Chilli Chile

Easter Gamal
When we arrived on Easter Island we were in the happy company of several of our Tahiti palls, so we all moved into the same cozy guesthouse, right on the rugged coast shore. We were immediately enthralled by Easter Island's enchanting atmosphere. The shape of the coast, the colours of the wide landscape and the stormy-looking sky reminded us a of a mixture between the Scottish Highlands, the pouncing seas off the cliffy shores of Norway (not that any of us has ever been to Norway. We hear that wine is atrociously expensive there, so why bother?), and the nice temperatures of a lovely European summer day. We were in the company of Kay & John, a lovely forty-something couple from the UK, him part-time superstar and full-time electrician, her, full time career woman; Gavin and Yvonne, two coppers from London, and James, just out of uni, out of money and heading back to the UK cause out of time. Our first day was spent strolling along the beautiful shores of the island, watching the sea pouncing on the rocks, and getting our first glimpses of the mysterious Moai statues which make the island so famous. Since there is no conclusive evidence as to the origin and the purpose of the statues, and as we all had a reasonable amount of literature regarding the island, we decided to skip the guide thing and hire a pick up truck to explore the sites by ourselves. It turned out to be a fantastic day in which one of the highlights was the Moai quarry where hundreds of heads seem to magically erupt from the ground, together with bodies still partially buried under the volcanic ash. Some are still totally embodied in the rocks and only cut out from the front. It was an amazing day with probably over 300 hundred pictures taken (thank God for digital) and a lovely pisco-sour based dinner at one of the few restaurants available on the island as closure. The next day, after everyone completed their statue-viewing and souvenir-shopping pilgrimages, we gathered back on time at the hostel where we had agreed to spend the evening with a lot of alcohol, some pasta and salad (compliments of chef Sil) and John's guitar playing. It was indeed the perfect recipe for an absolutely fabulous night: right after the first course, everyone got up to do their favorite party trick and sing along to the many famous songs John played. Quite early on we were joined by an Australian couple, Jude and Barnie aged 68 and 72 resp. The first act was quickly taken care of by Jude who metamorphosed into a hot Dolly Parton in the space of a few minutes (trekking socks can really do miracles these days!) and had us under the table with laughter when she started to push her DD size balloons right into John's face. Singing, dancing, poetry reciting and stand-up comedy quickly followed by the other just-slightly-intoxicated performers. It was a fantastic evening, and we went to bed far too late, far too tipsy but very merry; ready to take the flight to Santiago de Chile and each go his separate way.

Cameltiago de Chile
However crowded the arrival hall of Santiago's airport was, we knew it would not be too difficult to spot Hylko: just one small look up would be enough to reveal the ginger-hair, the dark gray three-piece pin-striped suit and the huge Colgate smile which rose two heads and a half above the crowd! And Hylko's welcome was just as grand as his smile: he opened his house and his fridge and his bar, invited us for sushi, drove us to the Martinez Bodega, one of the finest wine estates in Chile, took us to see the penguins and the pelicans in the trendy sea resort of Zapallar (though all the animals had, very understandably, packed up their suitcases for the winter and left as it was at least minus 100 that day!), waauwed and auwed with us at the grandeur of the stinking-rich Chilean’s weekend homes, prepared for us special HV-GT's (Hylko Versteeg gin'n'tonics) and even more special Pisco Sour's by the dozens, and taxied us around town for hours on end when we needed a bloody travel guide.
When Blanca finally came back home from a long shopping, euh..., business trip in Europe, she did not say anything about the old 200-liter wine barrel that Hylko had secretly bought at Martinez, instead, she gave him "the look" that meant they'd talk about this later –and in private, opened the door to the little balcony, took a bottle of cold chardonnay, and started telling us all about life in Chile, her trip, the relationship problems of her second cousin's best friends daughter, and all the other fascinating things a world-class blabber can talk about. When she stopped talking, 2 days later, it was already time for us to leave and take the plane to the lake district, with the firm promise that we'd be back on the way up.

