Zelma’s Trip

In the morning the Germans had obviously headed out for the day, presumably to the hot springs as you had to leave at some unearthly hour in the morning to get to the geysers in time to watch them erupt at sunrise.  This meant that we were greeted by a very bleary eyed Louis whose sleep had twice been interrupted, once by the Germans half-way through the night and once by us in the morning.

We headed down one of the smaller roads out of town towards the salt flats.  The salt flats in Chile are vast and apparently two thirds of the World´s lithium is derived from the area.  At one of the reserves we went for a walk over the salt flats where there was abundant birdlife.  Amongst the avocets and various other interesting birds were flocks of flamingos.  It was truly beautiful to see all the flamingos amongst the saltflats with the mountains in the distance.

From the reserve we headed out across mile upon mile of salt flats.  For such a barren landscape it´s amazing to think how much wildlife actually manages to live there.  After the most amazing drive we decided to stop and camp in the desert overnight.  We found a spot relatively close to the road but with small sand, cliff structures affording some shade and shelter.  We parked up and got out of the van and Dad discovered some cat footprints which had evidently been left behind the last time there was water in the area.  Having examined the footprints and consulted our wildlife guidebook, we decided that the only possible animal which could have left them was a puma.

It was slightly more difficult to set my tent up than at Louis´campsite due to the wind but it was fine.  It was lovely to be out in the desert and the stars were amazing.  The only thing we hadn´t really counted on was that, what we thought was a small road turned out to be a road used by copious numbers of lorries presumably transporting mining supplies!

We woke up at the campsite and were greeted by the ever friendly Louis.  The previous night Louis had, helpfully, assisted me with my tent so that it looked like a large tree had fallen on it several times.  He appeared to have taken a shine to me.  That and a combination of being slightly bored meant that he appeared at every possible opportunity.  He also tried to speak to me, made comedy gestures and then did sad sighs and winks.  After the standard Louis encounter we headed into San Pedro.

The town itself was nice in its own way and we decided it wasn´t the hell-hole we had thought it was the day before.  It was touristy though with artisan stalls everywhere and places to stay and eat.  The food was surprisingly good with a lot of vegetarian options presumably catering for the hippy types but pleasing to me all the same.

From the town we headed to the rather reassuringly titled Valle de Muerta (Valley of Death) out of the town.  This is one of the places where people sandboard as there are huge dunes.  Having driven down a track, which we were grateful to have a significant amount of ground clearance for, we stopped as it got very sandy.  We got out momentarily, were sandblasted, and got back in the car.  The place was stunning but slightly too windy to enjoy a walk, unless you like having a faceful of sand continually that is.

So we drove out of the deathly valley and headed for the more friendly sounding Valle de la Luna (Valley of the moon).  There was an entrance gate where you could read informative signs, paid your entrance fee for the park and were given a map with suggested stop off points.  The first of these was an area of channels and caves through huge salt cliffs.  The place was amazing with sand covered salt banks and shaded channels between.  We walked through until we got to a very dark tunnel.  We couldn´t really figure out if it was a cave or whether it actually went anywhere and, as we didn´t have a torch, we headed back out.

After the caves we carried on through the park stopping at various other amazing places to look around.  You could see where the place had got its name from with awesome rock formations and lunar landscapes.  The final place to stop was the three marias which were three kind of towers of rock which, I guess were meant to look like the three Mary´s.  They didn´t.  Although Dad thought that one of them looked a bit like a frog.

Back at the campsite Mum and I decided to handwash some clothes.  This was of great interest to Louis who stood watching us.  We had another nice night at the campsite, enjoying the surroundings and quiet.

Having eaten breakfast we said out Goodbyes to Juan Lopez and Basile Fawlty and headed to San Pedro de Atacama, a well visited base from which to explore the Atacama desert.  For those of you who don´t know your deserts the Atacama it the driest desert in the World and some places have no recorded rainfall since records began.  So, with this in mind we didn´t get petrol and drove out until the light came on!  We did manage to get to a petrol station in time though so Mum needn´t have been quite so worried!

