loquitohermoso

After probably a little too long in the desert, it was a relief to be back to the slightly more normal humidity and climate of Santiago. We’d formulated a rough plan facilitated by nothing other than the “Search map” function of Booking.com therefore were off to Olmue, a small countryside town a couple of hours out of Santiago. This was definitely a brave punt.

The first obstacle was grabbing a hire car, surprisingly straightforward, and then the slightly more stern obstacle of escaping the Santiago metropolitan area at rush hour.

Naturally, as the South American correspondent and the master of all things driving, I was nominated to pilot this section. You’d think this was easy, having mobile service and Google Maps and all, however this was far from the truth. Immediately as you leave the calm little hire car precinct you are literally flung onto the Autopista to contend with the multitude of big trucks, small trucks, SUVs. They don’t like little cars much over here. Undoubtedly quite civilised by wider Latino standards, but nonetheless a bit intense when you’re contending with an arcane road network which requires changing of lanes every few hundred metres for a new intersection or joining traffic.

I mean, aside from the regular lane changes to keep up with Google and the Chilean road network’s regular whims I was pretty relaxed amongst the chaos going on outside, despite the occasional squeaks from the passenger seat. As a Police response driver for the last twenty years, and an advanced/tactical pursuit driver for the past five, Muggles don’t understand that any form of motorway traffic at normal speeds is remarkably tame for us, used as I am to having vehicles pull out immediately in front of me whilst travelling at 130mph, or stolen vans gently nudging the side of my Volvo as I force them to continue down the motorway, and just dealing with it. Everything is fine.

Before long though, and quite suddenly, we left the chaos of the motorway and were straight onto an evidently Google-special country road. Whilst only a short distance from Santiago, we were immediately plunged into a different world, of plunging valleys, twisty roads and any number of roadside stalls selling honey and charcoal.

Home for the next couple of nights was the delightful Natura Olmué. I was, to be honest, a little skeptical but so glad we gave it a punt. It’s the kind of place that doesn’t immediately make sense to a Westerner, but really does indicate what makes Chile and Argentina special. A place of connection, where people go on holiday to be with family and enjoy the outdoors. If you were to be crude about such things, a Chilean Center Parcs. There was a live music venue attached to it too, I checked out Friday’s act on Spotify and decided to give it a miss though.

You see loads of these places, and lots of families here have a little plot where they can go to stay, to relax, to barbecue-Sadly we weren’t really set up for the latter, but there is always next time.

After a night in our cosy chalet, far comfier than expected, breakfast delivery arrived at the appointed hour, to be enjoyed on the veranda. Mark was less overjoyed by the arrival of the camp dog doing his rounds to hoover up leftovers.

We set out on a not-entirely-successful bid to explore the local area in the car. This is very much small town Chile, and there’s not a great deal to be found on the stretch between Olmué and Limache. The village of Olmué however does have a pleasant enough square with loads of places to eat and drink. I think that’s kind of the idea-eat, drink and enjoy the sun, which thankfully had arrived.

In general I found this to be a really friendly corner of Chile. It’s definitely not somewhere many foreign visitors frequent, at least at this time of year, and using a bit of Spanish really helps. In fact, I think you would really struggle without it. The waiter at the town’s Italian fusion restaurant was especially friendly, with loads of different beer tasters, and a really reasonable bill when compared to some of the Santiagan excesses we’d encountered.

The next day we had resolved to do walking proper. Actually having a “fallow” day in the middle had really been useful to scope out the park access points and to develop a plan. And then to do battle with the arcane ticket ordering system which is the bane of every Chilean outdoor experience.

Every view around here is dominated by the imposing Cerro La Campaña, a relatively modest 1800m peak but every guide seemed to indicate that the final sections were somewhat technical. That definitely wasn’t going to be doable for us with a quite late start, but I had planned to do a decent walk in Sector Granizo.

This turned into far more of an epic than planned. The route map makes it look more mellow than it actually is, but actually it’s a relentless schlep through admittedly lovely countryside, up to the final point, Portuzuelo Ocoa, which marks the intersection of three trails from different access points.

Mission accomplished! By now we were very hot, very dehydrated but moreover, rather late. Time management is not one of Mark’s strong points so I had to rather push the point that we were now well beyond the park-mandated turn back point and really, really did need to crack on to avoid missing the park closing time and presumably a Jeep full of irritated Guardaparques coming to find us.

Thankfully this fate was not for us, as we managed to get back down, albeit via the service road for most of it to save shattered knees. This was meant to be about 10km on the maps but actually turned into a 25km epic.

After signing out and a friendly chat with the ranger, it was straight into the car for the short hop to Vina del Mar, home for the next 2 nights. Another random Booking punt.

The traffic en route was horrendous, particularly through the city outskirts, and Google was on point with a bizarre but clearly efficient route zigzagging around various vertiginous city blocks. However, arrive we did, to a somewhat foreboding plain house, surrounded by high walls and electric fences.