The Gamal of the Lake
Puerto Montt, the main gateway to South Chile's lake district is where our advanced disorganisational skills first became apparent.
As a matter of fact, we had not planned anything and had only a very vague idea as to what we could do. We only knew that it would be quite challenging to go about using public transport, so we rented a car for the week, very well aware that it was not a very budgety nor a very backpackery thing to do, and that it could have potentially made us lose our honorary gold membership at the CCTA, the highly regarded Cheepy-Cheepo Travellers Association. But thank God for the few luxury genes left in us, because it would have been practically impossible to otherwise do the extensive tour we did in the little time we had...
Our little blood-red Peugeot 305 first took us, on a perfectly clear day, along the shores of lake Puyuillihue, to the cute little village of Ensanada. Seeing volcano Osorno from down below was just too tempting to resist: we had to climb up to its base and see it from much closer. Problem was, we did not really have that much time to go hiking and fluffing around in nature. But we did have our little red 305... So up we went, riding cheerfully through gravel roads, mud and rocks, climbing slowly the track leading to the base of the monster, 1st gear all the way, motor roaring louder than a horny lion, zigzagging between pot holes and mud slides, until suddenly, as Chris barely touched a teeny-weeny-little rock [twice], our car became possessed with the ancient evil spirit of the volcano, started ticking and knocking, thumping, clunking, coughing and whistling, then, after a long worrying silence, rattled and vibrated strangely every time we would take our foot off the accelerator - no need to mention that we said nothing about those strange occurrences to the rental company when we returned the car.

With the stereo on at full blast (partly also to cover the other noises), we rode to smaller nearby lakes where we hiked around in company of cheerful dogs, then, after whizzing by the romantic peninsula of Puerto Octay; settled in a little cabana in Frutillar, a picturesque village full of large German-style houses in German-style streets with German-style gardens, an absurd number of Koffeehausen selling German-style food such as apfelstrudel, kuchen or frankfurterwurst, and plenty of souvenir shops named after Lutz, Dieter, Helga, Ditrich and Heike...
We were obviously in the ex-headquarters of the German colony, and we had to get out fast before we'd be completely teutonized and turned into barking monosyllabic sausage-eating robots.
So we went for a two-hour hike in the forest of the Puyehue National Park, then, together with 2 bus-loads of Chilean weekenders, soaked our sore sorry asses in the nearby hot thermal waters of Aguas Calientes.

All throughout the lake district, and also later in the sea side area around Valdivia, we slept in cabanas and, in those cute 1-2 bedroom bungalow style houses, finally had our own kitchen where we could re-learn the fine art of preparing haute-cuisine pasta'n'tomato-ketchup dinners and drink our good old glass of chilled chardonnay in front of the telly. It was heaven!

Gamal in the world's Southern-most city
Just as the weather in the lake district turned to its customary worst (it rains on average 300 days a year in this region), we boarded our flight to Punta Arenas where we were welcomed by a bright sunshine, and could, from the plane's little window, catch great views of the Torres del Paine national park and of the glacier below.
As we were not really prepared for Punta Arenas -again!-, nor had investigated how we'd go from here to there, nor where this 'here' or this 'there' was for the matter; getting a glimpse of the landscape from high up came quite handy: We knew that if we were not able to go down all the way to Ushuaia, we'd need to make it up to Puerto Natales and to the beautiful park as soon as possible.
But, of course, it was Easter Sunday, and there was not a soul in the whole town who was going to leave his family banquet table to help us two miserably gringos. We ended up waiting a perfectly good day trying to organise transportation to the southern most point of the world (outside Antarctica), gave up half way the afternoon, and eventually arrived in Puerto Natales in the early evening.

Gamal on the rocks
Puerto Natales, a picturesque town set on the tip of the fjord of 'ultimate hope' is the transit point to the most famous national park in south Chile, the Torres del Paine, which attracts tens of thousands of tourists with its colourful rock formations, its advancing glacier and its abundant trekking possibilities.

