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April 21, 2006
DISPATCH FROM ABROAD Chilling out in Chile
By MARK WAITE
SANTIAGO, Chile - Elko County real estate agent John Gourley, hardly a globetrotter, first got me interested in Chile back in January 2000 as he excitedly talked about Chile being like the new California. Certainly the geography is similar. Chile has about the world's strangest geography, 2,880 miles long and only 265 miles wide at the widest point. If stretched out at the same latitude in the northern hemisphere, along the west coast of North America, it would extend from Manzanillo in southern Mexico almost to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, just south of Alaska. The north coast of Chile was enticing after enduring a few months of cold, rainy weather in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. The Atacama Desert of northern Chile is the driest place on earth. Arica, the northernmost city, receives an average of only .03 inch of rain per year, parts of the desert haven't received rain in more than 100 years. The cold Humboldt Current provides a cool, invigoratingly fresh breeze along the coast, much like a California beach town. The central valley is just like Southern California with acres of vineyards, while south of there the forests and lakes of southern Chile resemble the Pacific Northwest. Arica had a few colonial buildings near the main square, including the historic Customs House, the now closed Arica-La Paz train station and the Church of San Marcos de Arica on the main square. The Morro de Arica, a huge rock, dominates the city. I was given the name of the Mata Rangi Restaurant, where I ordered some delicious fish in a scene overlooking fishing boats, seagulls and a sea lion frolicking in the water. Musicians entertained diners on the Avenida 21 de Mayo pedestrian mall. The cruise ship Millennium Celebrity was in the port of Arica the next day, the guest celebrity was 89-year-old actor Ernest Borgnine. Cinchorro Beach north of town was rather unexciting, with flat, light gray sand and scores of jellyfish. A short stroll up to Morro de Arica offered a rewarding view of the rocky coastline, which had a small museum commemorating Chile's victory in the War of the Pacific in the late 19th century. There was a statue of Christ and a huge Chilean flag. Posters around town advertised FestiAndina. That night, on the main square of Arica, professional Latin American folkloric dance groups from as far away as Mexico, dressed in all their finery, put on a free show, promoting their weekend performances at the city stadium. Revelers at a disco partied until the early morning hours, while gamblers tried their luck at Casino Arica on the waterfront. Travel agents were booking expensive, two-day tours of the Lauca National Park in the high Andes near the Bolivian border for 45,000 Chilean pesos, almost $100 U.S. Instead I caught one of the twice-weekly buses to Parinacota, a tiny village 14,274 feet in the mountains, almost as high as Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continental U.S. I didn't know if there'd be a place to stay, but upon arrival a woman rented me a room for $5 per night. An elderly man cooked some decent spaghetti bolognaise for dinner in a restaurant on the main square by the historic church that was never open. A walk the next day to the Cotacotani Lagoons afforded great views of the snowcapped Parinacota Volcano at 20,611 feet and Pomarape Volcano at 20,416 feet. Herds of llamas, alpacas and vicunas grazed in the alpine meadows in front of the volcanoes, a classic Andean scene. After a couple cold nights I hitchhiked to nearby Lake Chungara at 14,625 feet. I wondered whether I'd get a lift from there into Bolivia, the buses from Arica to La Paz, Bolivia, were booked up for two or three days. The bus drivers told me they were all full. A cold breeze blew even in the mid-afternoon. There wasn't a place to stay. Finally, a woman told me to ask the carabineros, the Chilean national police, working at the border post, for assistance. When a bus conductor came into the customs checkpoint to deliver the paperwork, the carabinero whistled at him; when the conductor turned around, the carabinero pointed at me and the conductor magically found me a seat on the bus. My second trip into Chile I entered from Peru. Chile was on daylight savings time, requiring a two-hour jump in time after crossing the border. I made my way to Iquique, a beach resort dominated by towering mountains, five hours by bus south of Arica. There wasn't a single bush, not even a blade of grass in the barren Atacama Desert. But