Having crossed vast areas of arid desert we arrived in San Pedro de Atacama.  It is clear why San Pedro is one of the most visited places in the North of Chile as it is the only real place to stay in the desert.  Tourists use the town as a base to explore the desert, ride bikes and horses, sand board and visit the surrounding mountains, hot springs and salt flats.  Unfortunately, being the only real habitable place, the town felt like it was geared solely to housing touristic explorers and little elese.  The town itself is low rise, consisting of mud covered walls and buildings which in one way are quaint but in another feel like the only reason for a lack of further develpoment is to keep the “authentic” Chilean look so that tourists can say they stayed in a quaint, historical town.  In all fairness I guess San Pedro had some kind of charm but our impression of this was marred by our inability to find anywhere to stay.  We drove round and round literally for hours with several unhelpful directions to campsites.  The town itself is small with a maze of thin roads, many of which are one-way and a lot of which are pedestrianised.  This made for frustrating driving in a big van.  Added to this was the Chilean road sign speciality, i.e. none, or signs masked by various objects other like signs or trees.  At one point we asked some Policemen for directions and ended up driving through the town with a Police escort.  They pointed to a gate and Mum and I went to investigate.  Eventually two local workers, who stank of alcohol, greeted us and we were rather relieved when they explained it was a campsite for workers so we didn´t have to make our excuses about not staying there.  By this point we were all frustrated, tired and hot and we stopped in a parking area where Mum went and bought some supplies in case we ended up spending the night in the desert.  When we had first arrived we had tried to find an out of town oasis which apparently had camping but, after looking for so long, decided it didn´t exist and was perhaps some delirious travel writer´s mirage.  I tentatively looked through the book again and found a different map with the campsite marked.  We headed out of town again and were relieved to find the place.  We were greeted by the proprietor, a rather odd chap named Louis, and shown in.  The place was lovely with shady acacia covered sites and a dramatic view out over the desert to the Andes.  There was one other group at the camp who were a rather strange group of unsociable Germans traveling in a ´Rotel´ – a kind of custom-made bus, hotel thing.  Having set up the tent, we watched a beautiful sunset, ate and went to sleep.

We decided to take a different route out through the majority of the park and set off having given the key back to the ranger.  The rest of the park was equally beautiful with hills, cacti and spectacular views.

Once back on the main road we stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant.  Throughout Chile the food seems to be of a very high standard and even slightly beaten up looking roadsie restaurants in the middle of nowhere offer good fare.  The problem for me is that they don´t really seem to get vegetarianism.  Chile is famous for its seafood, which is exquisite, but we were inland.  A lot of the restautants offer a luchtime ´menu´ a set three course lunch with starter, main and pudding.  Rather unsurprisingly this doesn´t have a vegetarian option, and actually, it´s relatively rare for there to be an option at all.  Mum used her infamous Spanish and in the end I was treated to a rather strange fried eggs and rice combo!  It was perfectly palatable though.

After a lot more arid desert we got to Antofagasta.  Antofagasta is a relatively large port town and didn´t really appeal.  It followed the coast in a vast line with a mixture of port type industry, strange parks and high rise hotel blocks.  We decided to continue out of the town towards Juan Lopez.  On the way we took a wrong turning (I was directing but it was the map´s fault) which turned out to be the right turning if you wanted to see a beautiful arch separated from the mainland by the sea.  Apparently it´s one of the most photographed sights in Chile, so we contributed and headed off.

When we arrived in the small coastal village of Juan Lopez it originally seemed like the only inhabitants were dogs.  This isn´t that unusual as Chile is full of dogs who wander around the towns and villages looking pleased with themselves.  Although they are strays they don´t appear to have taken the typical inbred mongrel form which you find in other countries, i.e. the brown Heinz 57 dog, and are discernable into near pedigree type breeds.  They are also suprisingly friendly and we didn´t meet any which were in the slightest bit aggressive.  In general they also weren´t that manky and seemed to quite enjoy life hanging out in groups and taking themselves for little strolls together.

We carried on up the ´main street´until we found a place from the guidebook which looked open.  Once inside we liked the quaint place with its courtyard garden and were greeted by two sweet old women.  The women turned out to be real characters, one of whom Mum thought was the female version of Basil Fawlty.  There was a discussion about rooms and then one of the woman showed us our rooms.  Well she tried, bless her, but couldn´t get the key to work.  So the other woman was summonsed who did manage to open the door.  Having seen the rooms we asked where was best to park and one of the women came in the van with Dad and I to show us.  We got to a locked gate which she couldn´t open with the key.  I decided to assist and got out and opened the gate prior to pointing out to her that the top of the parking enclosure was about a foot lower than the van roof.  After all the hassle of actually opening the gate she did a really funny shrug and muttered something, before agreeing that it was best if we just parked the van next to the road.