After checking into a little family guesthouse, we booked a tour that would take us throughout the highlights of the park and on the lago Grey to see the glacier. We then rushed to a restaurant to celebrate, over a pizza and a glass of pisco sour or two, the consumption of Sil's last cigarette. Cause yes, inspired by Blanca, Sil had just decided to she too was quitting smoking, and by thus was coming back into the honoured ranks of the community of healthy, addiction-free, strong-willed and vice-less humans. That's 10 bonus points for Sil. Bravo!
That same night, on an ashtray-less table, over a plate of mediocre food and a jar of great Pisco Sour, we developed an intricate plan to go for a super adventurous camping trip in the middle of the wilderness. The plan was that we would go back to the park the morning after the tour, start climbing to the base camp of the Torres Del Paine where we would rent a tent, a couple of sleeping bags (for each), buy some basic food, and continue walking till the camping ground located at the foot of the Torres Del Paine From there, we would be able to watch the sunrise colour the Torres in the morning, before climbing further up towards the peaks then back to P. Natales.... In our gigglish drunkenness, we even laughed at how we had just no idea how to set up a tent, how we would have to sleep under the stars, or beg some poor fellow campers to take us in for the night etc...
But Jo and Mike, our co-day-trippers, ruined all our plans first thing in the morning when they told us that all camping grounds were closed for the winter, that it would have been far too cold anyway (like -15 freezing degrees cold!), and also too dangerous because of the not-so-tamed pumas and the even less friendly bears. All in all, it was actually just a very silly idea, and we were kindly advised to stay off the pisco for a few days...
The only way to do it during this end-of-season was to sleep in the overpriced hostel dorm at the park HQ, watch from afar the Torres colouring with the fist rays of sun at 7.15am, then walk up and back to the base camp of the Torres in less than 7 hours in order to still catch the last bus back to town at 3pm. “Fine” said Sil full of conviction and authority “That's what we are going to do, first thing tomorrow”; and we continued our organized tour, passing by the misty cave of Milodon, stopping at the beautiful view points of the 3 pointy Torres Del Paine (the 3 towers) mountains and the two-coloured Cornes Del Paine (the 2 horns), plus the many multi-coloured lakes spread around in the park.
Just before taking the boat to get up-close and personal with the glacier, Sil had a brain wave. “While we are here” she suddenly said, “why don't we just ask the driver to drop us at the hostel instead of in town, sleep up here tonight, and do the walk tomorrow morning?”. - “eeuuh...” said Chris, not really knowing whether his cue to laugh had appeared... “Yeah!” she continued, ‘might as well! we have enough clothing on us, and it would save us the three hour trip to Puerto Natales and back...”. “eeeuuh, butbut...” was the only thing Chris was able to say before she counter-attacked. ‘We'll just send word to our guest house that we are not coming back tonight, and ask the tour guide to radio the hostel to reserve a bed, sleeping bags and dinner”; “We'll get up early, be up and back in 6 or 7 hours, then make it on time in Punta Arenas to go down south to Ushuaia the next day.”
There was nothing left to say. The Oracle had spoken, and there was no contradicting her: our plan for the next days was all laid out in stone.
The moment we set foot on the small unstable zodiac that would take us to the boat, it slowly started drizzling, then raining, then wet-snowing; it became colder and colder, misty and greyer than grey. Yet we were adamant that nothing, not even alaskaeque weather, was going to ruin our 50usd pp 2-hour boat ride. Despite his two 75bhp motors, the zodiac struggled against the strong icy current, and we were pretty much on stand still for 20 minutes. Once finally on the boat, we started navigating between icebergs of all sizes, shapes and magical colours. The ice all around us was of a blue we had never seen before: very deep yet almost translucent, intensely concentrated yet extremely light. The milky white colour of the water (caused by the floating sediments carried by the moving glacier) and the dullness of the sky only served to accentuate the indescribable colours of the ice and gave the whole place a fairytale feel. As the boat got even closer to the glacier, the hue of the ice changed slowly from the deep violet to true light blue, in a way that simply defies words - and even photography (and that is our way of justifying not having taken those once-in-a-lifetime award winning shots!); so close, that we could actually touch the glacier and even shave off small pieces of 12,000 year-old ice (which would come very handy a little later when they started serving Pisco Sour on the lower deck). The whole experience of being out in the rain and the cold, dressed for Antarctica, puffed by a flashy thick life vest, constantly wiping the rain off our faces and off the camera lens, running from side to side to see the icebergs, and drinking litters of hot tea just to keep our hands warm was simply exhilarating.
Later, over generous glasses of Pisco Sour on the-12,000-year-old- rocks, we decided to cancel Sil's rock-solid plan, and to return to Puerto Natales anyway as the weather did not look as it would improve at all. “I am not walking in the rain again!, No way!, Never!, I think not!, You can forget it! I have had my fair share in Nepal!, That's it for me, I'm going back to warmer countries after this!” proclaimed Sil between two quick gulps, before adding “Now go get me another drink before I call my brother...!”

