Geographically, Chile seems an impossible place. It is long and thin in exaggerated fashion—some 2,600 miles from north to south and never more than 200 miles wide. Its two constants are the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Andes Mountains to the east. Within those borders the land goes through a hodgepodge of intense transformations—waterless desert to the north; agricultural valleys and rolling-hilled wine country; lush expanses of lakes, rivers and volcanic peaks; and, to the south, the immense Patagonian wilderness, sheltering thousands of islands, hundreds of peaks and fjords, and dozens of glaciers and ice sheets. As if that weren’t enough, there are also the offshore—way offshore—Robinson Crusoe and Easter islands. AND a slice of Antarctica.
A long and winding road:
Driving the length of Chile is a touch shorter than going from San Diego to New York City. Much of the journey follows the fabled Pan-American Highway, a patchwork of official highways and associated roads that–more or less–extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego along the Pacific coast. The highway enters Chile from Peru at the Atacama Desert (as Ruta 5) and continues to just north of Santiago, where it begins to split. One split goes to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the other south to Puerto Montt. Here the road splits again, heading southwest across the island of Chiloé and southeast along the Carretera Austral (Ruta 7). From the maps, Ruta 7 resembles a blue highway, winding through rugged northern Patagonia until it comes to a stop near Villa O’Higgins. Beyond, planes, ships, and some very intrepid driving will get you to Punta Arenas and the Strait of Magellan.
Poring through the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Chile, I eventually opted to locate my novel-in-progress, and my month-long Chile stay, in the section of the book’s purple pages — Chile’s Lake District; more specifically, in the small, historic city of Valdivia. From this region, the novel-in-progress begins with the story of a woman and her very strange day at a lake …
