Adios and gracias Chile - for now .....

On Thursday, I will cross the border into Peru, leaving behind the most extraordinary country I think I will ever visit

How to describe Chile? Its shape is often compared to that of a string bean, which makes sense when - according to my guidebook - the country averages 175kms wide, and measures 4300kms from head to toe

Bordered by the mighty Andes, to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west, and stretching from desolate, storm-lashed, Cape Horn, in the south, to the driest place in the world - the Atacama Desert, in the north - this country is a sensory overload of a place, and I think driving through it in a 2cv, is the ideal way to take in its vastness, and variety - i.e. slowly! 

My first encounter with Chile was inauspicious. Having finally set off from Ushuaia, I had passed through the customs post at San Sebastián. The asphalt ended immediately, to be replaced by the dreaded “ripio”: a washboard of a dirt road. It was raining, and I was proceeding slowly, terrified of damaging my little car. After about ten miles of this, I was overtaken by a 4x4, which waved me down, and told me I needed to go back, as I hadn't got all the required stamps on my bit of paper. Not a great start to a relationship! 

Due to Modestine's late arrival, I had to bypass the Torres del Paine. I had been so looking forward to seeing these jagged, snowy, peaks, but, against Ben’s advice, which was “wing it, mum - book as you go along”, I had kept myself amused, during a busy August’s B and B-ing, by finding gorgeous places to stay, and booking them. I'd even written it all on the map - mentally plotting my route. It made me happy at the time, but now it had come back to bite me, so Chile Chico was my next border post. My first conversation in Chile Chico, was with a gaucho. I asked him where I could find my hotel, and he replied - in english - and with a Yorkshire accent! His mother was from Leeds! 

The Carretera Austral used up all my superlatives. Towering forests, glaciers, turquoise rivers, insanely high waterfalls, precipitous drops, then a small settlement of tiny tin houses, in the middle of nowhere, chimneys smoking, and gauchos, resembling centaurs, so at home are they on horseback, going about their business, usually with a border collie or two trotting alongside. I loved my five days travelling slowly northwards, and would have happily stayed for much longer. The people were lovely, welcoming, open, honest, friendly - I do so hope it doesn't change with the inevitable advance of the asphalt

The landscape became tamer as we progressed northwards. Fields replaced mountainsides - it looked almost like England - but always with a perfectly conical, snow covered, volcano, dominating the eastern skyline. Monkey Puzzle forests, growing out of ash and lava, were gradually replaced by vineyards, and the heat increased as we reached Santiago

Easter Island was quite amazing. The landscape had elements of Ireland, and the Outer Hebrides, as did the weather. We were buffeted by howling gales, and frequent torrential downpours, but in between the sun was hot, and the sea - we were told - was warm. It was also rough, and rocky, so we watched other people surfing, whilst sipping my new favourite tipple - a pisco sour - instead of braving the waves

The moai were extraordinary. We went to the quarry where they were all created, before being “walked” to their final positions. Ben's friends once said he resembled one, so we went to find it, and took the obligatory photograph. They were right! We walked up the highest hill, peered into massive craters, filled with lakes and islands of bulrushes, saw ancient stone houses with tiny doorways, and tried - twice - to see the dawn behind the fifteen moai. The first day it was rainy, so we didn't even set off, and the next was cloudy, but we went anyway, braving the potholed road, and the many wild horses - all the more interesting in the dark

Back in Santiago, Ben left for work, and I went to collect a very very shiny car, from Francisco, and his dad. She had had an oil change, and lots of other tweaks, and everything that had shaken loose on the Carretera had been fixed - I even had a working radio - and a new sticker on my window, thanks to Ismael Enrique Harlowe, the incredibly helpful president of the Club de la Citroneta of Santiago

Escaping the city took ages, but - once free - I was back on the boring motorway. I stopped and bought avocados, nectarines, and strawberries, for a bargain price, and ate the fruit as I drove along. Apart from hopping out to pay tolls, this, and the following day, were monotonous, and I decided the middle bit was my least favourite part of Chile

All this changed when I embarked on a thirteen hour drive, crossing the Atacama Desert. I have definitely never been anywhere remotely like it. Bone dry, searingly hot, scoured with fierce winds, blowing sand storms across the road, on and on, for hundreds of miles. No birds, no plants, no petrol stations!! There were, however, plenty of roadside shrines, to those whose attention had, presumably, wandered - often with the rusted remains of their car nearby. These shrines can be tiny, and simple, or quite enormous - often with a portrait of the departed, and with tableaux depicting them and and their family, complete with the trappings of their former life: a deck chair, a barbecue, parts of cars, road cones (?), plastic flowers - one even had a swing seat! 

San Pedro de Atacama is very popular - suddenly I was on the tourist trail. Ben tells me it's the farthest south a lot of backpackers get, or the farthest north - depending on where they started. It was here, during a trip to see the sunset, from la Valle de la Luna, that I met a young man from Kirkby Lonsdale, travelling with someone who had - ta da - stayed at El Rio!!

I saw lots of photogenic flamingoes, decided against bathing in a hot spring (I was boiling already), declined to rise at 4.30 to see a geyser spout, and nearly lost my laundry when I couldn't find the shop where I'd left it the day before! Then I left, for another day in the desert

Deserts, I now know, are never the same for long. After majestic sand dunes, Lawrence of Arabia style, I was suddenly in deep red rock fields - looking like someone had run amok with a cement lorry, then driven through it, but for miles in every direction. This would give way to salt encrusted,  earth spattered boulders, looking like a frosty day in Field Broughton, then there would be more sand. You get the picture

In the midst of all this, and miles from anywhere, were a series of defunct mines, with optimistic names like Rico (rich) Bonanza, marked out solely by sad little cemeteries - one was simply a series of simple iron crosses, half buried in the sand. It must have been a terrible existence, up there in mud huts, with the dust, the sun, the freezing nights, and all in the hope of finding their fortune, to take home to the family

Continuing the theme, today I went to see Humberstone, an abandoned saltpetre plant. It closed in 1960 and is now a world heritage site. It makes an interesting half day outing. In its heyday it housed many families, and there was a schoolhouse, complete with desks, the usual terrifying hospital, featuring stretchers, operating tables, and instruments; a cinema, with all the seats still in it, and a huge, deep, swimming pool, made out of iron sheets. There was a high diving board, and rows of seats for the spectators. It was 2.3m deep throughout - sink, or swim? - and I wished it still had some water in it!! The central plaza had a bandstand, and there were photos suggesting that it been heaven on earth for the miners who lived there - strolling through the plaza, having a game of tennis, or billiards, before cooling off in the pool, but it turns out only the managerial classes did all of those things. The rest just toiled, and boiled - from the age of twelve onwards

I am now officially in the tropics, having crossed the Tropic of Capricorn two days ago. I started my journey through Chile with icy winds straight from Antarctica, a battened down car, Uggs, and a woolly jumper, and am ending it with the roof rolled back, clad in a battered Panama hat, that I have to tie on because it blows off when a lorry passes me, a tee shirt and leggings, and lashings of factor 50! 

It's been simply fantastic. I always knew - or, at least, thought - that it would be the best bit of my trip, and, although I'm happy to be proved wrong, I don't think anywhere else I go en route to Colombia will be better than the natural wonder that is Chile, with its lovely friendly, honest, welcoming people, its clean countryside, it's empty roads, courteous drivers, and - of course- it's simply magnificent scenery. This is not my last visit………