Bad planning & bad luck
We tried all we could to still organise a trip to Ushuaia in Argentina, but, due to low season, could not find any bus or plane that would take us up and back the same week. Wanting to be back in Santiago to spend a final weekend with Hylko and Blanca, we did not want to waste two full days of bus travel for just 24 hours in Ushuaia, especially since we did not even know whether guesthouses, tours and attractions would be open there... So we judged it more reasonable and feasible to follow the advice of Nicolette from Dubai, and go to Calafate in Argentina to see the Perito Moreno glacier instead.

Don't cry for me Gamalita
For 4 hours, we drove through the rough yellowish steppe vast land of Argentina: a gigantic area of short dry grass, rare water poodles, fence polls and millenary rocks transported by ancient advancing glaciers, all set against the magnificent backdrop of the snow-capped Andes' peaks. There was not a single tree in sight, not a house or a bush, just a few grazing cows, the odd gaucho horseman with his typical hat and his red scarf guiding his herd of sheep, Nandus (small, grey, nervous ostrich
-like creatures), cold deep blue sky and low golden-coloured grass.
Once in El Calafate, we did not have any time to explore the cute town which had a real ski-resort feel to it, nor did we have time for romantic walks along the autumn-coloured lake shore: as soon as we arrived, we hopped on yet another bus and headed to the glacier. We had actually planned to use the free afternoon to look around, investigate the options to visit the Perito Moreno glacier and compare prices. But Chris made a split-second executive decision to take advantage of the great clear weather and go with the last excursion heading to the glaciers the same afternoon.
Breakfast-less, lunch-less, sore-assed from already 7 hours of bumpy bus trips and smoke-free since 22hrs 15 mins and 12 secs, Silvia moaned for a second, mumbled for another, grinded her teeth, gave Chris 'ze' look, put on her best smile, her 4 layers of thermal underwear, then starting wauwing and ooohing as soon as she saw the splendid red coloured trees and the perfect reflection of the Andes chain in the clear tranquil unpolluted waters of the Argentina lake.
The road to the glacier was indeed superb: it was the perfect autumn day, with the perfect sun lighting, and the perfect lack of wind that allowed everything to be perfectly mirrored in the still milky-white lake waters. When, from between the fire painted bushes, the blinding white Perito Moreno glacier appeared, the whole bus went: WWAAAUUW! And then fell in a deafening silence.
The glacier walls stood there in front of us, 50 to 60 meters high above the water (and another 80m below), pure in its shape, its whiteness and its enormousness. The upper surface of the glacier, end point of a sea of ice of 17,000 square kilometre (1.6x bigger than tiny Lebanon) has the most amazing ribbles and cracks, extending as far as the eye could see, mixing utter whiteness, a transparent cobalt blue with dense light blue.
We took the catamaran to see the monster up close, then admired it from the viewing platform, deafened every couple of minutes by the thundering sound of the enormous pieces of ice that would break off from 60m high into the Laguna, with such hard impacts they echoed like heavy artillery detonations.
And while we thoroughly enjoyed the sight of the Perito Moreno, the ungrateful spoiled brats that we are still preferred our first encounter with a glacier a few days earlier at the Lago Gray. Although the Glacial Gray is insignificant in size and importance in comparison to the Perito, the whole experience felt more intense, more spectacular and adventurous. We are not sure whether it was the cold, the rain, the zodiac trip, the smaller boat, the pisco sours, the untouristy-feel, the 10 layers of cloths and the thick life vests that made it for us, or if it was the super close contact with the glacier and the fantastic colours of the floating icebergs that make us favour Gray over Moreno. But what is sure, is that horrible weather conditions give a much better viewing light and colouring to the glaciers than bright sunshine and blue sky; at least, our camera seemed to think so!