a steep canyon made the scenery interesting, along with the steep descent down the mountains into Iquique. Iquique had an interesting, slightly dilapidated, historical mining town look to it. Old, wooden buildings spoke of the more prosperous days of the nitrate mining boom. A taxi driver dropped me off at the quaint, wooden Hotel de la Plaza on Baquedano Street, a pedestrian-only plank street where I got a room for about $17 U.S. A cable car occasionally took tourists for a slow ride down the street. Busy and nearby Playa Lavancha was full of tourists during the February Chilean tourist season. I ordered a delicious appetizer of paila rellena - avocado stuffed with chicken and mayonnaise - at the one outdoor restaurant/bar on the beach, followed by a delicious fish dinner, and watched the surfers riding the breakers offshore as the sunset. The other beach in Iquique, Playa Brava, was too rough to wade in deeper than my knees. Tandem hang-gliders sailed down to the beach from the mountain above. Chileans tend to do everything late. Shops don't open until 10 a.m. Many restaurants don't open until 8 p.m. for dinner. Chileans wait until late afternoon to hit the beach and nightclub revelers don't go out to the bars until almost midnight. On the main square of Iquique, the Plaza Prat, was Casino España, with an ornate, Arabesque interior, including knights in armor and large paintings. But some casinos in Chile, like this one, were casinos only in name; they didn't have gambling but were regular restaurants. At night on the Plaza Prat was another festival, Danca Andina, with more folkloric dancers from South America, performing until 1 a.m. The dancers performed in front of the 1890 Opera House, which had all the opera boxes and lush, velvet curtains just like historic opera houses elsewhere. I had to wait a day to get a seat on the bus to Antofagasta, six hours south of Iquique, due to the busy summer tourist season. We rode along the barren, mountainous coast. The following day I caught a bus out of Antofagasta for Caldera, the Web site for Sernatur, the Chilean government tourist bureau, was promoting nearby Bahia Inglesa. I rode a first class bus from Antfagasta to Caldera for 12,000 pesos, about $22.65, for the five-hour ride. But I rode in a big captain´s chair, like a first class airline passenger, and was served a free dinner. Caldera was always cloudy in the mornings, like the coast of Southern California in the summer, but the clouds burned off usually by noon. Bahia Inglesa was a short four miles away from Caldera by a local bus, it had the only white sand beaches along the coast. The bay was also comfortably calm for swimming. A hippie community lived a vagabond life in the area. The local specialty was oysters. I dined on oysters in hot sauce for an appetizer, followed by a fish dinner, washed down with a couple of glasses of white wine at a nice restaurant on the shore in Caldera. The bill was about $24 U.S., expensive for South American standards but probably a reasonable price for a nice restaurant in the U.S. It was in Caldera that I became hooked on another delicious Chilean dish, paila marina, which is a soup with mussels, oysters, shrimp, fish and other seafood delicacies. Restaurant menus often listed entrees "sin agregado," or without any accompaniments like rice or potatoes, those have to be ordered extra. Chile was rather expensive for food and drinks. Along the pier the next day, Caldera had a superb fish market with seafood fresh off the boat. I was familiar with corvina and dorado fish, but it was the first time I saw congrio, or conger eels, or reineta, a tasty, local, whitefish. My next seaside destination was La Serena, Chile's second oldest city, another six hours south of Caldera. After 16 hours of lifeless desert, I was starting to see at least some shrubs south of Caldera. Historic buildings were scattered around spotlessly clean La Serena. The interesting archaeological museum featured among the old Indian artifacts from nearby tribes, a moai, or stone idol from Easter Island. The beach stretched from La Serena down to the next coastal town of Coquimbo. There were trappings of modern life now, a four-lane expressway, a big shopping mall and beachfront hotels that could be straight out of a Florida beach town. A statue of Christ stood on the southern end of the sweeping bay on a hill above Coquimbo, a lighthouse was on the north end of the beach. The beach was a little more appealing here, though the Pacific Ocean became progressively colder farther south. The hills to the east resembled a scene out of San Diego. I was getting into the heartland