Struan and Anna in Chile: Good times in the Chilean heartlands (Part 1)

Having spent a fair amount of time getting to know the North of Chile and the Andean Altiplano, we headed back to Santiago to meet some friends flying in from the UK! Rob and Naomi, and Lipo (real name David, but he's Lipo to us), came over to take some hols here, which was fab for us.

the crew without lipo

the crew with lipo, without Anna

Before heading off on our planned jaunt, we spent a night in Santiago, in the photos above we're on our apartment building roof terrace - here's some pics of the sunset from there:

a fire somewhere

Rob and Nomi like trekking, they live near the UK's Lake District (we once almost killed their dog taking it as a puppy up one of the highest peaks in the Lakes, Struan saved it, this is true) so we decided to spend some time in the Chilean heartlands, the incredibly beautiful area immediately to the south of Santiago, where the mediterranean lowlands are dominated by vineyards and other agriculture, and the highlands are covered in beautiful green forest.

Lipo is also a keen walker, but his favourite pastime is trying to eat as many dry crackers as possible in one go:

8...

Next day we were up bright and early and headed south by train. We've raved about Chile's intercity buses before, and the train was also excellent - clean and efficient. Chile only has one operational passenger train line, which passes through most of the towns south of Santiago, until Chillan. Back in the day, Chile had lines going north and south from Santiago, and the southern one went all the way to Puerto Montt. The Pinochet government essentially stopped investing in the system, because trains need expensive infrastructure that has to be paid for by the public purse, which didn't fit the economic ideology followed by Pinochet (that's also why, as we've mentioned before, Santiago - a city of over 5 million people - has only recently built a metro system - a Pinochet-era ideological refusal to provide genuine public transport, which directly led to Santiago becoming one of the most polluted cities in the world, due to the vast number of unregulated small buses used to move people around).

Back in the UK, in our home county, Cambridgeshire, we note that a maniacal ideologically unsound dictator is not required to make a complete hash of the transport system - as the Cambridgeshire Guided Bus debacle continues. What's a guided bus? It's a bus, a normal bus with normal wheels, that for some reason goes along a specially built trackway (built at vast expense, but poorly designed and executed of course) which stops at the edge of the city, at which point the bus joins the log-jammed traffic on the existing roads. Quite why a bus-only road with say a barrier at each end to keep it private wouldn't have achieved the same bizarre objective we don't know - but it would have been cheaper to build and easier to design, being a normal road... so a guided bus is a bit like a train, but a really cr*p expensive one that doesn't work ever, and doesn't contribute in any way to solving congestion problems, like re-opening the second train line into Cambridge might have. Watch out Chile, you might get one one day.

Anyhoo... the train took us to an agricultural town called Curico - not too far from our ultimate destination - a cabin in the furthest sector of the famous Parque Nacional Radal Siete Tazas - where we stocked up on supplies.

then made the girls carry the food

Rob and Struan laugh about it

To get up to the park we had to take two local buses, the second in particular, which goes through the park was the hottest and most crowded bus we've ever been on - we didn't get any photos of it at its most crowded, as it would simply have been a photo of someone's arm against the camera lens. Staying in cabins (cabañas) is a very popular form of Chilean holiday. It's fair to say that this and going to the beach (Vina del Mar, La Serena etc), are how most Chileans will spend their summer holidays. As a result the buses were rammed. Here's some pics of the journey - often we've found the journey is half the fun, which was definitely true here.

the first micro

we've included this to show off Struan's tan...

Lipo with the bags

the second micro - loading bags on the roof

off to the park!

Our cabaña was located in a private ranch just beyond the furthest public sector of the park. We stopped on the way for a couple of photos which should give an idea of how beautiful this park is.

back on the green bus!

The only hitch in the plan was slowly becoming clear, we only arrived at Parque Ingles (the last public campsite before the private sector of the park) after 9pm, and it was getting dark. Our cabin was still another 45 minute walk from the campsite, in the dark, and we didn't know the way. We were also carrying backpacks, plus all of the food, a crate of beer, and several bottles of wine... in the pitch black, wearing shorts and flip-flops, we eventually made it to the cabañas - where the guys who run the site packed us into a truck and drove us the final 50 metres along to our cabin...

Still, it was asado time! Woop!

the other guy in the background is a Chilean english teacher - come to practice his skills

We grilled up some steaks and the girls made ratatouille, yum!

Next day up bright and early for our leisurely trek through the park...

breakfast time!

ready!

We had a great trek through the park, before heading back to the cabin for another asado. Here are some pics.

cooling off

This park is called "Siete Tazas" because of an amazing waterfall there, which has over time created seven "cups" within its flow. These are different sized bowls of water which flow into one another in a line. It's difficult from the viewpoint to get a full view of all of the "cups" in a line, but these pics give some idea.