We would have actually loved to come back to the national park the next day, not per-se to see the glacier again (although day light would have been better than the late afternoon flat light that we had), but mainly to walk around the park, along the lake shore, to take pictures of the reflection of the mountains and of the amazingly coloured forest. But we did not: there was no walking trails apart from the roads, no public transportation to the park and the only options available were either too time-limiting or too expensive. The unanimous decision was taken to go back to Puerto Natales the next morning early, then immediately to Punta Arenas, and make an attempt to reach the Tierra Del Fuego on the following day (if only just to tick the box and say that we have not only been in the most southern city on earth (P. Arenas), but also in the TdF, the largest island off the extreme south of South America!).

Advanced disorganizational skills: Chapter 3
Our lack of planning had already cost us a lot of time, not to mention money. Our inability to learn from it made it get worst by the minute...
After a 7-hour bus ride back to Chile, we hurried to book a ticket on the first bus to Punto Arenas... and only THEN, looked into our guidebook for the boat scheduled to Porvenir on the Chilean side of the Terra del Fuego. You guessed it, there was no boat, and we were going back to Punta. Arenas for absolutely nothing!. If only we had not worked so hard on our disorganizational skills, we would have read the guidebook a bit earlier (after all, we had 7 whole boring bus hours to do so), figured it all out, stayed in Puerto Natales, went to the Torre del Paine on the afternoon bus, walked the Torres' base camp trek we so much wanted to do, and still would have had some time left to visit Punta Arenas on our last day before going back to Santiago...

But no! We roamed endlessly in Punta Arenas for two and a half days, visited every single museum (amongst which the super well kept Museo de Historia Regional Braun Menendez which has fabulously luxurious interiors kept exactly as they were during the golden age of the Magelanes region), took every available walk, watched 4 episodes of 'The Practice" and 12 of 'Friends', took too many pictures from the mirador overlooking the colourful roofs of the town, and closed off our southern adventures with a delicious long-missed Chinese meal at the panoramic Golden Dragon Restaurant...

Gamal in the land of HVGTs
Back in Santiago for the weekend, we caught up with Hylko and Blanca, wined and dined a bit too often, watched films till late, made desperate - and oh so unsuccessful- attempts to update the website, and went on a fabulous one-day excursion to the Maipo Valley, just a few kilometres from the Argentinean border, where we caught astounding views of the Cordillera des Andes in full autumn clothing at El Volcan. We then had to politely refuse a caretaker's insisting offers to enter the luke warm brownish murky natural pools at Banos Morales as it was barely 5 degrees outside and nothing, not even a healthy beautifying rejuvenating life-extending libido-stimulating bath was going to make us take our warm fleece off. After a wonderful dinner at the not-less-wonderful "Hazondas" Basque fish restaurant, we said our goodbyes to the most hospitable couple in the world, and got ready for our 22-hour bus ride to Calama, in the "small north" of Chile.

Cattle-class Gamal
We had so often read that buses in Chile were utter luxury, that they were amongst the most comfortable in the world, with real beds, 3 warm meals and full entertainment service, that we were expecting to board a sort of Ritz-Carlton on wheels, with the habitual yessirs, pleasemams, canihelpyous, warm towels and a minimal amount of serious brown-nosing. But 'Pulman Bus' had decided otherwise: the 22-hour ride from Santiago to Calama, although indeed in a very comfy bus, with lots of leg space, TV and toilet, still was very far from business class, specially when they announced that 'dry' would be the theme of their in-bus catering service: dry cold rice with frozen dry chicken for dinner and dry cookies with tea for breakfast and lunch. (We later learnt that the people who had been with 'Turbus' had had warm mash potatoes with a juicy steak and pees for dinner... Guess which company we'll go with next time?)