Thankfully, this first impression turned out to be completely wrong, as the rear gates opened onto a stunning villa. Inside was wonderfully preserved, and the room itself enormous with a huge balcony overlooking the sea.

I would go so far as to say that this was one of our best accommodation bargains in the whole trip, at a smidge over fifty quid a night including breakfast, which was un-memorable but filled a gap. In the morning we set out to have a look around Vina . I was breaking Mark in gently to gritty South America, so we skipped the somewhat sketchier end of Valparaiso, and instead boarded the metro in towards Vina itself.

Built as they are on steep hillsides, walking around these places is all about the steps. Neither of us were feeling particularly energetic after our mammoth hike the day before, so it was an Uber for the return trip.

I guess I still don’t really get the seaside in this part of the world, despite the bright sunshine savage wind and waves don’t make it somewhere I would choose to hang out with a piña colada. In fact, it’s just a big city with a coastline. Alright if you like that sort of thing I suppose. We chose a well-located restaurant on the front for a decent bit of lunch, and retired to the Casa, via the neighbourhood beer shop, for the afternoon.

The next day we decided to hit the road early-ish, homeward bound. The exit from Vina was somewhat interesting, with illogical multi-lane highways snaking through the outskirts and an only vague sense of direction thanks to dodgy mobile signal. Despite a few squeaks from the passenger side, we made it out unscathed and onto the much calmer highway towards Santiago, phew Sunday.

First stop of the day was the Easton outlet mall, close to the airport. When we had been in Santiago, I needed an extra hoody and had found that prices were exceptionally cheap, so we expected great things, and turned out not to be disappointed, with a mammoth haul of all sorts of stuff, including probably my proudest purchase of 2 pairs of Gumbies sandals I’d been eyeing up online for about 40 quid, here just 7. Since we had a fair amount of spare baggage allowance we just bought another holdall.

Whilst I had lots more bargain hunting in me, Mark was flagging so we enjoyed a really good, and cheap, Italian meal with the last of our cash pesos, and headed to the airport hotel, final stop on a great trip.

This wasn’t particularly impressive, gates were closed on arrival and I was interrogated in Spanish by the gate guard for all my booking details. Sure, I don’t mind the Spanish bit, but it’s a bit much for an international airport hotel with plenty of visitors who might not understand. Thankfully, matching his somewhat aggressive energy on our first meeting seemed to do the trick as it was a friendly conversation instead when I popped back after dropping the hire car back.

I suppose we’re to blame as this was a pretty cheap option, and I’m not sure if this runs across the Wyndham brand, but there was a general air around the hotel of penny-pinching (and stale fag smoke)… our allocation for the room was 2 coffee sachets and when I popped to reception to ask for a couple more, this was denied… C’mon guys! At least we could share the bottle of complimentary water.

The next morning we headed to SCL for the return flight, enjoying the last of our premium perks for a while, skipping to the front of the extremely long check-in queue felt wrong but delicious, and left us with a good couple of hours in the reasonably plush LATAM lounge, although I was uncharacteristically restrained this time with the booze. Too early see?

This was where the good impressions firmly finished. Our return fight was a codeshare with Iberia, via Madrid, in Business Class. I had expected great things from this, and the hard product on the A350 is significantly more up-to-date than the old Club World cabins.

The first hint that this wasn’t going to be a great experience was approaching the gate, with an absolute scrum and absolutely no co-ordination at all of boarding groups, meaning we just wandered onto the plane as we pleased, elbows at the ready. No welcome on the plane, nothing.

Was it comfy? I mean, sure, it was a big wide seat with a decent recline. However this was pretty much where it ended, with the service veering between perfunctory and just plain “can’t be bothered”. Unlike our BA flight out whereby drinks had been served on arrival with regular top-ups and check-ins by the friendly cabin manager, this was more of a “Sit down and you might get lunch a bit later” affair.

Lunch itself was reasonable, but again the vast inconsistency of service showed itself, with no offer of alternatives, one drink and that’s your lot, and varying extras/options depending on where you were sat, and how much Spanish you spoke. Things didn’t improve after dinner, with the hope of a nap, when Mark’s seat wouldn’t recline fully- again, completely unbothered cabin crew, limited efforts to fix the problem and no alternative as “It’s a full flight”…even speaking nicely to the cabin manager generated barely an apology or any form of solution.

Now, I am no passenger princess, and we were lucky to have been able to save airmiles for…years to afford business class reward flights, but this lack of service when our return flights should have cost 7 grand each is mind-blowing.

We arrived at Madrid in the early morning, more bleary-eyed than we really should have been. Sadly the Iberia lounge is not such an early riser, however we managed a quick coffee and croissant before boarding our next flight to London, a world apart from the previous night’s debacle with a young, friendly and attentive crew and a decent breakfast. How can that be?!

And that was that. Another adventure done. Thankfully our tangle with Iberia eventually had a happy ending with the full refund of airmiles. That’ll sort 2026’s Canadian adventure then, perfect.