Prologue: The South
Stretched along the western face of South America, there lies an intriguingly shaped land. Surprisingly long and unusually narrow, Chile is unmistakable. She is a bamboo cane; a drainpipe. If she joined a fidgeting queue of nervously excited aspiring fashion models, bulbous Brazil and pot-bellied Bolivia would steal envious glances at Chile's sleek and slender figure. From head to toe, her skinny form extends an extraordinary 4300 kilometres, similar to the separation of London from the North Pole. Measured along the road, rather than in a straight line, the distance is even greater. The capital, Santiago, is a 2000-kilometre drive from northerly Arica and 3000 from Punta Arenas,1 the largest of the scattered settlements that cling to mainland America's tapering tail.
Beyond Punta Arenas is a remote headland known as Cape Froward, principally noteworthy for its location at the very tip of the tail. Despite that accolade, this inaccessible spot is not the southernmost point of Chile. In fact, it's not even close. Across the Strait of Magellan cluster hundreds of inhospitable islands in an intricate, tangled web of fjords and sea canals. Among the jigsaw pieces are familiar names: Dawson Island, the Beagle Channel and the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego whose ultimate, defiant outcrop, where the Hermite Islands finally cede to the Drake Passage, is Cape Horn. Even the Cabo de Hornos, which maintains an expressionless vigil over volatile churning waters long the subject of sailors' nightmares, is not the endpoint. Beyond the horizon the Diego Ramírez archipelago, the final smattering of land in South America, breaks the surface of the angry ocean.
As far as my friends were concerned, their country projected further still. Maps invariably inset a diagram showing the Chilean Antarctic claim, a 37-degree slice of the icy continent that inconveniently overlaps with the sectors claimed by Argentina and the United Kingdom. Chilean Antarctic Territory also includes the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands. Given their less aggressive latitude, both of these have been selected by numerous countries for their Antarctic research stations, and they consequently rank among the more thoroughly explored parts of the continent. Whenever the topic arose, colleagues spared no trouble in eliminating any doubt I might carelessly have expressed: Chilean entitlement to that frozen land was an accepted fact, not a point for discussion. Accordingly, the mid-point of Chile is marked by a monument at Puerto Hambre, a small Patagonian bay that lies 4000 kilometres from Visviri in the northern desert and 4000 from the South Pole. Which, as everybody knows, is in Chile.
Once I'd arrived to live in Santiago, not long passed before the high regard in which my neighbours and colleagues held 'The South' became apparent. It is precioso, stunning, I was constantly told. Consequently, as evenings lengthened in the latter part of that inaugural year, I spent hours poring over maps of southern Chile, my deliberations aided by a glass or two of vino tinto. The outcome was a ticket to Punta Arenas, the most southerly destination within range of a domestic flight. When the school year lurched to a close in December, amid award ceremonies, balmy summer evenings and exhaustion, I took my trip to The South. I ate fire-roasted Patagonian lamb, lodged in a pink-painted clapboard house, and slept under canvas around the renowned W-circuit of the Torres del Paine National Park, losing in the process the first and finest of several cameras that disappeared throughout my South American years. These were places that few Chileans visited, I learned, since many lacked the means or opportunity or inclination to do so.
For a novice, it was a commendable first foray into Chilean Patagonia. Proudly returning to Santiago, brimming with tales of fearless endeavour, I was perplexed to discover that I hadn't visited 'The South' at all. No, where'd I'd gone was so far off the map that it didn't count. 'The South' for everyone else meant the regions of Los Ríos and Los Lagos, much closer to the capital but still several hundred kilometres away and, crucially, within a committed day's drive for the procession of chunky four-wheel-drive BMWs that head for rural refuge with the advent of summer.
From roaring waterfalls to belching sea lions, and from rolling hills to towering volcanoes, these are indeed enchanting regions. Eight sizeable lakes line up in a north-south row, like rungs on a ladder, with tongue-twisting names: Panguipulli, Riñihue, Puyehue and Llanquihue. On their shores, smart holiday residences jostle for north-facing aspects. Towards the mountains, there are magical forests of monkey puzzle. Further south is the unenticing port of Puerto Montt, the most populous city in the region. And southwest of there is Chiloé, Chile's largest island, known for its wooden churches, houses on stilts, colonies of penguins and a local cuisine known as curanto, still today cooked in a hole in the ground.