Gamal bang bang
From Calama it was just another 2 hours through the immeasurable rocky space of the Atacama desert to reach San Pedro de Atacama, a tiny but refreshing western-like desert oasis village of 1500 inhabitants, with soft brown gravel streets and quaint adobe houses. Apart from being the tourist mecca of northern Chile, San Pedro is a hip precordillera town who claims the world's highest density of travel agents per square meter, is packed with trendy eateries and bars; and is house to the cutest white-washed cactus-roofed church.
San Pedro's greatest attraction is the endless possibilities for adventure tours into the surrounding Atacama desert, amongst the driest in the world, from desert treks, volcano hikes, geysers visits, flamenco spotting, salars (salt lakes) walks, altiplanic lake excursions, sand boarding, mountain biking, and horse-back rides in the midst of mars-like canyons and cliffs edges.
It is one of those places which immediately transports you in a different world, one of spaghetti-westerns where unshaved long-haired boots-wearing horse-riding filterless-cigarette-smoking clint-eastwood-mimicking solitary good guys shoot for a living equally badly shaven foul-breathed bad guys to save to honour of a good girl, a helpless mother or a beautiful cow (depending on the prize money offered). You cannot but love the place at first sight!

San Pedro and around...
At El Tatio Hotel on Caracoles, the main drag where most restaurants, bars, tour operators, sleazy greasy-haired cool dudes and shops reside, we booked our 'big three" tours: Valle de la Luna-Valle de la Muerte, the Tatio geysers and the Laguna’s altiplanicas + salar de Atacama. We also arranged to be picked up on horse-back the next morning at 8 for a 2-hour gentle stroll through the surrounding villages.
The horse ride only confirmed what we had both known for some time: that Sil's impressive and very painful two falls in Dubai have left permanent scars -not to mention chronic back pains- and that her apprehensions are too deep to be comfortable riding those unmanageable creatures. Chris, still unsure whether he really likes it, took Leo, the young Dutch woman who owns the "Da Luz" ranch, on her offer to go for a 3-hour sunset ride later that week to the dunes of the Valle de la Muerte, where the sand is soft enough to give galloping a serious try.

After our dreadful experiences in Asia, we knew that the wise thing to do, the logical thing to do, the reasonable and safe thing to do was to stay away from anything that spelt organised tours. But God and San Pedro conspired against us and placed the attractions so far spread in the vastness of the desert and on the 4000m high mountain peaks that we had no choice but to follow the crowds and squeeze into overfull minivans if we wanted to do anything at all.
The first tour in the valley of the moon, the valley of death and the one of the dinosaurs was very beautiful though extremely touristy: just before sunset we were dropped in the middle of a surrealistic moonscaped valley where we climbed a 100m high giant sand dune, to find ourselves not only sweaty and dusty and dead tired but also surrounded by 75 equally disgusting tourists who all had probably the same romantic vision of solitary desert sunset as us.
The other day trip was luckily much less touristy: in one day we went from San Pedro (altitude 2400m) to the altiplanic lakes of Laguna Miscanti and Laguna Miniques at 4200m, passing by the pink flamingo rich salt lake of Atacama, the beautiful gold-coloured landscapes of the altiplano , the almost black altiplanic lakes where we had a simple lunch in the company of a curious little fox and the amazing gorge of Tocanao, a lush oasis abundant in fruit trees, flowers and water streams located at 2200m in the middle of the one of the driest deserts in the world.

Gamal in heaven
Exhausted after such an action-filled day, longing for a drink and some extra oxygen, we seeked refuge at Adobe, a Mexican-western styled bar with colourful walls filled by stylish –and overpriced– local paintings, a large bonfire in its inner courtyard from where we could watch the impressive blanket of stars (the best night sky ever, by far!), thatched ceilings and the traditional life-saving 2-for-1 happy-hour Pisco Sour.

Take a break, take a Gamal
Not being at all in a mood to wake up at 4am the next morning to see the Tatio Geyser, we cancelled our 3rd tour (after all, what's the big deal?, it just water coming out of the ground, right?) and accepted the tempting offer of Noemie & Paul to come do nothing at the luxurious Explora eco-resort they manage: We laid by the pool, went in the sauna,. played with the llamas, swam, worked on our sun tan, interneted and then were served an amazing lunch with amazing wines and an amazing chocolate fondant desert in the lovely company of Paul and Noemie.

