I was very excited to be heading north to the capital of Chile, not because I had any interest in seeing Santiago, but because the trip involved one of the few active sections of long-distance train service in Chile. I had not yet taken a train on my trip and was looking forward to the experience. From Pucon, I caught a short bus to the city of Temuco where the end of the line was located. After waiting around in a very sketchy part of town, I bought a ticket for the train and waited in anxious anticipation. As the time drew closer and the crowds grew, a train pulled up and everyone made their way out to find the appropriate car. It was here that we were informed that due to an accident up the line we would be spending just over half of the trip in buses. Foiled again. Nobody was particularly interested in taking a bus from 11:00 PM to 4:00 AM and then switching to a train for the next three hours, but there you have it. I think the first class passengers probably got it the worst, though to their credit, the train company provided some pretty posh buses. Upon arriving at the train, we were even less pleased as it was over half empty (i.e. everyone had a seat to themselves) and the leg room was awesome. It would have been a really nice trip.

Following my failed train excursion, I was in the capital of Chile, Santiago, at about the same latitude as Mendoza, Argentina. I hadn´t heard any glowing reports about Santiago, it was supposed to be a polluted reasonably unattractive city, so I didn´t plan to spend much time there. It looked like a nice enough city to me, though. Granted, I only spent part of one morning walking around, but the areas I visited were quite nice. Nonetheless, I elected to devote my time to Valparaiso, Chile, a city just an hour and a half west of Santiago, set on the ocean and spread over the mountains rising from the seashore.

The town itself is pretty dangerous and the communities on the hillsides are known for their mix of poverty-striken barrios intertwined with communities of obvious wealth. I had located another private residence to stay in and ended up with one of the most interesting and pleasant families I´ve run into. It was owned by an older lady and her husband and they had her brother staying with them for a while. I enjoyed myself so much I ended up staying four days. The brother was the most interesting of the group as he was extremely talkative and engaging. Unfortunately, he had a raspy, quiet voice I had tremendous difficulty understanding. During my time there he did his best to convert me to his religion, which seemed to be some bizarre mixture of christianity and yoga. Maybe it was just yoga. I´m not sure, but I´ve got a few pamphlets to help me figure it out. Luckily, he tempered his religious provocations with card tricks, and everything worked out just fine.

My first day in town, I elected to check out the famed hillsides which have earned the title of UNESCO World Heritage site. Making my way up the steep hills in the western part of the city I found myself wondering why I hadn´t chosen the more touristy (and slightly less impoverished) center portion of the city. I felt sort of like a piece of bacon thrown into a pit of starved dogs and decided to make my way rather quickly east. It was only at this stage that I truly took to heart the line in my guidebook which described the hapharzard, logic-free arrangement of streets in this portion of the town. I had two maps, each of which looked like hand-drawn plates of spaghetti, and each of which were worthless as I didn´t know where I was or how to get where I wanted to be. Naturally, if you are going to build streets with no rhyme or reason, you may as well not label them either. I decided my best bet was to follow traffic out and after a considerable amount of time finally arrived safely below. I spent the rest of the day walking around the downtown area, lounging at the docks, and enjoying some of the architecture of the town.

That evening for entertainment, my hosts and I gathered around to watch the presidential debates. Normally I´d pass, but I decided to check it out as it was thought to be the first of its kind. Both of the leading candidates were women. It ended up just being a normal debate and the candidate I thought was better probably wasn´t. Apparently judging someone solely on clarity of speech isn´t the best grounds for electing a leader. It was interesting nonetheless.

The real reason I´d come to Valpo in the first place was to visit a nearby National Park which had a hill made famous by Charles Darwin. Upon reaching the top of the hill (or mountain if you´d prefer as it stands over 6,000 feet) he remarked on the beauty of the location and the tremendous view of both the Andes and the sea. As I have mentioned previously, I´m no great travel genius, but if it´s good enough for Darwin, it´s good enough for me. I decided to make my way out there bright and early. Around 10 AM, I started looking for a bus to the town from which I could catch a bus to the park (bright and early is a relative term). Around noon I got to the town of Limache, the midway point, and began searching for a bathroom, not wanting to take the bumpy, local bus for the next hour on a full bladder. I don´t know if I´ve mentioned before, but using the restroom in Chile is not free. You must either be a customer somewhere or pay at a public facility. As a cheapskate, I find this a painful offense, but since it only costs around $.12, I try not to make much of a fuss. Regrettably, I had no luck finding anywhere in town with a public facility and wasted a good half-hour searching. As a result, I arrived at the park entrance around 2:00. Upon inquiring at the gate, I learned the round-trip hike to the viewpoint takes about seven hours and the park closes promptly at 5:30. This was unfortunate news, but I decided after all my troubles I´d start the walk anyway and just see how it went. A plaque commemorating Darwin´s visit is located about an hour below the peak, and I thought I might have a shot at making it up and back in time to that point. Luckily it was a cool, overcast day, and I made good time towards the top of the mountain (La Compana). It looked like I would be able to make it up to the plaque if I really went full bore, and buckled down. The mountain was a fantastic rocky spire rising above the surrounding hills.

I reached the plaque right at 4:00 PM and was unimpressed with the view from this point (still well below the peak), due in part to the clouds. I was exhausted and rested a couple of minutes before making my way down

Since I only had an hour and a half to make it down, I basically trotted to make it in time, and as I reached the bottom with about five minutes to spare, I reached up to wipe off some sweat and realized I was missing my hat. My leather hat, which had become my homage to cheesy, gringo travelers everywhere, was resting comfortably at the Darwin plaque. I asked the guard if they were expecting bad weather in the night, and when he said no I told him I´d see him early the next day.

Because of my tardiness and exertion on my first ascent of La Compana, I was really sore the following day for my second attempt and decided I´d like to get an early start to give it a good shot. I set out at 9:00 and decided to take the commuter train to Limache and avoid traffic issues. Also, it would give me a second shot at Chilean train travel. Hooray!! Arriving at the train station at 9:10, I bought a ticket for the next train which arrived promptly at 9:55. A bit steamed and anxious about my hat I climbed on and the train chugged through the first couple of stations before pulling to a halt mid-track. We waited in the baking sun (no cool, overcast day here) for about 20 minutes before a second train pulled slowly by and we set in motion again. Everything went smoothly for a while more until we pulled into a station about 7 stops from Limache and the conductor came round announcing this was the final stop. Apparently there was work being done on the line and we were being off-loaded to buses for the final portion of the travel. Different train, same story. After all was said and done, I made it to the park entrance at 12:30. If I went the same speed as the previous day, I might just be able to make the viewpoint and return, but at this stage all I wanted was my hat, so I set out at a steady but not crazy pace. Reaching the plaque, I found my hat with a little puddle of water in the top but otherwise none the worse for wear. Better yet, I found that I probably had time to reach the top and headed off at a rapid pace. Upon reaching the peak, I was thrilled that my hat had dragged me back up because the view was astounding. With most of the cloud cover gone, I could see the Andes in the distance behind me and the 360 degree mountain scenery was beyond description. I couldn´t make out the sea, but I give Darwin credit. He knows a good view when he sees it.


I made my way down quickly yet again and left the park a happy man. That was enough of Valparaiso for me, and I decided to once again make my way north the following day.