One of the most interesting drives in my life was Chile from the island of Chiloe to the Tatio Geysers in the Atacama. Just so many different climate zones, and all in relatively close proximity.
Chiloe and Puerto Montt were damp, cold, and fog-shrouded in Summer (Jan-Feb), very similar to parts of the coastal pacific northwest.
The area to its north, centered around the German-influenced town of Valdivia, was California-like. Very temperate in Summer, and very green. Lots of pastures and rivers.
The region becomes progressively more "Mediterranean" as you move further north; one gradually sees fewer pastures and woodlands, more vineyards, olive trees, and fruit orchards. Santiago is on the far northern end of this Mediterranean zone. The great wine regions are generally to the south and west of that capital city.
A few hours north of Santiago and all is desert -- but it's a fairly live desert, with all sorts of succulent plants and many types of flower. Most of the road traffic in these parts comes from copper miners and their work trucks.
Continue north and you're in a dry, mostly empty, moonscape. Antofagasta and Calama are nice enough towns, though, and the interesting drive from the former to the latter takes just two hours but sees you rise from sea level to +2000m. It's such a gentle and relentless slope that you barely notice it. Nothing at all like driving in the Alps.
I broke something in my rental car when I continued to the geysers at +4000m, but it was worth it.
Torres del Paine in the south is pretty brutal to get to if you're not used to long flight but it is breathtaking. Definitely a bucket list trip if you enjoy nature and wildlife, hiking, etc.
It's nice, but unfortunately listed on nearly every tour guide of Chile, so these days it's flooded with tourists most of the time. You'll have a much better time seeing other places slightly off the beaten track.
During the summer months yeah, but I've been there last year during the end season and, although there are still lots of tourists, it's not overwhelming and some of the hikes were pretty chill.
Going straight to the Torres themselves will usually be crowded (depending on the time of the day). But some of the other hikes less so. I've done the W Circuit (a multi-day trek) and during some days I barely saw another hiker.
I hate visiting touristy cities but I mind don't mind it as much in nature areas. Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists.
I visited Torres de Paine and it was refreshingly different from national parks in the US. On the upside, you can get water and basic snacks at the refugios which reduce the load you have to carry, and makes for an overall safer experience than unsupported wilderness backpacking but still with minimal impact on nature. On the other hand I did not like that they close a lot of viewpoints long before sunset.
"Mainly because the nature isn't changing itself for the tourists."
Yes, but some tourists change the nature by leaving their garbage etc.
Or by burning it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torres_del_Paine_National_Park...
That sounds bad, but in the end:
"Nevertheless, recent paleoenvironmental studies performed within the Park indicate that fires have been frequent phenomena at least during the last 12,800 years."
So fires are a normal thing there, or they have tourists since 12,800 years ..
Or blasting their music from a phone or Bluetooth speaker.
Yeah I hate that, but at first glance it didn't seem to be a huge problem in TdP compared to most other national parks around the world I have been to. Most people I encountered seemed quite responsible. Chile is overall a very well-educated country though, and TdP takes significant effort to get to compared to so it is perhaps a natural filter.
Really enjoyed that. The views are surreal. Got lucky with the weather too.
Another place like this, perhaps lesser in scale, is the Big Island of Hawaii. Its latitude means the trade winds are blowing from the same direction year-round, bringing moisture to the windward side (e.g. Hilo, HI with 120" average annual rainfall) and leaving the leeward side dry (e.g. Kailua-Kona, HI with under 20" average annual rainfall), on the other side of massive volcanoes. And you can go from the ocean to almost 14k feet in elevation in an hour's drive; this may be one of the only places in the world where you can do that.
All of this means that as you move around Big Island, based on the precipitation, humidity, and elevation, you're going to see wildly different environments mere minutes' drive from each other. It truly has to be seen to be believed.
Tenerife is a bit like that. 12k feet at the top.
Yes, Tenerife is awesome, a different biome almost every few kilometers. I've been there hiking several times, and I always see something new!
And to a lesser extent, Gomera.
Just by the sea, beaches and small banana plantations. Go slightly inland and up the hills, you're in an arid region. Continue slightly further up, and you get into a lush, verdant forest. All within maybe 20 minutes' drive.
