As I said in my last post, while I’m over here in Chile I intend to do a couple of trips, including one to the coast – a dip in the Pacific is a must as I may never get this way again, and I do love the sea. I’m a real beach bum. As it’s the summer, the weather is pretty good – so far it’s been consistently around 30C, very pleasant indeed – so there’s not likely to be a better opportunity.
So I did some research. On the maps, the coastal city of Valparaiso is nearest to Santiago, but it’s a port so bound to be quite industrial and possibly not too good as far as beaches go. A little to the north is the resort town of Vina del Mar, and people at work recommended this as being good, with plenty of beaches, shops, restaurants and so on. So not a bad bet then – travel by train or coach is the option, as it’s about 120km distance.
Next, the internet. There are of course thousands of places to look for more detailed information – TripAdvisor is a favourite; the Chilean national tourist site another useful tool; simply searching by “Chile beach pictures” brings up thousands of options too. It took care of an evening anyway….. And I stumbled across a little fishing village listed under various names, but generally Horcon forms part of it (there are actually a number of locations in Chile that have Horcon as part of the name, including a couple within Santiago itself, so Google Maps was initially of little value). Anyway, this place looked really good – it’s described as a very quiet and traditional fishing village with not a lot to do, but that has grown a little with the construction of a handful of condo’s just on the northern edge of the village that cater to Santiago’s nouveau riche as a weekend retreat. There are a number of good looking sandy beaches around the village, and the website stated that, back 30 years or so ago, it was a popular stop off on the South American hippy trail and still maintains a relaxed hippy vibe….. Well, that’ll do me, aging hippy that I am (the beads and necklaces I wear testify to that, as does my taste in music). I’ll go there then.
Bit trickier on the travel front though – a change of buses in another equally small and undeveloped coastal town from an inter-regional coach to a local (and almost certainly decrepit) bus service beckoned – and the likelihood of finding someone there speaking English seemed remote, given the surprising lack of reasonable English even here in one of the biggest banks in the capital city. But that’s what travel is all about, right – the adventure of using an alien transport system to get around and never knowing until you try how it’s going to be….. I’ll try anything once, me – so Horcon it is.
Further surfing showed me the bus company to use, travel times and fares – at least as far as Quintero, where I had to change: after that there was no information. Someone at the office advised me the best metro line to take from the hotel to the main bus terminus in Santiago (advice that was completely contradicted by the hotel staff), and someone else at work advised me slyly there was a “special beach” there – the Groucho Marx eyebrow wiggle suggested it might have something to do with a lack of swimwear being acceptable. All in all, it sounded better and better.
So on Friday evening, I did a bit of shopping to make up a packed lunch, a couple of litres of water (I figured I’d buy beer on arrival) and an early night – long trip planned, so early start required.
Happy days.
* * *
So Saturday morning I left the hotel about a quarter to seven – hideously early for a weekend, but since the coach journey was getting on for three hours I needed that early start to make any kind of a day of it. I had my book, a packed a lunch, my iPod and a hotel towel (as I had neglected to pack my own beach towel when I left home), so was all set.
God, it was cold! The whole time I’ve been here, as I’ve written previously, it’s been hot and sunny, high 20s. But at that of time of day – well, let’s say what few people were about were dressed in thick sweatshirts, scarves, and jackets to keep warm…..and there was I in a tee shirt, shorts and sandals. It was chilly, it was misty, and my heart sank……in another post I referred to myself as having a rain-man reputation with my kids, as it always seems to turn horrible when I go on vacation (the same was true last summer in Poland). I had visions of another lousy day.
But I headed off anyway – just getting out of the city would be good, and a bit of sea air would do no harm. The metro station is about 200m away from the hotel, and the guy on the ticket desk understood perfectly when I gave him my destination in the most appalling Spanish. He even had the wit to type the fare into a calculator and show me rather than expect me to understand anything he said. A good start.
The Santiago Metro is reckoned to be one of the best in South America. There are about 5 lines covering most of the city, and it’s modern, efficient and clean…..what more can you ask for really? It didn’t disappoint. A half-empty train pulled in as I got onto the platform, but rather than sit I remained by the door and followed my progress on the map there – I didn’t want to get lost straight away. But it was fine – right line, right direction and in 13 stops (say 30 minutes) I wandered back into the open air at Estacio Central – that’s Central Station to you and me. My hotel had told me this was the best place to get the bus as it’s the main train and bus terminal in Santiago: “Just come out of the metro and you will see the buses, no problem.”
