September 6, 2009

Date: Sunday, September 6, 2009 11:06:31 PM
Subject: I'm in Chile, I'm flying out tomorrow night, and I'll be back!

Buenas noches (you may substitute the appropriate phrase and language for your part of the world),

As most of you know, I'm in a brand new country: Chile! This is a little different from my other long weekend trips; I'm treating this as a "get acquainted" trip knowing I'll definitely be back again! With that in mind, I'm not letting the sometimes torrential rain, thick fog, or flooded roads bother me too much :)

I had rented a Suzuki Grand Vitara thinking I'd need an SUV for the snow/ice roads in the Alps. Well, I haven't gone to the Alps yet, but the SUV has certainly come in handy! More on that later...

My flight landed on time, and I paid the $132 USD "reciprocal fee" before going through immigration. Nobody in customs/immigration asked me how long I was staying! So I breezed through... Well, not quite: there were 3 transcontinental flights that arrived just before mine so it was "a little crowded". Oh well, I'm glad noone asked me THAT MOST DREADED QUESTION so no complaints! Getting the rental car was a fun process too but it all turned out fine in the end :)

So I started driving... was on the road around 9 AM or so (after landing at 7:30 AM). Of course I had no clue where I was going -- "wherever I felt like it and/or wherever the road takes me". I had two very good maps of Santiago and Chile, but since I'm new to the area I really couldn't figure where I was going -- I started going North, then East, South, East, West, and North again... making a semi-circle north of Santiago and then back again through downtown and up north again... throughout this I had no idea where I was and I LOVED IT!!

After joining "Ruta 5 Norte" (that's the Pan American Highway), I kind of knew where I was, but not where I was going. All I knew is I had to come back to Santiago before dark to check into my motel (yes, ALWAYS reserve a motel when traveling internationally especially when it's only for 1 night -- lesson learnt the hard way).

The Andes range runs parallel to this road just a few miles away to the East -- visible for most of the ride on a clear day, but not today. Today, I just saw the bottom of the mountain peaks and thick cloud cover a couple thousand feet up. BEAUTIFUL! For some unknown reason I exited at a town called Calera, and for another unknown reason I started driving Southeast towards Valparaiso instead of getting back on Ruta 5. This road (Hwy 60: "Ruta" 60) is even more scenic than 5! I am coming back here when its not so cloudy. If you've been on U.S. Hwy 101 about 100 miles north of San Francisco, or I-5 between Medford and Grants Pass, Oregon, or I-81 through North Carolina, it's like that. (If you've not been on those roads yet, go there!)

When I got to Valparaiso all I saw was thick fog covering everything. I had remembered reading this is a beautiful city, I didn't see any of it due to the fog... but apparently it's got a lot of homes that are built on cliffs overlooking the ocean -- a lot like Positano or Amalfi -- I actually was looking for that but never saw it. Maybe next trip :) So now it was time to head back to Santiago on Hwy 68...

The roads today just kept getting progressively more scenic!!! Ruta 68 was even better than Ruta 60! And once I was over a mountain pass, all the fog disappeared too and I could actually SEE it! There were mountains everywhere, greenery everywhere, dogs walking themselves, and a truly wonderful restaurant with an exceptional creme brulee that was soooo good I went back there for dinner this evening! But I'm getting ahead of myself here...

I was back in Santiago by 3pm or so, and it took about an hour to find my hotel and check in, then another hour to just "relax" and shower, etc... I actually don't know, I lost track of the time by then... After that I headed back out, to the "Las Condas" suburb of Santiago -- the same place I was wandering at this morning, but this time I made a few stops. There are spur roads that climb straight up some humongous mountain -- and they were so densely covered with fog that I could just imagine what a beautiful sight it must be without it! :P (ain't nothing like imagination!) There were also some sections of the road that were flooded but after watching a car in front go through, my SUV didn't have too many problems on those :)

A lot more driving on foggy mountain roads later, I went back to dinner at the same restaurant as lunch -- about 45 km west of Santiago, then back across Santiago to my motel well after dark! It's 11pm here now (same timezone as EDT in USA) -- been a looong day (long 36 hours actually)... the forecast tomorrow is for "cloudy skies" in Santiago and rain up north, so I might head south for best possible results... or just linger here again... tomorrow night I'm flying back home, so this will probably be my last email of the trip :)

The pictures from last 2 days will be up on my website within the next 1/2 hour:
http://www.callmewanderer.com/southamer/chile09/index.html#TOP

So until either tomorrow or November 27 from Peru,

Adios,
-yo.