“In the beginning of time, God created the wonders of the world. When he was finished, however, he saw that he had many leftover pieces. He had parts of rivers and valleys, of oceans and lakes, of glaciers and deserts, of mountains and forests, and of meadows and hills. Rather than to let such beauty go to waste, God gathered them all together and cast them to the most remote corner of the earth. This is how Chile was born.”

So the legend goes...
And I am now a true believer. Chile’s coastline stretches over 2,700 miles and runs from the world’s most arid desert in the north to the Antarctic Circle in the south. In between, the land passes through forests, mountains, valleys, volcanoes, lakes, glacierfields and a wide range of climate zones. Still, for all its diversity in geography and climate, Chile is never more than 110 miles wide. I feel like we experienced almost all of it last week. True to our nature, my mom and I made a whirlwind tour of Chile in our not-so-speedy set of wheels that we affectionately named “The Silver Bullet”.


After a short pit stop at the Bellavista farmers market on Sunday to fill our cooler with nectarines, plums, homemade goat cheese, black olives, tomatoes, avocados, a couple bottles of Escudo (the Chilean king of beers) and Camenére we hopped into the silver bullet and were bouncing down Ruta 5 SUR. Tina Turner in and out on the radio, maps and guidebooks piled on the passenger’s side, a requisite happy hour at 4pm, waves from the stand up drivers of 3-horse carts, split-second decisions for off-ramps and delicious roadside Parillada lunches… this is how I remember the drive. Between our time in the car we hiked (almost vertical, right mom?) to triplet mountain lakes with a view of Volcan Villarica, spent a few days in the Colchagua Wine Valley in an unbelievable hacienda we had to ourselves, said hello to the Pacific Ocean and weaved through mazes of stacked hilltop neighborhoods in Valparaiso.

It was a lot of fun to be able to share with her so many things that have made me fall in love with Chile and also be able to laugh about the wacky shit about living in a foreign country that is even more hilarious when you have someone who gets the joke. There were so many high points, and we kept a mental list of all of the wonderful things we ran across (or over). Best wine, best hand-built and wood-heated hot tub, best view, best wine, best sunset… did I say best wine yet?

I have just one negative thing to share… unfortunately the Silver Bullet had to be retired halfway through the trip after some jerks broke her back window, pillaged the radio and a lot of my gear (including my treasured Cloudveil softshell, my favorite pair of jeans, the best rainshell I've ever owned AND my cowboy hat) at the ranger station of a national park. Halfway through my angry tears, I realized that I don’t own very many things. And now I own even less. I hope that at least someone is running around in a grove of Araucaria trees looking quite dashing in my fire-red rain jacket and my cowboy hat. Argh!!

I tried to convince myself it was a sacrifice to the gods of southern Chile, and a promise I’ll be back. And maybe more training in not being so attached to Things (see Britt? I'm getting better at it!) To be honest, we had such a great time I would do it all over again even if it meant re-losing all of our stuff. Only next time we’d plan to hide in the forest of Monkey-Puzzle trees to give them a good punch and yell my newly minted Chilean curse words at them as they ran with the loot. Ha. That’s right. Thanks for such a great time Mom and I hope you all enjoy some of the photos.