Up in the Mountains

After another night of broken sleep, we were up far too early to catch an assortment of buses to travel south to a town called Talca, and from there up into the mountains to a place called Vilches Alto, right next to the Alto de Lircay National Park. It was a long but reasonably comfortable trip, and we arrived at where we were staying around 2pm, and proceeded to sit and eat ‘Empanadas’, (a sort of meat pastie type affair), and drank a few beers.

Never one to let an opportunity for a walk to pass her by, Christine suggested that we take a short stroll into the woods to a popular viewing spot. 

Personally I could have sat outside in the sunshine drinking beer all afternoon, but it seemed churlish to not at least show some enthusiasm for seeing some of the scenery. We wandered through the autumnal trees to a site where an earlier civilisation had used the rocks to grind herbs, spice & corn, leaving a very distinctive ‘pitting’ in the rock surface. From there we went up a gentle climb to a look-out spot, (Eagle Point) to admire the view of the mountains. It was a spectacular perch overlooking a deep ravine and 180 degree views over the surroundings. We sat for maybe 20 minutes soaking in as much of the brilliant sunshine as we could and admired the view and the natural beauty of it before retracing our steps back to the cabin we were staying in.

I guess in real terms the walk was very short and only involved some mild elevation change, but I was completely shagged. I don’t know if it was the altitude, the continual lack of sleep, or the exertions of the past days, not helped by the lack of exercise over the past few years, but I felt very poor and washed out. I was so ill that I refused a couple of beers...! Fortunately, the sensation didn't last more than a couple of hours, maybe it was the Chilean wine, or Andres’s excellent BBQ food he had cooked for us, but I started to revive. We finished the night playing a card game called Wizard, a sort-of modified game of Trumps, which was hilarious fun.

Once again, even with the efforts of the previous day, Fiona & I still suffered from poor sleep, and as I lay there in the early morning, the thought of more walking during the next day was giving me a “I’m Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’ moment...! But after a filling breakfast and a cup of Tetley Tea, (thanks Christine), I was feeling a bit braver and committed to another day of walking in the mountains. When I say ‘Day’ of walking, that is a little of an exaggeration as Andres is a notoriously late sleeper and we never left until after 11:00am we were back by 3:00pm. This time we walked up to another, even more spectacular view point overlooking an enormous mountain, known as ‘Cerra de L’Indo’, or ‘Face of the Indian’, where we sat in the brilliant midday sunshine. After that we went a little further uphill to a rock formation that looked like the face of a Gorilla..! We sat an rested for a while before making our way back down to the cabin, in time for more beer & empanadas. Even though I was tired after the walk, I felt much better for doing it and felt that I was finally finding my ‘Walking Mojo”.

Andres cooked another awesome meal that evening, he is not only very good at it, but also amazingly passionate about his cooking, and we enjoyed yet another feast, was down with lashing of beer & wine. I had declared that the solution to Fiona and my jet-lag was to stay up as late as possible in an attempt to prevent us waking in the middle of the night, and therefore 2 rounds of Wizard was played and we crashed soon after 11:00pm. I slept solidly until Fiona woke for a pee, and I looked at the clock fearing it would only be 2:30am, but was relieved when it said after 6:00am, so we had had a proper night’s sleep for the first time in a week...! I finally dragged myself out of bed around 8:00am, actually looking forward to doing some walking that day before we returned to Santiago later that night.

After breakfast we headed into the National Park up a long, and to me, steep entry road, with several stops for a breather. Once in the park we took an ‘Interpretive Loop’, where we made Christine act as interpreter at each of the 10 or so information stations, just so we could stop and rest a little...! Half way round we came to another lookout point, again looking over ‘Cerra de L’Indo’, but from a much higher vantage point than before, with views over the other higher mountains behind covered in snow. We sat for quite a while taking in the majestic view and soaking in the quiet ambience of the place. Whilst the walk up here had been the hardest of the weekend, it was well worth it.

We headed down again to the cabin for our now routine beer & empanadas, before retiring to pack and prepare for our bus & train journey back to Santiago. We said our goodbyes to the lovely Maria, who runs the cabins and seems to have taken a real shine to Christine & Andres, who have been coming here for a couple of years now. The bus was very crowded but we were on from the start so managed to get seats, and we had seats booked on the train, where we concluded our Wizard tournament for the weekend. We arrive back in Santiago at 11:00pm and were back at the apartment before midnight. Fiona & I started packing when we got back, as we had a very early flight the next morning, North to Calama and then on to San Pedro de Atacama.

Next stop the desert...