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Best of Chile: mountains, desert and wine
New direct flights to Santiago mean it’s easier than ever to see the country’s stunning scenery
Sean Thomas
October 22 2016, 12:01am, The Times
The Andes mountains near the borders with Argentina and BoliviaGETTY IMAGES
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I am wearing about 17 layers of clothing. I’m standing on a street corner in the middle of the
driest desert on Earth. And I’ve just taken Viagra.
Clearly, I am going mountain-climbing in the Andes. The layers are to ward off the cold; my
laconic guide, Carlos, says it might be “minus ten up there”. I’ve popped a Viagra because it
is said to be good for the heart in thin air. Yet what I maybe need is tranquillisers, because the
mountain we’re about to climb is 18,400ft high. That’s higher than any mountain in Europe,
Australasia or continental America.
Behind me the ice-capped Andean peaks are like a row of mighty shark’s teeth
Now, I’m a middle-aged man in less than mint condition. I find Primrose Hill, near my flat in
north London, a challenge, so Lord knows what 18,000ft will do to me. It looks as if I am
going to die, halfway up a volcano, with an erection. How did I get here? Rewind a week.
I’m sitting in a trendy seafood café called Galeon in a corner of the fish market in Santiago,
the Chilean capital. I’ve come to see Chile’s highlights — a 3,000-mile ribbon of deserts,
vineyards, Andes and glaciers — which are going to be much easier to get to once new direct
flights start with British Airways in January. This will be the longest nonstop service from
Europe to anywhere, and to judge from my jet lag (I’ve come nonstop from Paris) it will be a
trying flight. I feel as if I’ve been concussed by airline pillows.
Turning to my guide, Maria, I mumble some incoherent questions; mercifully she interrupts.
“Ah. Sean, you don’t look very well. You need a drink . . . pisco sour!”
Yay. If I wasn’t feeling so arthritic, I would punch the air. Moments later we are sipping from
crisp and heady pisco sours, made from the sweet muscat grape. Even better, the drinks come
with ceviche, that classically Peruvian dish, comprising all kinds of raw seafood marinated
with lime and lemon juice, and often mixed with peppers and corn. I sometimes find ceviche
disappointing, but this is tip-top.
My first day is on the mend. Think I’ll have another pisco, to help with the siesta.
The Matetic estate’s high-tech wine cellarGetty Images
Refreshed by about 20 hours of sleep, next morning I jump in a car that whisks me west, out
of town. Soon the last scruffy suburbs cede to green fields, then rolling hills and gloriously
sunlit vineyards. I’m in the winelands.
My knowledge of Chilean wine is restricted to the modest observation that Casillero del
Diablo is a reliable red. The next two days, however, during which I am comfortably
ensconced in an opulent, colonial-style hacienda on the Matetic wine estate, sets me right.
Owned by a Croatian-Chilean dynasty, Matetic produces world-class cold-climate syrah (and
other varietals) — and I mean world class. Ranked in the top 100 globally. Who knew?
First I am taken on a tour of the remarkable, ultra-modern winery. It’s vast and hi-tech and
feels like the spaceship of an advanced civilisation that is inexplicably fuelled by pinot noir.
After that I get another fine lunch (octopus in olive tapenade) and make a little trip to the
artisanal food shop (make sure you buy merken, a spice made by Chile’s Mapuche people;
it’s rich, strange, satisfyingly smoky, and you won’t find it back home).
Come the afternoon I’m left to my own devices. I want to go for a walk and I wonder if I
should inquire about hiking routes, but then I realise that I can walk anywhere. I am
surrounded by the immensity of South America. This place, the Rosario valley, is beautifully
empty, blissful and Edenic.
The Andes glimmer in the distance, beyond the gum trees. There are stands of pine and fig —
and organ pipe cacti. Cows drink from silvery streams, vultures hover above the swimming
pool, the nights prove to be as cold as the springtime days are bright, a fox barks beyond the
moonlit gewürtztraminer vines. When I go horse-riding in the dewy and paradisical morning,
I gallop to the crest of a high green hill, surrounded by wild ponies, and behind me I can see
ice-capped Andean peaks, like a row of mighty shark’s teeth, and to the west the dreaming
blue of the Pacific.