Well, yes – except they were all local commuter buses, not the inter-regional coaches I was expecting….dozens of them tearing around in all directions from a selection of stops within 100m of the station entrance, and absolutely nothing to indicate which stop to go to for mine, nor where to buy a ticket. I wandered about for a bit, ignoring the drunks and derelicts that occupied the various stops and the beggars holding their hands out for cash or food. Estacio Central, despite its name, does not appear to be in the heart of Santiago, rather more towards the western end of town, and certainly in one of the less pleasant suburbs…..in fact, the place was a shithole. There was rubbish piled up everywhere, on every street corner a stall selling coffee and evil-smelling pastries and sandwiches, crumbling old tenement buildings covered in graffiti and a (closed) McDonalds on the station forecourt. A four-lane highway swept through, dedicated to one of the nation’s old heroes, the wonderfully named Bernardo O’Higgins, and the traffic seemed to treat it as a raceway – even the buses seemed to be in competition over who could get away from the stop fastest. After a while, at one of the stops I saw a group of young people, early 20s I should think, wearing suits and with laptop bags, who I figured may speak English, so I approached them and politely asked where to get the coach to Vina del Mar…. They looked bleary eyed at me, and one of them swung round, nearly falling over. His tie was neatly knotted but outside his collar, and he stunk like a brewery – they were all totally pissed. He pointed vaguely behind me – “Over there….”
I thanked him politely and went in the direction he had pointed, which was away from the station, then crossed the road and headed back to it – the guy clearly hadn’t a clue where he was or what day it was, so was certainly not a reliable guide. I got back to the station and went inside. It reminded me a bit of Charing Cross or Blackfriars in London, back in the 80s when I used to commute through them – old Edwardian buildings, a soiled glass roof over the forecourt and platforms, loads of pigeon shit everywhere and in desperate need of a clean-up and renovation. There were loads of shopping outlets beside the main forecourt, a little like Warsaw Central only grubbier (especially now Warsaw is being re-furbished before next year’s Euro football championships), and plenty of people now milling around or queuing for train tickets. No sign of a tourist information kiosk, so I tried a ticket office. “Coach to coast? Vina del Mar?”
The girl looked blankly at me, shrugged and called her colleague over. I repeated the question, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of it all. She giggled, said “Ummmm….” a few times then pointed to one of the rows of shops across the forecourt. “There. Two left”. Or was it “To left.” Ah, the subtleties of the English language!
There was actually an entrance to an arcade where she had pointed, and sure enough, the second entrance on the left had a sign with a picture of a bus on it, so I followed it, maybe 150m through the arcade, at the end of which the signs disappeared but there were a selection of ramps and escalators leading up. I took one, and found myself in the bus depot. There were perhaps 50 ticket desks scattered around, most of them closed, each for a different company – Pullman, Andes, San Raphael …. I was looking for Condor, but couldn’t see it at all. I asked a lady from Andes Coaches who had no idea what I was talking about, and merely shrugged her shoulders, sounded off in Spanish for a minute and returned to her magazine. I tried a guy from Pullman, who directed me to the other side of the forecourt. And sure enough, there was the Condor Bus booth, two blokes. I had my destination written in capital letters on a piece of paper and showed it to one of them. He shook his head: “Sorry, no. Quintero. Is close.”
How close? “About 20 minutes. Local bus. Easy.”
OK then, Quintero. “You come back today?” Yes, but no idea what time. “Is ok, I sell you open ticket.”
So he did. I selected my seat – number 1, right behind the driver – he printed off my ticket for a coach leaving in 10 minutes, with the return same day, any coach up to about 10 p.m. From bay 15 – he pointed.
So I was on my way. But the weather was still cold and cloudy and looked like rain.
The coach to Quintero
Santiago is 520m above sea level, in the Andean foothills, so the drive to the coast is basically all downhill. This made me hope the weather conditions in the city were in effect caused by the place being actually in an area of low cloud, so that before too long we would drop out of it and into the sort of hot sunshine I’d been enjoying the rest of the trip. But first, we had to get out of Santiago. As I wrote above, Estacion Central – whether train or bus – is a decidedly low-rent area, and this became more apparent as we headed off. The coach wound its way through a selection of narrow and grubby streets, all containing dilapidated bungalows, mostly in terraces, with small back yards and usually opening straight on to the street. Walls were covered with graffiti, and there were few signs of life. Rows of shops and garages (well, mechanics’ premises and tyre shops) were in similar buildings, distinguishable only by the signs over the locked and shuttered doors and windows. After about 10 minutes, we came to another bus depot, and stopped to take on more passengers, then headed off again through some dingy backstreets until a left turn suddenly placed us on a two line highway heading out of town. We called in at one final coach station (the one the guy at work had recommended to me: despite the grief I had had finding it, I was glad I had settled on Estacion Central as my starting point) and then we were on the main motorway signposted Valparaiso. I settled back in my seat, camera in hand, to enjoy the ride.
