
We weren’t planning on the hot springs anyway so it worked out. We parked in the empty lot and walked out into the geothermal field. We have seen quite a few geysers in our day, and these weren't half bad. Not as impressive as Yellowstone but the backdrop of 18,000' mountains more than made up for it. We read in the information pamphlet that the field is best visited in the early morning to experience the most dramatic steam. We thought that wasn't necessary but it certainly explained the lack of tour busses.
I was starting to feel the altitude a bit but we had seen everything and drove back down, thankfully much faster than the way up.
We then headed out to our second wild camp, at the base of red towers near Valle de Arcoiris (Rainbow Valley). We were all alone!
We contented ourselves with making dinner and watching a movie. A van pulled up around sunset and we expected company for the night -- and then eight people popped out! Soon after a second van arrived with more people and we watched as they set up a table. Oh! It was a tour. Pretty quickly the area was overrun with tourists exploring the nooks and crannies of the towers and enjoying wine and cheese with the sunset.
After an hour or so the masses departed and the tour operators came over and gave us the leftovers! How fortuitous! We were lamenting our diet shift back to canned goods and here was some fine fresh food. Yum yums.
The wind picked up after sunset, and we felt the 10,000' altitude more than the night before. I just love being almost asleep and then waking back up because your body thinks you're suffocating!
January 7th, 2022
The next morning the sunrise was beautiful – the red towers were perfectly oriented to catch the first rays.
We left the spot and went over to the Valle de Arcoiris, parked next to some other overlanders, and headed out to explore. We were expecting rainbows… but found mostly orange rock formations. Hmmm.
Alright, there was one spot that had green, purple, and a different shade of orange.
We walked a few miles and then left, passing the first tour busses coming in for the morning.
We headed back to San Pedro to get groceries, and then headed south. I had found a campground on the app that sounded nice – it had a stream fed pool and hot showers. However, when we got to Peine there was a sign for tourists not to enter due to covid-19, so we had to find another place to stay.
Since we couldn’t stay where we intended we decided to continue south to do some sightseeing. We ascended up to the altiplano again, hanging out around 14,000', where we saw an EMU! What he was running from, we'll never know.
We passed near to the border of Bolivia, and got a peek into the Bolivian side of the stunning Andes.
We went as far as Laguna Tuyajto, which was a stunning shade of robins egg blue. The colors of the mountains and plains were stunning too -- pastel shades of red, orange, and yellow, as well as purple, greens, amber, and black.
We were feeling better today having slept at 10,000'. We turned around before the paso to Argentina and made our way back, stopping at the Mirador Aguas Calientes, which was a beautiful overlook of a salar (salt flat).
I tried driving the van (successfully!) but had had enough pretty quickly so we pulled into another overlook which had a single person stationed there to tell us that the trail was closed.
We tried to go to the Lagunas Altiplanicas, two alpine lakes, but they were closed too. We drove by Volcán Miñiques, a stunning example of a cone volcano. Most of these are active too, Chile being on the eastern edge of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
It seemed like the blush of spring was still upon the altiplano. These alpine drives ended up being extremely enjoyable and scenic. We'd pass a handful of other vehicles and a few tour busses and that was it. We'd go miles without seeing another soul.
We tried to go to Laguna Chaxa but found that closed too. It seems like all of the sectors of the Reserva Nacional Las Flamencos were closed.
We arrived back in SPA and tried looking for another campground that turned out to not exist, so we eventually found one that did and paid 16,000 for a spot to park and sleep in the van. This was the first time we paid what I believe is the 'foreigner tax'. Last person who stayed only a month prior reported paying 6,000 pesos pp/pn (1000 CLP is about $1.25 USD at the time of writing)... We paid the lady what she requested and told us she'd have to get us the change later.
So we went to sleep around 10pm and not long after a huge group came out to the community area and started socializing loudly... wonderful. It felt so good to pay for a shitty experience. And then the resident geriatric dog started barking.
January 8th, 2022
We waited around in the morning for our change and eventually a dude came out and we were able to ask and be taken care of before departing. We planned to hike Cerro Toco this morning, an 18,386' extinct volcano that would have been the jewel of our high-altitude hikes.