Which, neatly enough, is my next stop: the coastal cities of Valparaiso and Viña del Mar,
only a 40-minute drive away (Chile really is narrow).
Valparaiso is famed as the home of Chile’s national poet, Pablo Neruda. However, it’s more
than a literary destination. It’s a Latino San Francisco, a haphazard town of pretty iron and
clapboard houses, covered with vivid murals, edging down lung-busting slopes to a
deliciously gritty port, where handsome British-built banks gaze disapprovingly at the
occasional hooker. Meanwhile, locals drink Kunstmann beer, eat avocado sandwiches and
talk about the latest earthquake (Chile gets lots of earthquakes, which means very few
buildings make it to their 100th birthday).
Cathedral spires in SantiagoGetty Images
Viña del Mar, 30 minutes up the coast, is entirely different. This is swish Chile, a city in
which you can sense the surging prosperity of South America’s first truly developed nation.
Chic women stare at sea lions on the rocks, rich kids drive around in Ferraris, llama chops are
seared to not quite perfection (they’re a bit tough, but the taste is scrumptious, like seasoned
lamb).
Don’t, however, expect to do any swimming at those inviting beaches; thanks to the Antarctic
current that skirts these shores, the sea is cold year-round. If you want to swim comfortably in
Chile, you’ve got to go to the far north, and Iquique.
This, indeed, is my next dilemma. North or south? I’d like to head down to fabled Patagonia,
with its glacier lakes and savage fjords, but it’s the wrong season and I might get
hypothermia. Instead I shall fly up to the Atacama, the driest and highest desert on Earth.
First impressions are not brilliant. As Carlos, my guide, speeds us out of Calama airport, all I
can see is the fudge-brown pollution haze from the world’s biggest copper mine,
Chuquicamata. Eventually that dwindles into the distance and the Atacaman deathscapes take
over, where ochre and russet volcanoes slope to sculpted valleys of sandstone, and blinding
white salt flats. Vicuñas (a relative of the llama) flee the solitary noise of the car, flamingos
feed in the saline lakes. Near here is the eerie ghost town of Yungay, where it looks as if it
hasn’t rained for 200,000 years (actually it rains about once a decade). Even microbes can’t
survive.
Luckily, I’m staying somewhere rather livelier: San Pedro de Atacama, a faintly Wild West
oasis of colonial churches, pretty backpackers, native craft markets, adobe youth hostels,
Chilean cowboys and trendy cocktail bars shaded by pepper trees.
In recent years cute and fashionable San Pedro has been adopted by luxury hotel chains and
high-end holiday operators. They can help you to arrange tours of the Atacama’s scenic
highlights, including the famously clear and starry night skies (some of the world’s most
important observatories are clustered around San Pedro). What this means is that my hotel,
the Awasi, is seriously upscale, with excellent food, a jolly nice wine list, a sweet little pool,
a bar that never closes or indeed charges (it’s all-inclusive), plus inviting rooms of bare wood
and desert stone, with humidifier (you really need it in this bone-dry climate; likewise lip
balm).
It’s so nice I’d quite like to stay, and do absolutely nothing, for maybe a week. Or three. It
has been a whistlestop tour. But Carlos has other plans.
“We’re going to the Valley of Death.”
“Excellent news.”
“The sunsets are amazing.”
He’s not wrong. I’ve seen a few epic sunsets, but this is special. We hike down a lunar valley
of naked stone. A warm breeze shaves the sand dunes, making whispers of whirring gold. As
we climb to the top of one dune, the dying sun turns the Andes into an immense and
amethystine curtain of glowing rock.
Carlos points at one of these purpled peaks. “Tomorrow we climb there — 18,400ft.”
And so, here I am. This is where we came in. I’ve taken the Viagra, I’ve donned my layers,
but where are the Sherpas? And what about crampons? Or oxygen? Nothing.
In brooding silence we drive to 16,000ft, my heart thumping like a Burundi drum.