of Central Chile. Nighttime in La Serena isn't just for hitting the bars. I had a rare opportunity to gaze at the starry skies, booking a $20 tour of the Mamalluca Observatory in the Valle de Elqui, 40 miles east of town. Locals in La Serena assured me the clouds drifting along the coast in the afternoon wouldn't affect the nighttime visibility inland, which boasts a desert climate. The dark Atacama Desert skies in Chile host major observatories including Gemini South on Cerro Pachon, with 10 times the light gathering power of the Hubble telescope. Nearby Cerro Tololo has the 10th largest telescope in the world, while La Silla Observatory on Cerro Paranal, farther north, has the fourth and fifth largest telescopes in the world as part of the Very Large Telescope Project, sponsored by a coalition of eight European nations. The editor of Sky and Telescope magazine is hosting an observatory tour of Chile May 29 to June 4. Mamalluca Observatory, however, is the only one open for tourists at night. The tour left at 9:30 p.m. Atop the mountain, our Spanish and English-speaking guide pointed out Sirius, the brightest star; Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our solar system 4.2 light years away; and two sights only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, the Southern Cross and the Magellanic Clouds, which is actually a star cluster. Stargazers looked at the star clusters, the rings of Saturn and a fuzzier Venus close to the horizon, through outdoor telescopes and the main telescope in the dome. The tour returned to La Serena at 2:30 a.m. Valle de Elqui in the daylight was a real treat as well. The green, irrigated vineyards in the valley contrasted sharply with the bleak, desert mountains. I bought a daily pass on the local bus into the valley to the end of the line at Pisco Elqui, named after the RRR pisco brandy distillery. The plant is named after the Rigoberto Rodriguez Rodriguez family, who inherited one of the oldest traditions of making pisco in Chile. A guide showed our tour group the copper stills, as well as a room with antique equipment, including the original leather packs for gathering grapes and tins for shipping the pisco on horseback. The dry climate at 4,160 feet is said to be ideal for growing the grapes. Pisco brandy is matured for only six months, unlike regular brandy that matures for three years, the guide explained. The strong, alcoholic aroma was almost overpowering in a distilling room with eight tanks, each containing 30,000 liters of pisco brandy. I asked about touring a local winery. I was directed to the Cavas del Valle winery, in a beautiful bend down the road. The English-speaking manager and owner said it was one of Chile's smaller wineries, with only 16,000 bottles per year, but she boasted their Shiraz captured second place in the Santiago wine festival. I bought an interesting, fruity, muscat rosé. At a nearby restaurant I dined on delicious cordero, or lamb, with rice and red wine. Santiago, the bustling capital of 8 million six hours south of La Serena, thankfully had a very efficient metro subway which made getting around easy. Painters sold their artwork on the large central square. A funicular railway led up the steep Cerro San Cristobal, which at 2,827 feet, afforded a great view of the skyline. Several coffeeshops with dark windows near the main square featured girls in G-strings serving the cappuccinos and espressos, a uniquely Chilean invention, according to one of the waitresses who spoke a little English. I traveled outside the city to scenic Canon de Maipu on a Sunday with a Chilean friend who took me to a restaurant for lunch where we dined on pastel de choclo, a delicious dish which tasted like cornbread stuffed with shredded chicken and a few vegetables. A two-hour bus ride west from Santiago lies the two coastal twin cities of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, with 275,982 and 298,828 residents respectively. I booked a room for about $13 U.S. at a cheap residential in Valparaiso, the gritty but historical port city. I plopped down 100 pesos, about 20 cents U.S., to ride one of the cable cars called asencores, that lift residents up the steep hillsides of Valparaiso. More modern Viña del Mar is Chile's main beach resort, which hosted the Southern Hemisphere's largest music festival while I was in northern Chile. The scenery on the bus ride from Santiago to Valparaiso looked like something right out of the Napa Valley of California with vineyards and green, rolling hills. A woman at the Santiago tourist office told me about a vendemia, or wine festival, taking place over the weekend