According to a young man in a Santiago restaurant, Chile is the most depressed country on earth. There was no reason to dispute his honesty but his statement had a hollow ring to it even at the time, though perhaps it would have been rude to point it out. For at that very moment we were on our first full day in the country, scoffing rounds of Thai food and listening to tales of existential crisis, and the snow was continuing to settle on the tops of the Andes. The mountains that surround the Chilean capital like a team of security guards had just had their first 24 hours of snow, and with one more day the slopes would be ready for skiing.
At the same time, in the north of the country, the temperature was nudging 30C and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky; an hour’s drive west of Santiago, the conditions in the central valleys were those of an English spring day. How anybody could be depressed in a country that, over 8,000km from top to bottom, has a climate that can simulate all four seasons all year round is a question for the psychologists. For a tourist, it would just seem mad not to go there.
Flying into Santiago, we spent three days in the capital. Like many major cities in the new world, its character is partly defined by the legacy of the old. When the city was first built, its mountainous backdrop provided natural protection against attack by the enemies of the then colonial ruler, Spain. Now, it serves more as a trap for the smog created by 5 million people, but the peaks also provide the best way to see the city, and the long climb (or, let’s be honest, short drive) to the top of the San Cristobal hill is the best way to get an idea of the size of the city.
Most of the capital’s early history has now disappeared. The original buildings, constructed from dung and straw, tended to collapse whenever hit by one of the country’s frequent earth tremors.
One of the few to remain is the Iglesia San Francisco, its uneven floors and walls and sparsely decorated chapel belying the effort behind its construction, its quiet gloom a testimony to the might of the city’s founder, Pedro de Valdivia.
Moving down and through the old town center, the impression of a European capital is maintained: the bustling Mercado Central, where I foolishly chewed on a piece of pulpo (octopus) to impress the locals; the Plaza de la Libertad; and the imposing edifice of La Moneda. The buildings often come complete with mock-marble effects, in an attempt to overcome the fact that the stone was too cumbersome to lug over the Andes in the 18th century.
The legacy of the Spanish conquerors is obvious in the capital, and it is not a coincidence that the central square is the Plaza de Armas. But it quickly becomes apparent that modern Chile was formed under the influence of many countries. It was Bernardo O’Higgins, the son of an Irish engineer, who led the revolutionary army against the Spaniards. One of the country’s most inspirational leaders — Arturo Alessandri Palma — was of Swiss descent, while a huge number of Germans emigrated to Chile in the 19th century. This mix is still present today in the country’s varied cuisine and in the residential areas of Santiago where Georgian-style town houses stand next to brightly colored bodegas.
Add the ubiquitous influence of the United States (from the television, to the malls and the huge steaks in the restaurants, to the opening this month of the first Ritz Carlton in South America), and it is easy to see why more and more Europeans find the journey to this part of South America an easy one to make.
The fact is that, post-9/11, many long-haul tourists began to worry about traveling to favored destinations such as Indonesia. Factor in the customary friendliness of a South American people, an abundance of natural produce and a favorable exchange rate, and the case seems simple. What’s more, the Chilean national airline — LANChile — is widely acknowledged as being the best operating out of South America.
Yet while Santiago offers an intriguing and easy introduction to the country, it is nothing more than an appetizer for the main courses to be found elsewhere. As the southern hemisphere slips into winter, so the skiers from the north come down to spend a season on the slopes of Portillo and Termas de Chillan; tearing down the mountains in the morning and lounging on the beaches of the Pacific coast in the afternoon. In the summer, the place to be is Patagonia, the southern territory extending over nearly 750,000 sq km of largely unspoilt landscape.
Our trip, however, was heading towards the opposite end of the country and the Atacama desert. Stretching towards Peru and Bolivia, it lays claim to being the driest desert in the world, with only 0.01mm of rain falling in an average year.
The Atacama sells itself on its remoteness, and for a region that size, served by only two airports, this claim holds true. I cannot remember ever experiencing true silence before — the kind that rings in your ears — but standing in the desert at sunset I heard it. Or didn’t, depending on which way you think about it.
The main gateway to the desert is the small town of San Pedro. Populated mostly by adventurous young things seemingly attached to a mountain bike by surgery, it is the kind of place you imagine Clint Eastwood staggering to after three days on the run from bandits. There is a large graveyard, a dusty football pitch, a small church missing statues filched by protesting Indians, and at least two impressive hotels.
Explora is one of them, a luxury hotel that prefers to use neither the word luxury nor hotel. Instead it likes to focus attention on its aim of taking city types accustomed to rushing around and introducing them to the solitary beauty of the desert through a series of “explorations”.
If you ignore the babble, however, and can afford the price-tag, then there can’t be many better ways of enjoying such an experience.
As San Pedro is 2,500m above sea level, these explorations begin at an easy pace to aid acclimatization. So our first evening in the desert found us wandering along the Valle de la Lune. It doesn’t take much to work out how it earned its name, with a terrain of dunes gliding into sandstone crags, the only ornament a frosting of salt left by a freakish rainstorm two years ago. It was as far away from a crowded GNER carriage as I could imagine.
After a two-hour walk came a three-course meal. The next morning, I was suitably prepared for a bike ride to salt-flat oases where I watched flamingoes, white except for the radiant pink on the underside of their wings, feeding on the tiny creatures that dwell in the crystal-cool oases. That afternoon, I took to horseback for the first time in my life; the next morning I floated in a hot spring, munching on fresh strawberries.
While Explora lays on these activities in their all-inclusive price, several places in San Pedro offer similar, though you may have to bring your own strawberries. Indeed, the town is geared towards outdoor activities of every type.
There is also a downside, of course; Valle de la Luna can now attract up to 300 visitors at sunset, while the requirements of ever-increasing numbers of tourists in terms of water, electricity, and consumer goods puts a strain on what is already a fragile area, and new developments will not be legislated against by the government.
This seems strange, given that Isabel Allende, among others, has made many references to law-making as a Chilean obsession. It seems, too, that the favorite laws to be passed are those that are a bit mad. Until the 20th century, for example, it was illegal to paint a house any color other than grey. Meanwhile, laws protecting the Chilean pine tree state that only the great-grandson of the man who planted the tree can chop it down, and while legislation allows public workers to strike, they must make up their hours another time.
After the best part of 10 days in Chile, it was still hard to fathom why anyone would be depressed by living in the country. It is a vibrant, beautiful part of the world that offers no end of activity and, in the Andes, a picture-postcard view whichever way you turn.
Searching for an explanation I could think of only one answer, and that from their idiosyncratic laws; Chile is the only country in the world where it’s illegal to get a divorce.
Where to Stay
In Santiago, the San Cristobal (Avenida Santa Maria 1742) costs from £100 for a double room; the Chilhotel (Cirujano Guzm?n 103), doubles from £35. In San Pedro de Atacama, a minimum three-night stay at Explora (explora.com) will cost £1,000.
What to See
Tours at Concha Toro in Pirque cost $4pp and are twice daily during the week (+2 821 7069, conchaytoro.com/visit/f_tours.html).
- Arab News Features 3 July 2003