We settled in and then took a walk down to the beach and around the headland where there were lots of marine birds.  There was one cool black bird with bright red legs and beak which Dad and I took photos of.  In the evening we had a lovely meal of fresh fish and chips at the place where we were staying.

Having admired the wonderful surroundings over breakfast we headed into the local fishing village where we got a boat out to Pan d´Azucar with two of the local fishermen.  It was great being on the sea and after a short while we got to the island.  The island looked two tone in colour with grey rock covered with white.  From a distance it looked like strange rock colouration but it was actually guano (bird poo) from the multitude of birds which inhabit the island.  The extent of this was amazing until we saw a penguin poo and realised how there was so much of it!  The penguins were humbolt penguins and it was great to see so many of them in the wild.  There were also pelicans everywhere and various other seabirds on the rocks, in the sea and in the air around us.  The island is protected there is no access allowed on foot so we continued in the boat.  As we passed more penguins we were treated to three sealions, a mother, father and baby who were sunning themselves very close to us on a large rock.  They put on quite a show with the male making obligatory grunting sounds every few minutes.  We left the sealions and continued round where we saw a sea otter swimming.  This was the rarest animal we saw and we were extremely lucky as there are only one thousand left in the wild in Chile!  As we continued around to the head of the island the rocks changed shape and then we realised that what we were actually looking at was a whole colony of sealions.  At the corner point where the sealions were resting the water level was lower over rocks and we turned around and headed back to the shore.  On the way back from the island there was a strange shape in the water like a shark fin.  I pointed it out and the fisherman steered the boat over towards it.  It was possible that it was a killer whale, albeit slightly unlikely, and was hard ot make out.  As we got closer we could just see it was a sealion with its fin poking out.  For a moment we thought it was dead but then it twisted and sped off.  It turned out just to be having a little nap!  The whole trip was absolutely amazing and we couldn´t have asked for more wildlife.

Back on dry land we headed into Chanaral town for lunch.  The town didn´t create the best impression being rather poor and desolate.  We had an okay lunch though and headed back to the National Park.  On the park road we went passed some locals hitchhiking and stopped to pick them up.  Although I thought there were two people there were actually three and it was somewhat cramped for Mum in the back with them.  As we got towards the village they pointed out the information centre and Mum translated this as them wanting to be dropped off.  There was a little bit of confusion as I pulled over and it transpired they were just trying to be informative!  When we had dropped them off at the correct location we bought some fish from the local fishermen and headed back to the cabana.

Having put the fish in the fridge we headed back to the information centre where the ranger hobbled over the road to us and gave us a map.  He told us how to get to the mirador (viewpoint) and we headed off in our van.  He had been muttering something about keys and, as we turned off the main road in the park, we realised that he was trying to tell us that we needed a key to get through the gate.  So we headed back to the information centre where, a somewhat amused, ranger gave us the key.  Back on the road we got to the track and opened the gate.  It was fun driving up the sandy off road type track and we eventually got to a parking area.  When we got out the views down over the coast were stunning.  We were looking out to sea when Dad pointed back to the van where a small Andean fox was wandering about.

In the evening we barbequed the fish we had bought from the fishermen and rounded off the perfect day with fresh fish and a bottle of wine.

We left the tranquil campsite in Vicuna and continued to head North.  The roads continued to be stunning and the views down over the West coast of Chile were amazing.  We were headed to one of the many National Parks in Chile, Parque Nationale Pan d´Azucar.  The literal translation of the name is sugar loaf, named after an island a little way off the coast which hosts marine wildlife including penguins and sealions.

When we eventually arrived at Pan d´Azucar it was the evening and we thought we may have missed the office opening hours.  Fortunately a woman arrived and said that there were cabanas available.  She got in the four by four and drove with us to the most idyllic setting.  The park itself was dry with rocky outcrops, vast sand beaches and headlands.  The cabana was one of two, the other was vacant, and was basically on the beach looking out to sea.  There were lots of birds and the sunset down over the glittering sea was beautiful.

After a light dinner we had an earlyish night.

On the Monday we relaxed in the morning then headed into town.  I spent a little bit of time online and then met Mum and Dad in the centre square where we people watched and read.  You could hire bikes and cars propelled by undersized electric batteries and it was hilarious watching the Chilean kids trying to make them go faster and crashing.  That really wasn´t meant to sound so sadistic.  I was actually quite pro-kids at this moment in time, rather than my usual interactions with them.

Whilst in town we went to the Museo Entomologico E Historia Natural (Natural History and Insect museum).  There were big bugs and natural history type things which were really interesting.  Okay, so that was perhaps the most redundant sentence on my blog so far!

