Chile by Land by Sea
By Kenneth Brower, National Geographic Traveler
Journey from the snowcapped volcanoes and gingerbread villages of Chiles southern lake country all the way down to Patagonias wild Torres del Paine National Park.
That Chile makes a kind of California Australisan antipodal version of my home stateI had heard often enough. The comparison, Id always thought, had mainly to do with climate. Chile, like California, has good grape weather. In winter, North American supermarkets fill with those red flame grapes of Chilean summer. But climate, in truth, is just the beginning. This February, arriving in Puerto Montt, gateway to la región de los lagosChiles celebrated southern lake districtI was unprepared for the echoes of home that resounded on all sides. I had entered some sort of parallel universe.
California is long, and so is Chile. The heart of California is a great central valley between a coast range to the west and a cordillera to the east. So it is in Chile. California is desert at one end and humid forest at the other. Chile is the same. California boasts the redwood, tallest of all trees and among the longest lived. Chile boasts the alerce, a conifer remarkably similar in look and age and grandeur. Above the mountains of California, on a nine-foot wingspan, soars the endangered California condor. Above the mountains of Chile soars the Andean condor. Into Californias coastal waters, folding up to become a spear, the brown pelican dives beaklong. Into the coastal waters of Chile dives the Peruvian pelican, a nearly indistinguishable subspecies. California is divided lengthwise by a highway called Route 5. Chile is divided lengthwise by a highway called Ruta 5.
But a parallel universe is not an identical universe. Scarcely five minutes down the road from the airport, I encountered the first big anomaly in parallel structure, and I had to brake for it: a horse and wagon trotting down the middle of the pavement. This wagon, stacked with firewood, might have been a California scene from a century ago. If not an anomaly in parallel structure, it was a warp in time.
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Frequent contributor Kenneth Brower lives in Oakland, California.
The information in this story was accurate at the time it was published, but we suggest you confirm all details before making travel plans.
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