It all started during the kids spring break earlier this year.
We were all enjoying a long weekend in Sonoma valley with friends – ice skating, wine tasting and some memorable gourmet food in Healdsburg. While strolling around the main square, I couldn’t help resist walking into a book shop with the optimism of a book lover who never knows what they may find, and right there on the clearance rack my eyes stopped on the Eyewitness Guide to Chile.
Truth be told, ever since visiting Peru in 2005, I wanted to explore more in that part of the world, and frequently told my 10 year old daughter – “one day we will travel to South America and walk the Andes together”. It was then I mentally committed to myself that we were doing Chile, sooner than later. I had heard a lot about Chile, some acquaintances had travelled there, Chilean wine was well respected, a hike in Torres Del Paine was talked about with the same reverence as a trip to Everest Base Camp and to cap it all, Aconcagua – the highest mountain in the southern hemisphere, was a few hours drive from Santiago.
As I came out of the book shop with my latest acquisition, I announced to the family that we were traveling to Chile… soon.
Depending on your view – is all of creation a random event or is there a pattern to everything and everything happens for a reason, during lunch the very same day we are all sitting in a mediterranean restaurant – 3 adults and 5 children having a noisy but again delicious meal, when someone behind me said, “Sorry, but I couldn’t help seeing that book on Chile on your table – are you going there? We just came back from Chile last week!” As the conversation progressed, the couple had traveled, were full of enthusiasm for the place and highly recommended everything but easter island (Long flight, nothing really to see except the statues, does not justify the expense or the time).
Over the next six months, I think I spent about 30 minutes flipping through the pages of that book.
Spring & Summer came and went by and during fall I began to think about a memorable family trip during winter and toyed with the idea of Iceland, Italy, Greece given that the summer tourists would have gone home and we would get low crowds. Some days of research later, it seemed that Southern Hemisphere would probably a wiser choice for more predictable good weather and immediately, Chile surfaced to the top of the list. We had around 10 days itinerary to plan for and I researched Chile end to end for a week until I was convinced that we could pull it off. My wife was supportive but exactly enthusiastic, and I could see that she was on the fence – so I did what I do best – committed ourselves by buying the airline tickets in and out of Santiago, with 12 full days to plan around during mid-November in Chile
Over the next few weeks, with more research we realized that Chile’s unique geography (a coastline that stretches 2,600 miles) and long distances and our limited time, it would be hard to cover all of it and we would have to make some choices. While I really wanted to Atacama desert in the north for its unique landscapes and night skies, I realized that to really do it justice I would need to travel to the Bolivian side and that would basically be a 4-5day mini-trip by itself. Given the time we had, we had to make some priority calls – what are the must see things for us? We eventually decided on Santiago, Chilean Wine Country, Valparaiso and Patagonia. Patagonia itself is a vast area and we chose the top 3 destinations – Torres Del Paine National Park in Chile, Perito Moreno Glacier and El Chaltein in Argentina. And oh, since we are going to be on the Argentinian side, might as well add Buenos Aires and make it a nice closed loop triangle.
And so it was decided,
- San Francisco-> Santiago
- Santiago -> Buenos Aires, 2 days visit
- Buenos Aires -> El Calafate, Drive to El Chaltein day hike in El Chaltein, Overnight in El Chaltein
- Morning hikes in El Chaltein, Drive to El Calafate, Overnight in El Calafate
- All day Perito Moreno Glacier visit
- 6 hour Bus to Puerto Natales, cross into Chile
- 2 days in Torres Del Paine National Park
- 4 hour bus to Punta Arenas, Chile, overnight in Punta Arenas
- All day in Punta Arenas, late afternoon flight to Santiago, overnight in Santiago
- All day sightseeing in Santiago & Chilean Wine country
- Chilean Wine Country and Valparaiso
- Santiago -> San Francisco
I was quite pleased with the whole thing – unless something un-predictable happened, we were going to Chile as I had planned, I would walk the Andes with my children and we would have our memorable trip of 2016. Feeling smug with that thought, I called out to my 10 year old and started dictating all the things we needed to acquire for our trip.