In contrast, the North of Chile is dominated by the vast, open expanse of the Atacama Desert, a place so dry that abandoned mining communities stand like ghost towns in the sand, having decomposed hardly at all in 50 years of disuse. Here in the desert, world-class observatories take advantage of constant clear skies, and in spite of plummeting night temperatures, the naked mountains never see snow. The church at San Pedro has a ceiling supported on beams of cactus wood, and El Tatio has the world's highest geyser field. In the Elqui Valley, a local grape brandy is distilled, a potent spirit known as pisco. Tiny Pica is a sleepy oasis awash with lemon groves, and when spring conditions conspire favourably around coastal Caldera, there are glimpses of the desierto florido: the flowering desert.
The eastern margin of Chile is formed by the ubiquitous barrier of the majestic Andes. In winter, the dreamy view of snowy peaks was a constant distraction outside my office window. The Cajón de Maipo is a spectacular Andean canyon within easy reach of the capital, and the upper mountains are close enough for a day trip to hike, to ride or to ski. High in the cordillera, there is a cross-border route known as Paso Los Libertadores, frequently closed by snowfall. On the Argentine side, the road to Mendoza gently descends through striking scenery of rusty red rock, complemented in autumn by amber-leaved poplar: elongated arrowheads pointing to the sky.
Out west are the winelands. Beyond the interminable vineyards and over a second mountain range is the Pacific coast. Every family has its favourite bay or resort, and the lucky ones keep an apartment there: a weekend bolthole and a summer sanctuary to escape the city's roasting heat. Some way offshore is the Juan Fernández archipelago, known for its harvest of rock lobster. Three thousand kilometres further west is Rapa Nui, annexed by Chile in 1888 and also known as Isla de Pascua: Easter Island. Most salient of its historic sites are the ahu, wide stone platforms on which giant carved moai have in modern times been re-erected, their backs to the ocean, watching once more over their devoted peoples as they did of old.
There is much to be admired throughout Chile, but my colleagues were right: The South, in particular, is precioso. The lakes and parks of the Near South have a tasteful but somewhat managed charm, and at the continent's utter end, the rugged, remote Far South has an abrasive, untamed splendour. But the South of Chile has more than just these two. In such an elongated land, there is still room for more. Somewhere south of Puerto Montt, Patagonia begins. Slapped in the middle of this region is a town called Coyhaique. I'd noticed that name listed on the airport departures board, but for some reason visiting there had simply never occurred to me. On the map, Coyhaique was phenomenally far from everything else, and I'd rarely heard anyone say that they'd actually been.
The moment I began to read more, I was hooked. In a country already characterised by astonishing variety, Chilean Patagonia raises the standard even higher. It is a place of wonder. Gaping chasms twist between thundering chains of mountains. Mighty glaciers descend from two colossal ice fields, bulldozing through a landscape that, as a result, is even now being formed. Here flow Chile's most powerful rivers, implausibly coloured by glacial sediment. Among uncounted lakes, there is one that goes deeper than almost any other on Earth. Glassy fjords cut the land into ribbons, and the ocean fringe is strewn with islands, each one silently keeping centuries of secrets that will never be known. And spread across it all, one of the greatest temperate rainforests on the planet hems the Pacific coastline. Only in dreams and fairy tales are there places of such staggering beauty.
This bewildering landscape is home to some remarkable wildlife: illustrious condors, unfathomable whales and venerable owls; prowling pumas, preposterous pelicans and playful penguins. Patagonia has the world's southernmost hummingbirds, a deer that doesn't reach your kneecap, and trees that have stood since before the birth of Christ. And - clutching at straws a little now - in these parts, too, are the largest-ever rhubarb stalks and the world's most vindictive horseflies.
During the presidency of the dictator, Augusto Pinochet, a road was built through this region for the first time. Most of the route remains unpaved; distances are far and facilities...