On the way to the trailhead, we went over a pass and saw a small fox crossing the road. He seemed interested in our car which was worrying.
We left the fox and arrived at the dirt access road where a sign warned that only authorized personnel were allowed to enter, as it was on land owned by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, and high altitude was a health risk. I messaged the ACT on whatsapp and we continued east on our itinerary for the day, to the Salar de Loyoques, another stunning salt flat.
There was a series of overlooks, and this was probably our favorite salt flat so far. It was the most visually pleasing. Today, we were just over 16,000' in altitude. The highest we had ever been!
We stopped at the Monjes de la Pacana (pecan monks) and made lunch while a parade of tours came through to take pictures of the enigmatic stone figures.
The pecan monks had a very peculiar texture, like that you might see in the bottom of a cave. I couldn't find a full explanation of their geology online, but they appear to be volcanic in origin.
We continued back in the direction of SPA and stopped by another creek that was filled with a family of vicuñas munching on water plants.
Closer to SPA we had a fine view of the two volcanoes on the Chilean/Bolivian border - Volcans Juriques and Licancabur.
They appeared in an uneasy slumber.
We made it back to town, parked, and walked over to the Plaza de Armas and the tourist area, which was filled with expedition shops and restaurants.
We ate at the single restaurant reviewed on find me gluten free (one review) that was also mentioned on a blog, Adobe, where we ordered Peruvian ceviche, salmon and mixed. It was expensive, 34,000 pesos for the meal. It had sweet potatoes of some sort and dried corn kernels of a unique variety, which were very starchy.
We headed south to try and camp in a national forest, El Tambillo, where CONAF is attempting to fight climate change by planting a bunch of trees in the desert. I didn't read specifics but that's what it is.
The site had massive thorny branches and also what appeared to be squatters, so we left and headed to another wild camp at the back entrance of Valle de la Luna, the Valley of the Moon. We hoped to visit in the morning.
The entrance was completely closed with dirt and rocks piled up and a 'no paso' sign. Right after we got there the park rangers pulled up in their truck from inside the park! They must have been patrolling.
We walked up and asked them if it was okay to camp here and they said yes, we just couldn’t enter the park. That's fine, we’d try to enter at the regular entrance tomorrow. Several cars came by that evening, each asking us if we knew if the park was open. To varying degrees of success, we shared the information we had.
A small sandstorm blew through, and we had to retreat inside the cab until it was time to go to sleep. We worried about the finish on the rental car!
January 9th, 2022
We woke up before sunrise and walked up the hill to peek into the park. It was pretty neat! More orange formations and some dunes.
We packed up and headed over to the other entrance, stopping at some overlooks along the way. We got to the main entrance where once again, there was a single person stationed to tell us that yes, the park was closed.
Quite a few things were closed around SPA and we were pretty sure it was because of the pandemic, but it didn't make too much sense to us. All of the attractions were outdoors, which we know now is relatively safe.
We decided to start heading back south to Santiago since we had seen everything we wanted. About an hour on the road we got a text back from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope saying that yes we could hike but a tour guide was recommended due to the dangers involved.
Oh well, maybe next time. We drove west to the coast and to an overlook of La Portada, a sea arch outside the city of Antofagasta, which was quite picturesque.
We stopped at Playa Las Losas and made lunch on the beach, above beautiful sea cliffs covered in birds and fisherman. Unfortunately, there was trash everywhere, left behind by previous users. We picked up what we could.
Our next stop was Morro Moreno National Park which had operating hours of 9:00AM to 12:00PM and 2:30PM to 5:30PM. Was this the infamous siesta we've heard about? We followed the single ranger in, back from his presumable siesta, where he informed us that we couldn't go down to the coast because of the great migration of birds, but could hike the main trail.
The landscape was quite alien, gray and beige, with pointy rocks. We went as far as the Mirador Viento del Ojo, which was pretty, and then headed back to the car as we still had another four hours to drive for the day.
We followed a secondary road where we saw rocks painted as watermelon and sneakers, and finally arrived at our wild camp for the night, Punta Agua Dulce.
