¿Qué Tal Chile?

Since our first visit to South America together last year in Colombia, we had been itching to get back to this diverse continent and continue exploring, this time in Chile! We set off for the long journey south via the wonderful new Harvey Milk terminal in SFO, through Dallas, Texas, then an overnight to Santiago. The Harvey Milk terminal was possibly the first nice airport terminal we’ve experienced in the US - super modern, water refill facilities, decent wifi, clean and enjoyable. We can’t even recall being shouted at which is a pleasant surprise. It was quite funny on the first flight to Dallas, as we were travelling the day after the 49ers knocked the Dallas Cowboys out of the SuperBowl playoffs, and it was filled with disappointed fans. We had just enough time to grab a delicious “TexMex” burrito before catching our red eye flight to Santiago. We tried to grab a few hours of sleep, but it proved difficult with a screaming baby sitting next to us for the entire journey. We awoke to the sun rising over the Andes mountains as we descended into Santiago.

We based ourselves in Santiago for the first few days to get the lay of the land, sort out admin like SIM cards, money, catch up on sleep and practise a bit of our Spanish before the journey south! We stayed in an apartment on the outskirts of the historic Centro district, directly opposite Cerro Santa Lucia - a beautiful old fortress which was an important founding site of Santiago. Our host was Viktor, who had relocated back to Santiago after 25 years in Brazil, and was an absolutely delightful host! After we showered and had a quick coffee, Viktor spent an hour going through the many sights and activities of Santiago and gave us some excellent recommendations for our time in Chile. Luckily he did speak a little bit of English, as our Spanish was feeling a lot dustier than we recalled, especially with the jetlag kicking in.

It was hot here, really hot, especially after the cold Northern Hemisphere winter. We ventured out on the streets of Santiago and had a nice lunch at a local sandwich restaurant recommended by Viktor. We took a nice walk up the Cerro Santa Lucia hill offering some nice views of the city and hit the local supermarket (always interesting!) before heading home exhausted. We had a nice sunset dinner and drinks on the terrace with Viktor and a lovely French couple who had also just arrived in Santiago after spending 6 weeks travelling through New Zealand. It was nice sharing travel stories, hearing about their time in NZ and conversing in “Spanglish”.

The next day we set out to walk around Parque Metropolitano De Santiago (Santiago’s Metropolitan Park). It was quite an adjustment switching to the hot weather of summer which never dipped below 30°C (86°F), but we braved the heat and managed to walk up a nice trail to the summit Cerro San Cristóbal. We got slightly lost at the top and Luke asked a local where the statue of Jesus was, much to the confusion of the lady who politely informed him that it was indeed a statue of Virgin Mary on the peak (lol).

We then hopped on a cute cable car across this urban park, over to a quaint Japanese garden. Luke got in trouble for napping in the shade, but it was nice to wander around this well-kept garden, symbolic of the unique relationship between Chile and Japan. The gondola journey gave us sweeping views of the valley that Santiago is situated in with a gorgeous backdrop of the mountains that surround it. We walked around a bit more, but with the heat of the day becoming unbearable, we had a cheeky ice cream and headed back to our rooftop to relax and continue planning our trip.

We tried multiple times to watch the famous ‘changing of the guard’ at La Moneda Palace, Chile’s equivalent of the White House, but somehow failed with the confusing schedule of which day it occurs on. Apparently it occurs at 10am on even days in January, April, May, August, November and December and odd days In February, March, June, July, September and October, although different websites suggest different things, and when we did make the right day of the week, they had decided to do it at 8.30am instead of 10am so we missed it. We decided to just watch a Youtube video of the event instead, which was good enough for us. We ventured out on the local metro, a surprisingly good system, and visited several different areas of the city, including local markets and antiques stores. It was fun to get into more of the local areas, and try some more popular spots for lunch. People in Santiago seem to love their huge sandwiches! (or maybe Viktor does, and he just recommended those places to us haha).

