Santiago, Altos de Liracy

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Really got to get better at this blog writing thing! Only 10 days have passed but far too many things have happened to remember so far so I will try and fill you in (no pics I´m afraid this time as being me I have left my cable in the tent.

I guess I should start where we left off with the missing luggage in Santiago!

After a de-stress beer at the airport we got the bus in to the city and found our first hostel, "Don Santiago", which was a really great place - small, clean, and with awesome brekfasts thrown in! Still feeling a bit dazed from the lack of sleep and no clean clothes to change into, we spent the day recouperating in the and chatting to the two guys who ran the hostel, Diego and Padro (at least I´m fairly sure that was his name - it got to the point where it was far too late to ask him!). Had a wander up and down the street which was bizzareley full of themed restaurants (think Viking, Deep Sea, Rocky horror show....) and lent it a strange Disney world feel. Evening turned out to be really nice, sitting in the patio of teh hostel with Padro and a couple from Brazil and learnt a lot about Chilean cultures and attitudes, and all the inter country stereotypes and opinons of each other (I guess its kind of like the relationships between England and France/Germany - we all love to hate each other!).

Over the next few days (thankfully with luggage delivered to us as promised the next day!) am surprised by just how modern it is here - it could really just be any place in Europe, and the kids are a hell of a cool bunch. It´s just like walking down a street in Leeds - lots of emo kids, metal kids, indie kids, hippies, you name it. And also quite hilariously 80´s retro music is HUGE here! Depeche Mode and The Cure are the big stadium events of the year, and street posters advertise club nights at a club called "Blondie" which sadly we miss out on due to an early bus on Saturday morning. We spent our 3 days in Santiago really just wondering around and getting a feel for the place, as there´s not a great deal of "must see" sights. Enjoy our first of what I´m sure will be many of the national drink, "Pisco Sour", which is a cocktail made with Pisco, Lime, Ice and eggs whites. Very nice 😊

From Santiago, we got a bus 3 hours south to the city of Talca, from where we would get a local bus to a village called Altos del Vilches, the starting point for our first trek around the national park Altos del Lircay. Our plan was to stock up on food supplies and buy gas for our stove in the city, but unfortunately this plane went somewhat askew when no gas seemed to fit our stove and my back up trip to the supermarket to get lots of bread, Tuna, nuts and fruit to see us through fell apart at the checkout. It appears I´d ended up in a cash and carry of somesort and the minimum quanity to buy was 10 of anthing. So what I actually left with was 10 sachets of mayonaise, 10 hot dog rolls 15 cereal bars and 10 bananas. So this was our wonderful cuisine for the next 4 days! Except the bananas all got squished so in fact it was mayonaise sarnies and cereal bars. Bon apetite!

The bus ride up to the park was beautiful, through rolling fields of vineyards, along rivers and streams up towards the andes. The climate in middle Chile is quite mediteranean, which reminded me a lot of driving round the hills in Malaga. After picking up various packages for people along the way including crates of lettuces, matresses, floorboards and plenty of school children, the bus rumbled to its last stop in the village. Altos was so serene and quiet, with huge trees and a few wooden cabins that turn into cafes or cabañas for tourists in the summer. However as it is now autumn in Chile we seemed to be the only people around! We stop for a while in one of the houses-cum-cafes and get talking to the owner, Tito, in our little Spanish. Am amazed at how much we actually manage to talk about! He made us some wicked Jamon y Queso sandwhices and drew us a map of the best places to walk in the park. The people here are just fantastic. Everyone is so eager to help you where they can, and when language becomes a problem will laugh along with you rather than at you which is always good! It really encourage you to enter situations where you can practice your Spanish, rather than scaring you away from them.

After lingering a little to long with Tito, and much jesting about our "Gringo Grande" status (being 6 foot plus here doesn´t exactly help you blend in!), we set out for the walk to the park. From what we had read it would be about 5km to teh entrance and then an hours walk to the first campsite, and as it was half four already we would be fighting the sunset! Turns out the whole of the walk was up hill!! As two people who have lead an entirely sedintary life for the past few months and in 25 degree heat this was a test to say the least! After about an hour we reached the Administracion entrance, where you pay a few pounds entrance ($3,00 pesos) and agree with the Conaf ranger the route you will be walking and get a map of the treks in the park. There are dozens of National Parks in Chile all overseen by a network of rangers operated by Conaf, and it is imporatant to sign in and out of the Parks, and tell them your plans, so if any thing happens they have an idea where you are. I sat down with a ranger, and again in Sanish, talked through the possible routes, and where we could camp and get water from. We planned to stay for 2-3 nights, and do a trek that takes you up to volcanic lake.

After further pretty strenuous hour an a half hike we reached the campiste for the night (when i say campiste i just mean a flat patch of land, no toilets or water or anything - peeing in bushes!!). We didn´t pass anybody on the hike and there are no other tents here. We don´t encounter anybody the next day either so it is entirely possible that we are the only people here! The night is compeletely dark by 7pm and we fall asleep not long after and wake up at dawn. We set of on our planned hike with water taekn from a stream and a ready supply of cereal bars and mayo sandwhiches. The hike should be an hour or so along and then turn up hill for 2 hours. However even the supposed flatish hike is really intense up hill and our lack of fittness is showing, but we persevere!We make the turn off to climb up through dense forest on sloped of 45 degrees wich really tests us. After walking through this for about two hours (I think in fact it should take experienced trekkers an hour!) we finally come out above the treeline and are rewarded with amazing views across the valleys for mile and miles. The landscape is just stunning, and given a spooky lunar feely by a massive forrest fire that burned recently and has charred many of the trees silver-grey. I will have to put photos on here next time!

The contrast above the treeline is stark. From dense forests we emerged into a rocky exposed and barren landscape whcih we continued to walk up (the trail is quite clear and luckily its hard to get lost off it!). By this point is it around 1pm and the sun is very intense and we are concious of consering our water. Unfortuntaley it became apparent that we just weren´t going to make the lake which was anouther 2.5 hours walking in these exposed conditions. We were a little dissapointed, but as we set sat on top of our little mounatin and realised that we´d climbed over a thousand meters up and took in the view, we figured it wasn´t a bad first attempt at trekking.

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