EXPLORA ATACAMA, CHILE
What a head of dishevelled hills, that you never finish combing. Never did you have time to dress yourself, and always you were surprised by life.”
This is what poet Pablo Neruda said of his hometown Valparaiso, which stretches out before me, sprawling upwards from the sea all the way to the surrounding hills. It’s a labyrinth of tangled, steep roads which, at times, remind me of San Francisco. Alongside the poet’s former home, which has been turned into a museum, the streets unfurl like an art gallery: nearly every building covered in beautiful murals, and it’s hard to turn a corner without encountering an artist at work.
But Valparaiso is just one stop on this, my Chilean adventure, which covers the central and northern parts of Chile, from the capital, Santiago, to the Atacama Desert near the Bolivian border. In five days, I will have just a taste of its hot sweet air, but it’s one I know I will savour forever.
I arrived in Santiago a day earlier (BA has launched a new direct route from London, reducing the journey time to under 15 hours), but it’s already time to catch another flight – this time to Calama, just west of the Andes mountains, to visit the driest place on earth: the Atacama Desert.
During the drive there, as I look out of the window, I have to pinch myself – it’s like we have just landed on the moon, the landscape rocky, grey and surreal. Yet, our hotel, Explora Atacama, is quite literally an oasis in the middle of the desert. Surrounded by trees, with its own stables and swimming pools, it’s a chichi base to tour the surrounding areas. Wi-fi is only available in the spacious communal rooms, populated by a young, chic international clientele, who spend the time between excursions relaxing on the sofas and flicking through Peter Beard photography books. I join them, as Explora’s brilliant guides talk everyone through the different itinerary options, and plans are made for the next day. Before sunset, I venture out to Los Flamencos National Reserve, where hundreds of pink flamingos gather around salt lakes, offering a spectacle I will never forget.
The next morning, my alarm goes off at 5am; my first adventure is a heartbursting ride over the desert on a hot air balloon to watch the sun rise from behind the surrounding volcanoes. Later that day, a hike over a nearby volcano ends with a dip in the natural spring waters. Next up? A horseback ride through the desert, which turns out to be another unique experience as I get caught in a hailstorm, and witness Mother Nature’s power manifested in thunder and lightning (rainfall in this corner of the planet is only about 1mm per year, so returning to the stables soaking wet feels like a gift that has been saved just for me).
On my last morning in the Atacama I explore San Pedro and the local sites by bike. At the local cemetery I see the brightly adorned graves up close, then wave goodbye to the desert by climbing over Pukara de Quitor, a pre-columbian fortress and admire the view one last time.
Back in Santiago that night, on the rooftop of the 1920s Luciano K hotel, as I enjoy ceviche and pisco sours, listen to the buzz from streets below and take in the sun setting behind the mountains in the distance, another Neruda line springs to mind: “I have seen from my window the fiesta of summer from the distant mountain tops”.
Sometimes you can pinpoint the one highlight of a trip, the moment that defines your travels, but then, very occasionally, you can experience so much in the space of a few days that it doesn’t sink in until weeks, months – perhaps years – after you’ve come back. This was one of those rare, sacred occasions.