in Santa Cruz, about two hours south of Santiago in the Colchagua Valley. I took the Metrorail train to San Fernando, then a short bus ride to Santa Cruz. Unlike the Pahrump wine festival, there wasn't a grape stomping contest. The festivities were all in the main square. After the Chilean national anthem, officials read the attributes of the local wine, stunning beauty queens representing 14 area wineries were introduced, followed by folkloric music and dancing. It cost 3,000 pesos, about $6 U.S., for five coupons good for wine-tastings, 2,000 pesos without the glass. I took the modern, efficient 10:30 p.m. train from Santiago 422 miles south to Temuco into the southern lakes district. The fare was about $32 U.S. for first class, about $9.50 more than economy, which also looked comfortable. The train sped south, arriving in Temuco right on time at 7:30 a.m. There were a lot more foreign tourists in the southern lakes area than the north of Chile. But fortunately it was now early March, the off-season for Chilean tourists. A mini-bus was waiting at the Temuco train station to take me to the lake resort of Pucon, an hour and a half away. Snowcapped Mount Villarrica, 9,252 feet high, dominated the town of Pucon, an active volcano. The municipal office had a traffic light, which had a green, yellow or red light depending on the volcanic activity. Fortunately, this time the light was green. Hikers ascended the volcano on day tours for $60 U.S., which included all the equipment including crampons for the snow. Pucon resembled a Colorado mountain tourist town, spotlessly clean, with buildings of fresh, pine wood. But unlike Colorado, public bus service is readily available to tourist destinations around Pucon and I was able to book a room in a residential for about $10 U.S. The volcano is also a perfect, snowcapped cone, an attraction unique to southern Chile. There were a variety of other adventure activities available, like whitewater rafting and rappelling alongside waterfalls. Area hot springs were commercialized, but there were tours there as well, leaving Pucon at 10 p.m. Bathers relaxed on the black sand beaches on Lake Villarrica in Pucon but Lake Caburga, another beautiful, mountain lake, was just a short bus ride away. Huerquehue Park had well-groomed trails through the woods; the ranger was too busy having lunch to charge me the $8 admission. A group of three fantastic waterfalls 240-feet tall -- Salto Leon, Salto Puma and Salto China -- were a 6.5-mile walk off the bus route to Curarrehue near the Argentine border, luckily I was able to hitchhike. Signs at local restaurants advertised kuchen, the word for cake by many of the German descendants of the area. I rode back to Temuco to take the train south toward Puerto Montt, the end of the main road in Chile. But this was an ordinary two coach train stopping at all the towns en route. We had a tragic accident, hitting a van, the passengers were shook up at the sight of the driver being pulled out from under the train. After a two-hour delay we were bused to our destinations. I got off at Puerto Varas, a German community on Llanquihue, Chile's largest lake about 20 miles north of Puerto Montt. Taking a suggestion from a passenger on the train, I tried the goose at the German Club. Local travel agents advertised fly fishing trips. The far side of the lake at Ensenada was dramatic, at the foot of Osorno Volcano, a peak as perfectly symmetrical as Villarreal Volcano. I realized how far south I was when I passed a restaurant called Latitude 42, about as far south as southern Oregon is north. The road from Puerto Varas led farther east to Lake Todo los Santos, another spectacular, mountain lake, where a daily boat left at 11 a.m. for the combination boat/bus/boat trip to Bariloche, Argentina, that country's most popular lake resort. I didn't want to pay the 22,000 pesos, about $41.50, for the boat, instead I took a bus to Barioche, which was a beautiful, seven-hour ride. I passed up the four-day ride on the Navimag boat leaving Puerto Montt for Puerto Natales, a decent value at U.S. $350 including food, traveling through the stormy fjords of southern Chile to near Cape Horn. A tourist told me the trip was a little rough and the weather was already getting rainy in early March. Chile can make for a good alternative to the West Coast of the U.S., especially when it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer down below. But North American tourists should be prepared for some high prices at the restaurants and a lot of Chilean tourists during their summer months. |
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