Back at the campsite we relaxed and had a swim.  In the evening Dad did the funniest thing with the torch.  I´m cringing at describing this already as I think it´s one of those, “you had to be there”, moments, but I´ll tell you anyway.  So, basically, there was a little torch in the van and Dad was playing about with it.  As he was turning the top he said, “It´s really quite clever this as if you turn it too far…” and at that point the top kind of sprung off and flung all its innards all over the floor.  Mum wasn´t far behind the torch innards in fits of laughter and my eyes were streaming!  And if you didn´t find that funny, “I guess you had to be there”.  Either that or you´ve spent too much time with Astronomers thinking of witty acronyms!

We left Socos and continued North.  There´s a pattern emerging here for the more astute of you!  when we got to Vicuna we instantly fell in love with the beautiful town with a lovely leafy square in the middle.  The town is along the Elqui valley which, along with producing some great Chilean wine, makes for a stunning drive.  In the town itself we looked around several artisan type places before having lunch.  One of the draws of the area is the observatories which Chile is famous for.  Aswell as having a great climate and low light pollution for visibility, it also has the Andes which, strangely enough being quite high, are great for star gazing!  So we headed to the town observatory where we had read we could do a bit of a Patrick Moore.  When we got there it was closed but on the way back there was a sign to a campsite.  Slightly tongue in cheek we drove up the stony road, only to be very pleasantly surprised by the most lovely, deserted hillside campsite with a beautiful pool.  We checked in and headed back into town to buy tickets for the observatory on the advice of the owner of the campsite.

Once back in town the observatory was shut.  When we asked (that´s the Royal We here you understand which normally means my Mum, occasionally my Dad and rarely to never me) when the ticket office would be open.  In typical Chilean style the random passerby we asked phoned to check for us and then informed us that we could wait for the person. 

Tickets in hand we headed back to the campsite where we relaxed and ate dinner before heading to the observatory.  When we got there we were told we were the only English group so we had a guide to ourselves.  The tour started with the guide showing us stars through the main telescope.  It was truly amazing and like nothing I have ever seen before.  We were then led outside where he pointed out consolations which were upside down!  That probably sounds ridiculous but for some reason I hadn´t really thought that everything in the sky is the other way up in the Southern hemisphere to how we see it in the North.  It also means that they see different things at different times of the year to us.  The thing that amused me most about this is that, as all the astronomy books they consult are written by those in the Northern hemisphere, they have to turn them upside down to look at the consolations!  After the outside bit we were taken back into the centre where we were shown slides of the sky.  Far from being dull it was absolutely fascinating, even more so as the guide was so enthusiastic.  He was so informative and showed us some amazing slide photos, including one he had taken himself over some ridiculously long exposure.  We were told about the current and future, planned telescopes in Chile.  The biggest is currently the imaginatively titled V.L.T. (not a weird vegetarian sandwich but Very Large Telescope).  It´s four large telescopes with a computer which combines the images projecting them together to make one very large one.  The huge, planned telescope is called O.W.L. which, again somewhat entertainingly, stands for Overwhelmingly Large.  These astronomers are creative types aren´t they?  Either that or they have very dry humour!

After the night of astronomy which I really can´t rave on about enough, we headed back to the campsite for a night in the van and tent, respectively.

So, after a good night´s sleep we had breakfast at the Cabana where the owner gave Mum a keyring with a horse brass and a plastic Chilean flag.  After, somewhat cleverly, admiring the flag I was given one too.  We carried on North towards the Parque Nationale de Chinchillas along a road with yet more outstanding views.  We drove through mountains with cowboy-like landscape, dry and filled with the most amazing cacti.  Mum and Dad had discovered the park when they were reading up on Chile in England and, as I bred and loved Chinchillas at school, it was a must see destination.

When we arrived at the park we were greeted by a friendly ranger.  He showed us around the centre where there was a range of nocturnal Chilean small mammals on show including a native Chilean marsupial, aswell as the legendary Chinchillas.  Chinchillas were hunted for their pelts but are now protected.  They have seventy hairs per follicle where humans have only one.  If you haven´t ever touched one you really should, there is no fur like it.  It´s best on the Chinchilla though.  They also, somewhat surprisingly for a small rodent, have a gestation period of one hundred and eleven days and give birth to young which are not only fully formed but are born with fur and with their eyes open.  Okay, so enough Chinchilla facts now me finks.  After the centre we were taken on a walk around part of the park by the ranger who told us about the flora and fauna.  He showed us a parasite which attacked the cacti which was transmitted by birds, amongst other things.