A really insightful and important museum we visited was the Museo de Los Humanos Derechos (Museum of Human Rights), an intense but very intriguing exhibition dedicated to the lives lost during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship over Chile from 1973 to 1981. It was incredibly moving to learn about those who were tortured and lost their lives at the hands of the government as well as understand more about the 1973 military coup which kick-started the country's journey back to democracy. Once we returned back to Viktor’s later that night, it was insightful to hear about his perspective of these events, and his lived experiences of the regime as a University student in Santiago in 1972 and differing political opinions now. Chile very recently elected a young progressive President named Gabriel Boric who is really shaking things up in the country and it will be interesting to see what transformations take place in a country still living in the shadow of the Pinochet dictatorship.

We checked out a couple more local museums, and recognised a Botero statue outside the Museo de los Artes Belles, the familiar chubby sculpture reminiscent from our time in Colombia last year. Our final stop in Santiago was to the Costanera Centre, the most recognisable building in the skyline and largest mall in South America. Jelley had left her swimsuit in the US, and it was a successful shopping mission followed by a yummy Thai meal, making the most of our last time in a large city for a while. We intended on returning to Santiago after our month down in Patagonia, and left plenty more activities on the to-do list for our next visit to the city.

Our next stop in Chile was Puerto Varas, a popular town in the Los Lagos (Lakes) District just north of the unofficially marked Patagonia region. The Santiago bus station was absolute chaos and we were very glad to arrive early to navigate the challenging system and find out where we were departing from. Buses are a popular form of travel in South America, and we had read good reviews about them so decided to splurge for this first 12 hour journey on a first class lie-flat bed. We were really impressed as we boarded, and immediately felt like we were a world away from the human zoo outside our windows at the station! We both had a decent 8 hours of sleep, and woke just after sunrise to arrive in Puerto Varas.

It was a picture perfect day; too early to check into our hostel, we parked up at the lakefront with an incredible view of Osorno volcano. Unfortunately there were no panaderias (bakeries) open this early, so we hit the supermarket, dropped our bags at the hostel and took a short walk up to Parque Philippi. This park was a regenerated native forest and was lovely little walk to stretch the legs after a long bus journey. After a quick snooze at the lakefront, we settled into our new home for the next few days, which would be our base for trip planning and getting our gear sorted for the adventures ahead.

We decided Puerto Varas reminded us a lot of Taupo in NZ, a cruisy lake town which gets really busy in the holiday season, but quietens down the rest of the year. Chileans love to travel locally and are on summer holidays until late February, and the tiny streets and lakefront beaches were quite crowded this time of year. There was limited English around, and we were happy to be forced into speaking 'un poquito Español'. The receptionist at our hostel even said it wasn't important for her to learn English because most of their tourists were Spanish-speakers, which we found interesting. While the language barrier was a welcome challenge, we did find it really frustrating on our continued quest to find maps and information to plan our the next few weeks of our journey. Jelley had spent many hours prior to the trip trying to find reliable information about buses/boats/accommodation/maps, but with the exception of a couple of detailed blogs (pre-covid, so out-of-date data), there was nothing else available. We thought it might be easier when we got to Chile to visit an information centre and talk to locals, but it proved trivial. We were also quickly learning that QR codes (those little black squares you can scan with your phone's camera) are quite popular here in Chile. So instead of any paper leaflets, maps, or even restaurant menus, everything was a QR code that you had to scan. It was kind of neat at first (and probably great for the environment!), but then we realised a lot of places, for example restaurant's, didn't have WiFi available so we couldn't actually visit the QR code link which meant we we had to ask them to show us on their own personal phones.

The next day we woke to very low cloud, and couldn’t see Volcan Osorno at all this morning. We were keen to get out for our first hike of the trip, and took a public bus around Lake Llanquie (try pronouncing that one!), to the popular Petrohue waterfalls and region. The cloud lifted after an hour around the lake, with the volcano revealed once again. The public bus was a good intro into the challenges of getting around, with no clear information on where the unlabelled bus stop was, but luckily we got on early enough to get a seat on the crowded bus for 2 hours.

he further we went around the lake, we came across many family camping spots, Chileans out enjoying the summer season together. It reminded us a lot of the kiwi traditions of camping by water. It was a scenic drive, the closest we’ve seen to New Zealand scenery since leaving over 1 year ago. It made sense, as we were at a similar latitude to the North Island which is also volcanic with forests in certain areas. We were excited to explore by foot, and had downloaded a couple of potential trail maps offline (since we were quickly realising it probably wouldn’t be signposted or mapped).