When at 3pm, Chris went for his he-likes-it-he-likes-it-not horseback riding moment of truth with Leo, he had no idea that he was about to have the most exhilarating and rewarding experience of his life.
-“From the first moment onwards, everything was perfect: the horse which I had ridden just 2 days earlier was still in a good mood, the weather was great, the evening air was clear and fresh, and my two riding companions looked as if they had just come out of a John Wayne scene with their thick boot protectors, leather over-pants, colourful Andean inspired vests and their wide sombrero hats. The first 15 minutes of sitting trot went surprisingly well (considering that this has always been my weaker spot. I just cannot seem to be able to synchronise with a horse that suddenly goes ta-ta-ta-ta-ta so fast that every organ in my body vibrates likes a giant Tarzan on steroids...). When we arrived at the dunes of the Valley of Death, Leo did not even bother wait for my response to her "ready?" and started galloping like crazy upwards on the sand dune.'. 'My horse went 'brrrreuh', 'wizzzz" and then 'tatata-tatata-tatata', I went "ooooohh my gooooooood", my feet went out of the stirrup and high into the air, my hands went berserk, desperately trying to hold on to anything they could possibly grab: the saddle, the reigns, the ears, the manes; hope. The horse eventually stopped when he could no longer go forward. I regained my composure, placed my feet back into the stirrups, my hands, hips and arse where they were supposed to be, and screamed in absolute victory: “I did it, I galloped, I galloped! I can do it! I love it!”. I knew that from now, I could only improve. Fifteen minutes later, we were galloping all three side by side--same speed, not same elegance-- through the magical scenery of the sandy valley. By that stage, I had given up trying to keep my feet in the stirrups since my hiking boots did not fit in the clog-like traditional wooden models that I had, and instead just folded them on the back of the saddle, and went tata-tata-tata as if there was no tomorrow. From the dunes, we entered the canyon of Death Valley: a 1.5m narrow alleyway that corkscrews its way between 3-meter high monticules of crumbling brownish hard sand. The horses would have to continuously and cautiously twist and turn to make it through the narrow passages, but when we finally got to the mouth of the canyon, and saw a complete new valley of sand and stones laid out in Dali-esque shapes unfolding before our eyes under the orangish sunset sky, we felt like in a dream!”
“The enchantment of walking through the canyon had giving me a real motivation boost: I wanted to gallop faster, harder, longer! (and try, for a change, to control the horse a bit too!). So I switched stirrups with Leo, gained some confidence, a tiny bit of extra stability, and felt wings growing on my back.. I was uncontrollable!. We raced down the dunes and back up the dirt road, until the horse literally begged us for a rest.”
“The sun had almost set, and the whole landscape around the perfectly shaped volcano had become dark pink with bright orange clouds. I was convinced that I would hear at any time now the 'meep-meep' of the roadrunner flying past in front of us between the narrow canyon walls...”
On the way back, we looked for a new path from the 200m-high plateau back to San Pedro. We rode up and down the dunes and the rocky hills until we arrived at the cliff overlooking the village and had no other choice than to go straight down the 200m wall on a donkey-path that was certainly not wider than 30 cm. “It was just amazing to be there, sitting on my horse on this 40 degrees slope, leaning as far back as I could, whispering calming sounds to the nervous animal, marvelling at the sight of the two cowboy silhouettes moving through the sunset-coloured landscape in front of me, and hating myself to death for not having bothered to bring the camera with me!.”

It was just the perfect closure for a gorgeous country!

Conclusion
There is very little else to say except that we both loved Chile. It is true that it is huge, modern and expensive, but it just has so much to offer: a diverse and incredible nature , lovely towns and cities, mystical places like Rapa Nui, magical snow-capped summits, fjords, deserts, millenary ice masses and of course, the best Pisco sour in the world!
With all those ingredients combined, together with a few good restaurants here and there, it would not surprise us if some of our CV's end up in "the earth ends" in a few months...