After the National Park we continued North and headed to the Valle del Encanto, a site with Inca stone paintings and bore holes in the rocks.  When we drove up to the entrance we saw a herd of goats which was being herded by proper cowboys on horseback!  We arrived at the gates and met two guides who described what there was to see and gave us a leaflet.  One of them told us that there were, “Maaaace”, and as we couldn´t figure out what he meant I took it upon myself to squeak like a mouse.  He agreed and his friend made cat noises.  We later discovered, much to our amusement, that what he was talking about were indentations in the rock where Incans had ground Maize!  The petroglifos were fascinating and the walk around them was lovely, even if I did nearly walk into a large area of stagnant water cleverly disguised as ground by abundant pond weed!

After the stones, we headed to Termos de Socos and en route saw a sign for canaries.  Mum and I decided that we would rather like to see the exotic birds but Dad was less convinced.  It transpired that he had the right inkling as, when we arrived, it was not some magnificent aviary but a pet breeding centre.  We drove around the car park and headed on.

When we got to the entrance for Termos de Socos we were pleased we had a four wheel drive, although in hindsight it was not difficult terrain!  We arrived at the place and decided to spend the night in the hotel.  Mum and I had a lovely thermal bath and we had the most amazing meal in the hotel restaurant.  The pebre (sauce which is served with bread) was great and we had awesome Chilean wine.

I woke up in good time on the Friday thankfully.  Actually, it wasn´t -that- good time, but it was okay, if the traffic wasn´t bad and I didn´t have any fateful events like the previous day.  I was pleased to have located the airport formerly and got there easily.  When I arrived at the car park the parking attendants made weird waving gestures to me.  Having waved back, I saw that they were also pointing and realised that my van was significantly higher than the barrier I was about to attempt to pass under.  Fortunately they helped to get the cars behind me to reverse as I, somewhat red facedly, manouvered to a lane for higher vehicles.

Once safely in the car park I got out and went into the terminal building.  When I got inside I saw on the screen that my parents flight had been delayed and headed back to the van to chill out for a bit.  I sat in the back and shut the door prior to realising that I had left something on the front seat.  When I tried to open the back door again it was jammed shut.  I did everything I could from turning the handle in every way possible to kicking it, but to no avail.  I then decided that the best thing would be to calm down and sit and do my make-up prior to trying again.  So, whilst looking slightly purdier, I tried the door again but it still wouldn´t budge.  Eventually, having sized up all the relatively small openings, I decided the only thing for it was to try to get help.  I tried calling a few people but, due to the van´s height, I had parked in an area without a roof, and subsequently a long way away from most of the people in their normal cars.  Eventually someone drove passed and I managed to get their attention, my making stupid noises and a sad face.  He stopped and came over and I handed him the keys out of the window.  I had a momentary thought that he could steal the van with me trapped in the back at this stage but decided this wasn´t the most likely outcome and this was my only real option.  He let me out before rather entertainingly declaring, “Welcome to Chile”, in a loud voice with comedy arm gestures.

So I was free and headed back into the terminal building.  Having panicked that I would be stuck in the van when my parents arrived, I was actually back in the airport a long time before they got through customs.  There were two exits and a screen showing people just before they came through the doors.  I looked on eagerly as various people arrived and had stupid thoughts going through my head from thinking I had missed them to the possibility of not recognising them.  When my Mum and Dad did arrive, not only did I recognise them, I also realised just how much I had missed them.  My Mum had a few tears and I would be lying if I said I wasn´t fighting them off.

After several hugs we headed to the service station that I had spent the night at to catch up a bit, grab some drinks and decide where we were headed.  I drove North and we were all amazed how beautiful the place was.  At one point my Mum gasped at the snow capped mountains in such a way that IU jumped out of my skin. 

After getting lost in Valparaiso, we eventually got to Los Vilos where we checked into a beautiful Cabana with a sea view.  For those who don´t know I guess you would translate Cabana as cabin or holiday cottage – a kind of nice self-contained unit.  Although you can get ones which are old lorry containers so I guess they don´t have to be nice, but we didn´t stay in any of those and this certainly wasn´t one.  Anyway, we sorted our things out and headed to a restaurant which was so beach front we may aswell have had sand in our seafood!  Looking out over the ocean from the Cabana was beautiful with a stunning view, birds a-plenty, boys playing football and even a man practicing his dressage moves on his horse on the beach!