High temperature: 64, sunny. Low: 34.
I was thinking today, during lunch, that we’re traveling in a pretty strange way. We’re in Chile in the winter, and we’re not seeing the things most people see when they come here. And I was feeling kind of funny about that for a minute. I caught myself even indulging in some second-guessing and regretting. Really helpful things, like this: We *should* have come in the Chilean summer, when we could have gone to Patagonia and seen Torres del Paine, which everyone says is stunning! I mean, incredible craggy mountain peaks! Not seeing them! And we *shouldn’t* have planned to spend so much time in the Chilean cities and instead left things more open to explore the countryside!
But then I realized the reason I travel isn’t to See The Great Things so much as to make life unfamiliar. Take some giant steps away from my usual routine and see places and people I’ve never seen before. That, in itself, slows time down and forces me to look instead of be on autopilot. Instead of thinking: Wow, I can’t believe another month has gone by, I’m thinking: Wow, I can’t believe only four days have gone by. Traveling triggers the same kind of slow-motion experience that falling, or getting in a car accident, does. Except travel is not usually life-endangering. It’s just way outside the norm, so my brain is playing constant catch-up.
This trip is definitely accomplishing all that, and therefore, it doesn’t particularly matter where we go, whether we see the Chilean Greatest Hits or not. It’s all about just being open to new experiences. Ah, a sigh of relief, and I finished my lunch in peace! (Well, at least until I came up with something else, unrelated, to worry about.)
The town I was thinking all this in is called Los Andes, and the guidebooks barely mention it. In fact, Lonely Planet comes right out and says it’s not worth the trip. But the sun was shining this morning, and Dan and I thought: Let’s get out and see the countryside. Especially since Dan might not have another chance this time to get up into the Andes. So we headed off to one of Santiago’s many bus terminals and hopped on a comfy Pullman bus. (Round trip: $11, about 1 hour and 20 minutes each way.)
The ride itself was promising enough.
But here was the day’s highlight:
That’s the view from the top of El Cerro de la Virgen, the 1,000-meter hill at the edge of town. The skies were completely blue today, giving us a clear view of some of the highest peaks in the Andes. We’re only a few miles away from Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the world outside the Himalayas. For most of the time we were at the top of this hill, we were completely alone. And the climb was just as delightful, through an arid landscape of cacti and scampering rabbits.
Most people come to Los Andes not for the views but to pay tribute to Santa Teresa de Los Andes. She was a Catholic nun who lived in the monastery here and died in 1920, at the age of 19, after a severe bout of typhus. As far as I can tell, her reputation rests mostly on some soulful letters she wrote as she was joining the order. But I wonder if her thousands of yearly pilgrims are also responding to the fact that she was so young when she died, the tragedy and romance of that.
I wanted to find out more about her, but unfortunately the monastery is closed on Mondays, as is the archaeological museum.
After our climb and descent, which took a couple hours, Dan and I walked around the town some more. It’s an exceedingly pleasant place. That’s the phrase that kept coming to mind: Exceedingly pleasant. But not in a bland way. Los Andes really bustles! Proportionately, the town (pop. 60,000) is at least as bustling as Santiago. People were out walking around all day, particularly in the area around the shady Plaza de Armas.
The side streets are full of postage-stamp-sized shops, each selling exactly one thing: clothes or books or gadgets or empanadas (which, yes, we ate as a snack). It’s as if, unlike in the U.S., people haven’t forgotten that each tiny shop like that can support a family. Or maybe more than one. And Los Andes had a prosperous air, despite the fact that it didn’t have any obvious dominating industries. A Peugeot factory apparently closed in 2004.
Then there were images of this Gaspar Rivas guy all over town. He seems to think this “You the man” gesture is a good one for a political campaign.
So Lonely Planet be damned, I can report that for me and Dan, on June 24, 2013, Los Andes made for a delightful day trip.
We returned to Santiago, dozing on the bus as the sun set, making the hills in the distance look dusty and purple.
We ate dinner at New Horizon Hindu Cafe — an Indian restaurant in Chile! Couldn’t resist the novelty, and of course we’re both big fans of Indian food. I had a shrimp curry, and Dan a fish curry. Both quite good, if not quite up to the standards of Indian restaurants in the U.S.
