Tuesday, 11/7/23: My Plans for Wandering in Chile

Denver International Airport, 9:00 AM, United Club lounge

So what am I doing flying by myself to Chile at age 77 with a heart condition, hearing challenges, and a declining short-term memory? Well, if my 85-year-old friend, Andre, can fly all over the world (and his heart is in worse shape than mine), I don’t have any excuses.

10:20 AM MST, enroute to Miami

I’ve spent many an hour planning for this trip to Chile and putting it together.  Along the way, I’ve given considerable thought as to what I want out of this adventure.  Here are a few ideas:

I’ve been fascinated with this very long, skinny country ever since I became a geography geek around age 9.  So never having been to southern South America, I decided that it was time to get my ass in gear and make my 5^th trip south of the equator.  Like a 35-year-old woman who is hell-bent on motherhood, my biological clock has been ticking away and Dog-only-knows when I will hit traveler’s menopause.   

Travelling can be tough and I shouldn’t dis those who chose easier paths such as cruise ships and organized tours.  However, such travel experiences are generally not for me.  For one thing, I’m a bit shy and standoffish.  I know it’s a character flaw but I’m just not all that interested in hanging with other tourists.  If I’m going to be around other people, I’d prefer the locals.  Thus, I needed to do this trip on my own.  And my partner, Judy, is no longer a fan of long-distance travel by plane given the hassles of dealing with Type I diabetes.

I initially thought of taking a ferry down the southern coast of Chile through the dramatic fjords and past the iconic Torres del Paine.  Yes, there is a ferry.  It’s a four-day trip from Puerto Montt at the southern end of central Chile to Puerto Natales in southern Patagonia.  Here’s the problem:  the only way to do the trip at a reasonable cost (about $500) is to spend every night in a chair in the ferry’s lounge area.  As a single traveler, a private stateroom would set me back about $1800.  Furthermore, a little reading on the ferry website made it apparent that the ferry would be mostly full of foreign tourists, not average Chileans getting from Point A to B.  Finally, it’s November and the southern hemisphere springtime in these parts can be rainy and foggy.  I might not see much and standing out on the deck in a cold rain peering into grey skies at monochromatic landscapes wouldn’t be worth the price of admission. 

I gave some thought to the arid north of Chile but it would mean renting a car to see much of the good stuff which I find wasteful, isolating, and expensive (fuel in Chile is $5.00-6.00/gallon) when travelling solo.  I could have flown from Santiago (the capital and destination of direct flights from the US) to a northern city like Antofagasta but I would still have had to rent a car once I got there.  Taking a very long bus ride for 1000+ miles north from Santiago?  No thanks – I’d rather have been water-boarded at the Abu Gharib prison!

That left central Chile which centers on Santiago.  Here I could see some terrific landscapes – the central agricultural valley extending several hundred miles south from Santiago, endless sandy and rocky beaches along the Pacific coast, and of course, the towering Andes which abruptly ascend into the clouds just east of Santiago.  By the way, more than 1/3 of Chile’s 15,000,000 people live in Santiago and the environs.  It’s a modern, prosperous city but not high on my bucket list.  On the other hand, Valparaiso, located on the coast about 100 miles west of Santiago is a smaller version of San Francisco, an historic port city with little funicular cars which climb halfway to the stars.  It’s neighbor, Viña del Mar, immediately to the northeast also gets high marks for its lovely parks and gardens.  Regarding the central valley, a modern passenger train runs a couple hundred miles south through it from Santiago.  Those who know me well (or have read my southern Africa blog) realize that I’m a hard-core rail buff.  Thus, I decided there was plenty to do in central Chile to keep me entertained for the month I was allotting for the trip.  And I could always go back to the north or south assuming old age infirmities or the Grim Reaper don’t curtail future wanderings. 

So yes, there are scores of intriguing landscapes to consume in central Chile but what could make the trip more meaningful than just traveling around, seeing sights, doing some hikes, and taking photos?  I had a bit too much of that last year in Cuba.  The answer – Chilean people.  I noted earlier that I’m shy and standoffish with strangers, but I value my friendships including those I’ve made over the years during my foreign travels.  But how would I meet interesting Chileans who would want to waste their time on an eccentric Gringo?

There was one more significant motivation for travels to the far south which figured large in my trip to Cuba last year – Spanish!  I’ve been studying the fine tongue of Cervantes for more years than I care to admit.  I should be fluent by now and fault myself for still struggling to acquire a lengthy vocabulary and flawless grammar.  My excuses are my age (gawd, do I wish I could have learned Spanish and French starting in kindergarten) and lack of opportunities to practice (two hours a week on Skype with my excellent and jovial teacher in Guatemala just aren’t enough). 