It was a spit of land which was well used (and shockingly littered -- this was the litter standard to Chilean wild camps according to the overlander reviews), but was still quite beautiful.
We watched the sun set from our little spot, and went to sleep.
January 10th, 2022
We headed south again, stopping at the Santuario Granito Orbicular, a small protected area with rocks of volcanic origin that were quite unique. A friendly person from the city told us a few facts.
We then headed over Bahia Inglesa, which was meant to have beautiful turquoise water and a municipal campground where we could stay. We arrived, did not see the turquoise water in the picture, and found that the campground was closed until February. Dejected, we made lunch and sat on the beach.
I found a prospective wild camp 15 minutes down the coast, another lonely spit of land called Punta Huber. I was reminded of Harry Potter when the gang are searching for horcruxes, moving from place to place, essentially homeless.
This area ended up being stunningly beautiful, our favorite thus far. It was also well used, littered with the shells of clams, sea urchins, and unfortunately, a lot of litter, and at least three pairs of underpants.
We went down to the water which was a beautiful large pebbled beach and laid in the sun to pass the time.
Eventually the sun began to set and I busted out the tripod.
Give me some of that GLOW!
The next morning we woke up before sunrise again, and got some more excellent lighting. There was a lone fishing boat out on the water, along with some dolphins and maybe a whale.
January 11th, 2022
We headed south again, passing by more impossibly wide white beaches, and revellers enjoying their time off. We also passed more than one jeep stuck in the sand.
We were headed for Valle Elqui, and Pisco Elqui, the former valley known for it's wine, and the latter valley known for it's pisco (even further fermented wine). I didn't know they were known for either of those things until we were there and saw all the grapes. I just saw pictures and thought it was worth seeing.
We stopped in a small town to pick up a few more cans of tuna and saw some unique street art!
We stopped by the Embalse Puclaro, a reservoir created by damming the small river that travels the valley -- There was even a windsurfing resort.
We sped up through the valley passing fields and fields of grapes, some of them being picked as we drove by! There were both green and red varieties. Apparently the silty clayey soil makes very good syrahs. We turned off from the main valley into a smaller valley, with more dramatically colored mountains -- pastel yellows, reds, and grays.
Apparently the naming of Pisco Elqui is controversial -- The name was changed twice in a move that the Peruvians claim was a posturing to make a claim on what Chile sees as it's national drink! It is distilled grape juice, but we didn't get the chance to try any.
We ended up stopping at a campground that was advertised as 6,000 pp/pn on their facebook page but when we got there, we ended up paying the 'foreigner tax' again, paying 16,000 for the night. There were nice sites down by the river but they told us to go 'over there' to the tightly packed sites. At least it wasn't busy.
There was a very rickety footbridge over the river, which was cute.
January 12th, 2022
We left the campground in the morning, and drove a few hours south to Valle Del Encanto, which is a site of Pre-Colombian pictographs and petroglyphs (2nd to 7th century AD). Named areas include, "the alien", "masks", "the family", and "the illuminati"! The landscape was very unique -- a ton of furry and flowering cacti and a water source that cut through the landscape, complete with some sort of willow trees! I thought I had seen a willow in real life before but I can't remember where. I was surprised to see such a thirsty tree in the middle of the desert.
It was quite hot so we headed for Viento Sur Astrocamp for the second time, and our final night in the van.
January 13th, 2022
We drove to Santiago, and wandered about the airport looking for the rental car return, asking for help and each time getting only an additional tidbit of information, until we had asked enough people to assemble the disparate pieces to reach our destination. The information card that came with the vehicle showed a map to return the car at the rental car return area of the airport -- but that was not where it was! The gentleman there directed us to Express Parking 2. Once there, we had to ask again -- and the lady directed us to the B22 parking area. At B22 there was nothing, so we called the rental car number (which had previously only gone to an answering machine), and was told to go to level 1, B22. Phew. Was that so hard?
In total, we drove over 5,200km. We said goodbye to our cramped Peugeot Partner, and flew south to Puerto Montt in the Los Lagos region of Chile to begin the next park of our trip! To the Mystery Mobile!
コメント