The road ran more or less straight in a north westerly direction, through a succession of small suburbs that were mainly garages and food warehouses, for perhaps half an hour, and then halted at a toll-point. We paid up, and headed on, the road more winding now and on a noticeably more downward course. It was still cloudy, and the tops of the surrounding hills were shrouded in mist. Then we hit a tunnel, carved through one of the bigger hills that form the barrier between the central valley where Santiago lies and the coastal plain. The toll we had paid was specifically for use of this tunnel: I assume it pays for its upkeep, but in the absence of an alternative route it’s a fee that can’t be avoided. The tunnel ran for a couple of kilometres I guess, then emerged onto a road that continues to wind downhill. The weather had improved – there were now patches of blue breaking up the slate grey clouds – but it was still not evidently beach weather.
After 15 minutes or so, the road leveled out and ran through wine-producing country. Chile is famous for its wines, and here we were going through one of the main areas of production. For kilometre after kilometre, vineyards stretched away on both sides of the road for as far as the eye could see. Every few kilometres, an imposing wall and wrought iron gate would identify the entrance to another vineyard (and no doubt brand): beyond it was generally a long graveled or tarmacked drive leading to an imposing mansion, which would be surrounded by a complex of low sheds presumably housing the presses and bottling plants. Tours of the region are available from Santiago, but as I’m not really a wine drinker I’ve not bothered, interesting though I’m sure they are.
The weather too had brightened up, with blue skies overhead and a bit of a heat haze visible over the lush green vineyards. But it didn’t last long: in perhaps 30 minutes we were through the valley, another range of hills loomed ahead and more clouds rolled up. We came to another set of toll booths, for another tunnel, shorter this time, the gradient slightly steeper, and emerged into bright sunlight that stayed with us the rest of the trip. We turned off before Valparaiso, taking the road into Vina del Mar, a winding, steep and narrow road, under a motorway and into a quite pretty looking town, with a strong Spanish influence to its architecture. We wound through the streets, stopped at a couple of places to drop passengers, and then were on our way back out of town, passing a BMW dealership with the wonderful name of “McDonald and Scott Motors”: what with O’Higgins, there is clearly a Celtic influence in the country too. We later passed a massive private school, some distance from the nearest town, called the Murray Academy that had a big playing field containing football and rugby pitches, some floodlit, and good looking athletics facilities. A little further on we passed through a small town called Con-con, dominated by a massive oil refinery, and shortly after turned sharply left onto the road into Quintero. It passes under a wide and low bridge that I subsequently found out carries one of the runways at a Chilean air force base on the edge of town.
Apart from that, the town has little to recommend it as a resort. We glimpsed the sea in the gaps between buildings near the centre of town, and it looked like a small port – there was sizeable freighter moored at one unseen pier - , dusty and a bit rundown looking. The coach station where we ended the ride was just a dusty enclosure the size of football pitch, with no sign of concrete or tarmac to be seen. There were maybe 8 bays for the coaches to pull into, and facing them a row of small ticket booths for the coach companies and a small tourist information office. I went here and asked where to get the bus to Horcon, again resorting to my piece of paper with the word written on it. The guy led me outside, and talking in Spanish with expansive hand gestures, indicated I needed to leave the bus station and walk one road down. So off I went.
At the corner of this road stood a small hospital, and across from its gates a ramshackle bus was picking up passengers from a plastic-screened stop. I wandered over, said “Horcon?” to the driver. “No, senor,” he said, dropped the clutch and drove off in a cloud of dust. I stood there for a minute – there were a few other people there, locals, dressed scruffily and evidently not likely to speak any English – they looked at me curiously. A battered old bright yellow Toyota Corolla pulled up, on the roof an illuminated sign reading “Horcon”, and another inside on the dashboard “Quintero – Horcon”. The driver got out, talking on his mobile, pony tail blowing in the breeze as he opened the boot so an old lady could drop in a bag of groceries. “How much?”, I asked, rubbing thumb and fingers together in the universal gesture. He said something, recognized my lack of comprehension, typed something into his mobile and showed me – 800. Pesos. So about a pound sterling. That’ll do me…. I clambered in.