How to make Chilean friends and improve my Spanish?  The latter is easy – find a Spanish school and immerse myself in a week of study.  There are a number of schools in bustling Santiago but I wanted a more relaxed experience.  I chose a small school (highly recommended by former students) in a town (Pichilemu) on the Pacific coast about 4 hours by bus southwest of Santiago.  I corresponded with the head of the school by email telling her that I wanted to learn Chilean slang and the notoriously challenging pronunciation and grammar variations of Chilean Spanish.  Her website mentioned the availability of yoga classes (another of my passions) which also appealed.  Pichilemu is known as a surfers’ paradise but I figured November would be too chilly (pun intended) to attract hordes of wave riders that flock there starting around Christmas. 

Finding Chilean friends would be more of a challenge, BUT….  I have this friend, Bill, whom I unfortunately don’t see much of anymore since he moved to Portland, Oregon.  He was married for a number of years to my close friend Sky (formerly Susie) from grad school at the University of Montana more than 50 (yikes) years ago.  Bill shares my enthusiasm for hiking and is a devoted student of French and Spanish.  He told me about this organization he belonged to called Servas.  This international group promotes world peace through interpersonal connections and homestays (usually two days) for member travelers who connect up on the Servas website with members who welcome domestic or foreign visitors.  They have some 8000 members, a large number of whom are in Europe but Asia and the Americas are also well represented.  There are also a few hundred members in Africa and Australia/Pacific as well. Bill has stayed with Servas members in France, Mexico, and Argentina while pursuing his language studies.  He had very positive words for the group a number of years ago, and being intrigued, I parked the name of the organization in the back of my brain for future reference.

A phone call with Bill a couple years ago reminded me of Servas, so I went on their website and submitted my application.  There are a couple of hoops to jump through to join.  Axe murders need not apply.  You need a couple of friends or colleagues to directly submit a letter of recommendation and then you are interviewed by a long-time Servas member.  In my case, the interviewer was Lani, who lives about ten miles west of me in Denver and has met numerous Servas members over the years as both as a traveler and a host.  I learned that Servas is entirely run by volunteers and membership only costs $33/year. 

Route of my American Airlines flight to Santiago, Chile.  This Google Map is a bit misleading.  We crossed the Isthmus of Panama, then followed the west coast of Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru.  It was night so I couldn’t see outside but that’s what the TV screen on the seat back told me. 

 

7:00 PM EST, Miami International Airport departures lounge

I was accepted as a member of Servas last year and a few months ago, Lani had a potluck picnic for local Servas members in her backyard.  It was an intriguing group of about 25 world travelers – most in their 60s and 70s although I’ve noticed that the Chilean membership includes a sizeable number in their 20s and 30s. 

Using mostly frequent flier miles, I booked tickets from Denver to Santiago and back via Miami and Fort Lauderdale.  After tentatively setting up a week of Spanish classes in Pichilemu, I emailed a distinguished-looking Servas member around my age who lives near Santiago (each member posts a written profile with optional photo on the website).  Turns out he is the national coordinator for Servas in Chile.  He wrote back inviting me to stay with him and his wife for a couple days and also sent information about a 4-day Servas get-together for members in southern South America which is taking place in Mendoza, Argentina and starts two days after my scheduled arrival in Santiago.  I figured out that Mendoza is an 8-hour ride over the Andes in a comfortable bus from Santiago.  Despite some initial frustrating website difficulties, I booked and paid for a round-trip bus ticket to Mendoza and registered for the event.  I’m hopeful that it will be a great opportunity to meet and get to know Servas members in Chile and Argentina (and maybe from Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia, as well).

I contacted seven other members in central Chile but only three responded, two of whom invited me to visit and another who was busy with a family move to Argentina.  Of the two I will visit, one is a psychologist who invited me to stay for three days at his second home near a national park located between Valparaiso and Santiago; the other is an artist who lives near the center of Valparaiso.  I have no idea why the other four didn’t respond.  Did my email from an unrecognized address go into their junk mail folder?  Or maybe they don’t like North Americans or are sick of visitors?  If they did get my email (and/or message through the Sevas website), you’d think they’d at least write back claiming to have scheduled abdominal surgery or dental extractions during the week of my proposed visit.  

My overnight (yuck), 8-hour flight to Santiago leaves Miami in two and a half hours.  Assuming I have wifi in my hotel room in Santiago tomorrow night, I’ll try to post this on my website.

Hasta pronto, amigos,

Will