Heading South

Just so you won't miss it (next to the bus station in Temuco, Chile)

There are certain mysteries about Chile that as guests to the country my husband and I have decided we'll probably never solve. Why does a country rich in vineyards and wonderful inexpensive wine have raisins that cost an arm and a leg? Into which black hole does the mail disappear? Why do you need to talk to the pharmacist to buy Rolaids?

And then there's the Tur Bus food mystery.

The United States could learn a lot about public transportation from Chile. You can journey from one end of the country to the other and know that buses will generally be clean, comfortable and on time. Most people can afford to travel on them. (Though using the bathroom while in transit is an adventure in itself. It's best to bring tissues with you just in case). When traveling distances we usually take Tur Bus and are generally pleased. However, there's the food issue.

The first time we went to La Serena, about seven hours to the north of Vina del Mar, everyone was served lunch: a dry sandwich, some cookies, and a coke. Not delightful, but at least it filled us up. On the way back, we found two women in the seats we had reserved. They were elderly, and we told them not to worry and sat in theirs. Come lunch time, everyone on the right hand side of the bus were handed bags with food, including the women. We kept waiting and watched the ladies eat ours . . . evidently the left hand side wasn't in favor that day. On a recent trip to La Serena, the bus stopped at a new lunch facility built by Tur Bus. We had a decent hot dog on the way up and then coming home an even better empanada at a food stand across the street. So there should be something similar in place for a much longer trip, right?

There must be some sort of Chilean bus traveling meme that we just haven't connected to where the food supply is concern. Vina to Valdivia is a 12 hour trip. There was two five minute stops and then a ten minute one in Temuco where I had just enough time to grab some crackers. We got to Valdivia after 10 at night and were starving.

Enough of that. Here's the good part, the scenery:

Everything was very dry leaving Santiago. The area around the city is more or less desert and without the snowmelt from the Andes, it would be hard for a city of over six million to exist. Chile is a first world country,yet scenes like this one of the horse and cart picking up a supply of gravel are common. This picture was taken not far from subways, fast cars, high fashion and skyscrapes.

But in a little while, the campo became verdant. We'd arrived in the core wine growing region of the country, passing kilometer after kilometer of vineyards. Our home in California is in the upper region of the wine country; at this point I felt I could have been traveling down the Napa Valley to San Francisco. The green leaves were a welcome sight.

Then the grapes made way for other crops and across the valley the distinct cone of volcanos came into view. I was finally in the south! Every ten or twenty minutes or so a new one appeared. They looked cloned, so similar in shape they were, all snow capped with funnel-like peeks, defying gravity and flirting with the angle of repose.

There are approximately 620 volcanos in Chile, more than in any other country. And with volcanos come earthquakes, the two biggest in the last century occurring in our neck of the woods (Valparaiso 1906, 8.2) and in Valdivia(1960, 9.0). The one in Valdivia was the biggest earthquake in recorded history, causing a tidal wave that flooded the town and several fishing villages along the southern coast. Last May, the town of Chaiten was virtually rubbed out. The ash combined with heavy rains and buried the community.photo credit: Carlos Guiterrez

In so many ways Chile is a mirror of the Pacific coast from northern Mexico to Alaska, except winters are colder than in the same latitudes in the north. Less land mass may affect the climate, especially as the continent dwindles into Patagonia down to Cape Horn. As we rode down Ruta 5 (the same number as the main artery between Southern California and Washington), there were changes that refected this.

We entered what could have been Oregon, the landscape no longer a flat plain, but greener with rolling hills. Pine trees grew tall, and for the first time in Chile I saw houses made entirely of wood. Small farms extended on either side of the road. We crossed rivers. Clouds were in the sky; their shadows made the land seem cooler. After leaving Temuco, on the last leg to Valdivia, geese flew overhead while ponds turned gold with the setting sun.