Clambering out — already panting — we begin the slow ascent, drinking water every ten
metres, slapping on more sunblock every six metres. Eventually we are stopping every three
metres, so I can have a five-minute break. The walk isn’t steep, but the lack of oxygen is
punishing, borderline painful.
And then, as my headache threatens to turn into a migraine, I take the last agonising step and
I reach the top.
This is it. I’m standing on a sunburnt summit taller than Mont Blanc, the highest peak in the
Alps. I’m gazing at a Wagnerian parade of ice-scarfed mountains that guard the burning heart
of a strange yet stirring desert that, in places, has less life than anywhere else on Earth.
I feel like a 90-year-old with sciatica. I also feel a kind of wistful ecstasy. And it isn’t
anything to do with Viagra.
Need to know
Sean Thomas was a guest of Journey Latin America (020 8600 1881,
journeylatinamerica.co.uk). A ten-day holiday to Chile staying at the Luciano K in Santiago,
Matetic winery and Awasi in the Atacama Desert costs from £4,112pp. The price includes
flights, first-class hotels, full board at Awasi including alcoholic drinks, breakfast and dinner
at Matetic and breakfast at Luciano K. Transfers and excursions are also included.
Where to stay in Chile, by Ben Clatworthy
Explora Hotel, Atacama
When this gorgeous property reopens just before Christmas, after major renovation, expect
sumptuous rooms with huge windows — offering great views to the desert — whitewashed
walls and wicker furnishings. What you won’t find are televisions or wi-fi: this is a place to
disconnect from the world. Spend your days exploring the desert on horseback, and the
evenings gawping at stars from the hotel’s observatory.
Details Three nights’ full board (the minimum stay) is from £1,870pp, including local
activities and airport transfers (020 3051 8098, theultimatetravelcompany.co.uk)
The Luciano K opened in the spring
Luciano K, Santiago
Santiago is cool and cosmopolitan with great museums, restaurants and wild parties. The
boutique art deco hotel Luciano K opened in the spring in a property designed and
constructed in the 1920s. There’s a large roof terrace (with a swimming lane), chic bar and
minimalist rooms.
Details A night’s B&B is from £130 (01296 653000, lastfrontiers.com)
Remota‘s rooms offer sweeping views of the lake
Remota, Puerto Natales
With floor-to-ceiling windows and minimalist design throughout this intriguing hotel, just
outside the small town of Puerto Natales, is quite a find. The rooms are cosy but basic, and
offer sweeping views of the surrounding lake, mountains and ice fields. Its modern design
may not be for purists, but with stunning scenery and local staff, it’s got a lot going for it.
Details A double is from £167, room only (01179 467072, i-escape.com)
The quirky Hotel Antumalal flanks the southern edge of Lake Villarrica
Hotel Antumalal, Pucon
Built in the 1940s with Bauhaus-inspired architecture, this quirky hotel flanks the southern
edge of Lake Villarrica, with great views down to the water. There are 23 rooms, each with
its own fireplace, and furnished with sheepskin rugs and throws woven by locals. This month
a new Lake House opens down on the shore. Sleeping six, there’s a king-room with en suite,
two twins and a spacious kitchen.
Details One night half board is from £303pp (01173 690196, swoop-patagonia.com)
Lapostolle Residence, Santa Cruz
With just four casitas, gourmet food and unrivalled service, this is arguably one of the best
lodges in Chile. Each casita has a downstairs living area with antique furnishings and a
fireplace. Upstairs the art deco doubles are bright and spacious with huge windows offering
views of the vineyards. A four-course tasting menu is served in the main house, while there’s
also a spa and private wine tasting on offer.
Details One night full board is from 575pp (01491 410492, latinodyssey.com)
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3 comments
Newest | Oldest | Most Recommended
Strait Magellan 11 days ago
"Remota‘s rooms offer sweeping views of the lake"
Actually it is the sea, it is Seno Ultima Esperanza, [Last Hope Sound] - as any map of the
Chilean fjords will show.
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M Sheridan 12 days ago
I though that blinding headaches were one of the less than welcome side effects of viagra?
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Andrew Walker 12 days ago
Wow, we will retrace your steps in 2017! I loved the column!
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3RecommendReply
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