As we disembarked in Petrohue, an enthusiastic young American approached us. It was refreshing to speak English to another person after 5 days struggling in Chile and we were delighted to meet a fellow American who went by the name, Quint. We invited Quint to join us on our hike as he was alone and who doesn't love a bit of company? He was a super interesting guy, on Day 1 of his first solo adventure outside of the US, and we felt privileged to share it with him! He had just graduated from college and was going to base himself out of Puerto Varas while working remotely for a company called ‘1% for the Planet’ , a conservation non-profit founded by Yvon Chouinard (also the founder of the Patagonia clothing company).

We were immediately attracted to the stunning sapphire lake, and followed the shoreline around before bush-bashing to find the trail. It was already hot, and we knew we’d be jumping back in the ice cold lake for a dip later in the day! Once we reached the trail, we came across a couple of mountain bikers out for a ride .. then a couple more .. and then lots more... we quickly realised we were in the middle of a huge mountain bike race! Turns out this day happened to be the once-a-year bike race around the Osorno volcano. We later learned that the trail was closed, which made total sense, and all other hikers had been turned around at the entrance, but we somehow missed the "trail closed" sign at the start.

It was an incredible walk through volcanic landscapes with views over the lakes, through Chile’s first national park, Alerce Andino National Park. While it was difficult in the heat and dodging bikes, it was so worth it as we reached the mirador (lookout), looking at 6 volcanic peaks surrounding us in 360 degree views. We descended down a different trail (without bikers) along a lava flow trail towards the lakefront, before a wonderful swim. It felt like we were in paradise! We had read online about a horsefly problem in the summer months in this area of Chile, and while it wasn’t as bad as reviews suggested, the ones that were there seemed to have a particular attraction to Luke, who developed a crazy dance to swat them away.

It was so nice to put our hiking boots on for the first time in Chile, and we felt really grateful to have shared this first outdoors experience in Patagonia with Quint on such a beautiful day. While we didn’t make it to the star attraction of the area, the Petrohue waterfalls, we had escaped the busy weekend crowds and were happy with our decision for the day. It was a slow drive back to Puerto Varas, which was even more crowded with local revellers when we arrived back, enjoying the summer sun.

We made the most of our last day of guaranteed internet and grocery stores for a while, and had a productive admin day. We set up the tent, got a new battery pack (a rogue water bottle had ruined our 3rd one since travelling and this was when we really needed one!) , hit the supermarket, got stacks of cash out, met up with Quint for a final beer and tried really hard to be as prepared as possible for the next stage of our trip. We finally accepted the outcome that we would need to be flexible and expect the unexpected as there was little we could do to actually make a plan. Jelley had tried hard in advance to research online how to travel along the Carretera Austral with limited luck, and unfortunately no one in Puerto Varas could help us either. It was like this region we were heading to was so remote that hardly anyone from the north of Chile had even ventured there.

We were very excited and a little apprehensive for the journey ahead. We had 4 weeks until our next scheduled booking, which was all the way down in Puerto Natales in the very (very) far south of Chile. During this time, we would travel along the 1240km (770mile) Carretera Austral, a remote highway connected by gravel roads and vehicle ferries through fjords and National Parks. It also involved a border crossing into Argentina by foot which we were quite excited about! We left Puerto Varas at 5am in an Uber (couldn’t believe there was Uber here) to the bus station in Puerto Montt, where rumour had it there might be a bus leaving at 6am for a 10 hour journey (4 buses and 3 boats!) to our first destination of Chaiten. The best was yet to come, but we had a brilliant first week in Chile and couldn’t wait to continue our journey South into remote Patagonia.

Until then,

- A Kiwi and A Cali

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