Best part? There's no airport on the island - you have to fly to Tenerife and take a ferry.
To this day, the best tomatoes I've ever had.
Hawaii was never on my list of places to visit until now, but now I have to go there. Thanks for sharing
It's expensive, and it's a long way away from anything else.
I've been twice and both times the Big Island was my favorite. Maui and Kauai are spectacular in their own ways, as are the few rural areas of Oahu, but there's nothing like the Big Island. The drive from Kailua-Kona to Hilo over the Saddle Road (which, in itself, goes to around 6600 ft) is spectacular, and if you have enough time to make a day of it, coming back around via the southern ring road is well worth it. If you get up early, Waimea and the surrounding area (esp the NW protuberance of land) are worth seeing as well. Huge variation in biomes in very short distances.
Probably I’d go there for a few weeks. I’ll make it my first stop to the US(if they let me in).
I was recently in the big island and this was both unexpected and wild to me. The difference of a couple miles could have an enormous impact on the weather over time. We stayed a couple of days in Volcano Village and like clockwork it'd be rainy there but sunny or at least partly sunny just a few miles down the street. Then there are rain forests, cloud forests, deserts, and every thing in between.
I travelled to Chile earlier this year and visited Atacama and Torres de Paine.
The thing that boggled my mind was that you can't drive between the two without a very long detour through Argentina. Chile has literally no road linking the northern part with the southernmost part without going outside the country.
It is also mind boggling that rail is not more popular there. A long, slim country is ideal for high speed rail.
That would require the upper class to mix with the poor. Not acceptable in Chile.
Barely, different classes of carriage?
I don't know anything about the history of trains or carriages, but in the heyday of railway development in Britain (iron rails, steam locomotive, etc.) it would have been far less acceptable than today too. And still all trains I'm aware of/have been on have two classes of carriage. Indian trains have several, and similar cultural need for that I imagine (I don't really know anything about Chile).
I tried to cross the border into Argentina north of Puerto Montt. I wanted to check out the Argentinian side for a day or two. But they wouldn't let me across the border with my rental car, and I got turned back. I suppose the rules are a little bit different in the far south?
If you want to bring a Chilean rental car into Argentina you need to obtain and pay for a specific permit at least a few days before you pick up the rental car. Maybe that was missing? When I crossed the border they were very thorough with checking this permit.
The bus system is very cheap though, it’s very hard to compete with that
See one of my other comments in this post regarding the rail in Chile.
It’s roughly the equivalent of British Columbia to Mazatlan, except the water is a tiny bit cooler. Santiago is the same latitude as LA, for example.
I love Chiloe and Los Lagos region. I would buy a “southern summer” house there if I didn’t have kids in school.
Vancouver when the cherry blossoms are in bloom is interesting, the different elevations and the different progress of the trees is fun to pay attention to.
I’m told that prior to industrialization there were areas along the Andes (in Peru for sure, presumably Chile as well) where you rarely if ever met the tribes living uphill or downhill from you. It was way easier to travel north and south.
Quite the contrary, the management of the different ecological floors was the specialty of the inhabitants of the Andes, even now. The same community owns and uses land at different altitudes, which can range from 1000 to 4000 meters above sea level. This generated an economy based on the exchange of goods along vertical lines.
https://haubooks.org/reciprocity-and-redistribution/
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24/obituaries/24murra.html
The Atacama Desert is exceptional, the absolutely best solar energy resource on the planet.
It's only partly in Chile, but regardless all of the scenery in A Long Way Up is breathtaking:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Way_Up
Yes. Just mountain climbing in northern Patagonia (between Bariloche & Villarica, really only 100mi of north-south distance) became my favorite part of the world for your reason. In a single day (or two), we could walk in the dry, dusty bottom of a canyon dug out by glacier melt, cross through a humid jungle, rest on the shores of an alpine lake, pick your way across a massive rocky field of a'a lava, up a glacier and look down inside the caldera of an active volcano.
The only other place I have been that come close to having that amount of diversity of terrain in a limited area might be the Tetons/Yellowstone.