Travelers' Tales: Chile and Easter Island

TRAVELERS’TALES

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Blowing off steam The Millers enjoyed seeing dozens of geysers in El Tatio; (opposite from top left) moai on Easter Island; street art in Valparaíso; a rhea in the wild; locals paddling reed boats during the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival

CHILE

Gordon & Jane Miller traveled to Chile and Easter Island with Audley

We love variety when we travel

– a mixture of culture, scenery, and flora and fauna. Several friends had suggested that we might enjoy Chile and Easter Island, so, with considerable help and advice from our specialist, Chloe Dillon-Smith, we embarked on three weeks exploring this fascinating part of South America.

A lengthy long-haul flight took us from a freezing cold January evening to the pleasant 85-degree heat of Santiago. We paused for a half-day walking tour of this

city before flying north to the village of San Pedro de Atacama in the Atacama Desert.

Away from San Pedro’s dirt streets and adobe houses, we watched the early morning water vapor hang above dozens of geysers in El Tatio (made even more impressive at sunrise). At lower altitudes, we drove across the desert plains and salt flats to see Chilean, Andean and James’s flamingoes and their pretty pink plumage.

Flying back to Santiago, we touched down briefly before the five-hour flight to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, as it’s named in Polynesian. The small island’s only

community, Hanga Roa, is one of the most remote in the world, and it was an ideal base for us to begin our explorations.

The highlight of the island had to be the moai dotted around the coastline, and the quarries where the dark-grey and black statues, and their reddish topknots, were carved from volcanic stone. Theories abound about how the moai were moved from the quarries to their seaside locations, but the most plausible would seem to suggest the ‘fridge-walking’ technique, where the stone was walked into position by rocking it from side to side.

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TRAVELERS’ TALES

CHECKING THE CULTURAL PULSE

The town’s restaurants were relaxed and atmospheric, either facing the ocean or the lush green countryside. Bougainvillea, oleander, and hibiscus grow there, proving particularly photogenic against the blue sky.

We were lucky enough to catch the start of the Tapati Rapa Nui Festival, a two-week celebration of the island’s Polynesian heritage, featuring a triathlon with a difference – local men in national dress paddle a reed boat and run with a large yoke of bananas, before ending with a swim.

Leaving Easter Island to return to the mainland, our next stop was the wonderfully grungy Valparaíso. Two of the many hills on which the city was built are UNESCO-listed, chiefly for the European architecture you find there (a consequence of the city’s position as a 19th-century port before the opening of the Panama Canal).

For us, though, the main attraction was the street art, which we saw everywhere. The different styles were considerable and, especially in the evening sunshine, the colors were spectacular.

WONDERS OF THE WILD

Another flight south from Santiago to Punta Arenas in Patagonia paralleled the volcanoes and mountains of the Andes. Our enthusiastic pilot pointed out various geographical features, including the Lake District and specific Andean mountains.

From there, we took a half-day boat trip along the Strait of Magellan to Marta and Magdalena Islands, home to around 120,000 Magellanic penguins, together with great skuas, kelp gulls, and sea lions.

A four-hour drive north from Punta Arenas, across the windy Patagonian Steppe, took us to Torres del Paine National Park, where we stayed at the comfortable Patagonia Camp. We enjoyed several walks here, as well as another boat trip passing small icebergs to the three hugely impressive and very different termini of the Grey Glacier.

One of our aims was to see wildlife, and this trip was a great success for that. We spotted three of South America’s four camelids (llamas, vicuñas, and guanacos – only alpacas eluded us), rheas, flamingoes, penguins, and condors. Fellow guests at the camp saw pumas, and although we didn’t, one guide drily pointed out, ‘You might not have seen them, but they’d have been watching you.’

The only disadvantage of our three-week trip was having to catch eight flights, but given Chile’s shape, flying is the quickest way to get about. And the payoff is an experience packed with variety. If that thought appeals, do add Chile to your list.

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