He waited a few minutes while another couple of passengers arrived, then off we went. We followed the road out as if we were going back to Santiago, under the runway bridge (we were slightly elevated as we approached, so I could see the network of runways and taxiways, and across the far side a few buildings and hangars, but no planes), then shortly after turned left. We went past another massive industrial complex right at the sea that seemed to be part refinery and part container port, right next to Quintero. The beach next so it, sandy and lapped by blue Pacific waters, looked clean enough but there was hardly anybody on it. We drove on through a small and unnamed village (it may actually have been the northerly edge of Quintero, I suppose) then uphill and back inland for a couple miles before another left took us onto a road down into Horcon.
I got out at the harbour, the end of the line. It was a delight, and well worth the journey. There was a small bay, maybe a couple of hundred metres across, with a selection of small fishing boats pulled up onto the beach, and a line of cars drawn up along the harbour front facing them. Fishermen sat in some of the boats, preparing them for their next trip out. There were a few shops here selling wet-fish and ice cream, beachballs, buckets-and-spades and all the usual beach paraphernalia. I wandered along past a few stalls selling tie-dye t-shirts, home-made beads and shell necklaces, dream-catchers and so on – that hippie vibe the website had mentioned. Someone was playing Bob Marley. In a hut by the old concrete sea wall some fishermen were mending their nets and enjoying a beer, and on the wall perched a big pelican. Some more were on the hut roof, and beyond, on the rocks at the sea’s edge, were more pelicans and a raucous selection of seagulls. They posed quite happily for my camera.
I walked on along a sandy, ummade road between the sea and a row of small cottages. In the many rockpools kids were playing, and a small fishing boat was pulling out of the next small bay and heading out to sea, its two man crew laughing and singing as they steered into the sunlit Pacific. A bit further along, an old pier, windswept and in some disrepair, jutted a hundred metres or so out into the sea. In the little bay beyond it some teenage boys were playing football, while others were running in and out of the sea, laughing and shouting, all clearly trying to impress the handful of giggling teenage girls sitting on the rocks and watching them.
I walked on along the beach, the cliffs rising all the time to my right, and after a kilometre or so I was below the new condominiums that had been built for the out of towners. There were fewer people on the beach now as I left the village behind, even though the rocks and pebbles had given way to clean sand. Soon a steep wooden staircase came down to the beach from the clifftop a hundred feet above, seeming to mark the end of Horcon – there were no further buildings visible above. By this time I had walked getting on for two kilometres along the beach and the village and harbour was almost lost to view at the far end of the bay; it looked as though I was getting on for two-thirds of the way across and I was getting a little worn out and thirsty. I sat on a big rock, stripped off my shirt and rummaged in my back pack for my bottle of water, contemplating stretching out here for a swim to cool down. While I sat there gazing out to sea and wondering how far New Zealand was, a group of perhaps twenty people came down the stairs and struck off along the beach, heading north and away from Horcon. I decided to follow – clearly there was something further along that was popular and perhaps worth a visit.
Sure enough, after perhaps another ten minutes stroll, the beach widened out and a selection of beach umbrellas, windbreaks and small tents appeared, nestling at the foot of the high cliffs. And as I got closer, my friend with the Groucho Marx eyebrows was proved correct. There were getting on for a hundred people at the end of the beach, clustered in ones and twos, bigger groups of friends, and families with kids building sandcastles and splashing in the sea. All naked. All ages from maybe eighteen months up to probably seventy. I joined them of course, settled at the back of the beach, at the base of the cliff, a little away from the main crowd. And I spent a very pleasant few hours there, roasting in the sun, reading my book, eating and drinking. I went in the sea, which was pretty rough – the journey from the far side of the Pacific, the world’s biggest ocean, seemed to have given an extra strength to the waves – and surprisingly cold, probably the equivalent of the English channel: certainly much cooler than the Caribbean or even the eastern Mediterranean around Cyprus.
Around three in the afternoon, I packed up and rather reluctantly I admit, trudged off back to Horcon. The one thing I hadn’t done was find out what time the coaches left Quintero for Santiago. I reckoned the best part of an hour to get back along to the harbour, then I had to find a bus or cab and get to Quintero – I figured I wouldn’t arrive there until about 5. So Santiago around 8, probably. Just in time for dinner.
I passed several more couples heading for the beach, most of them strolling naked and hand in hand, enjoying the sun and sea breeze…..it really is an idyllic place, and without doubt one of the nicest places I’ve been to in all my travels. I could happily vacation there. Around half way back to the village, one of my old leather sandals split right across the sole, which made scrambling across the rockier parts of the beach tricky now the tide was in, and the other sandal was not in much better condition. But I got to the harbour without mishap, and there was as yellow cab there for Quintero. I arrived there just before 5, and the guy dropped me in the middle of the town, in the shopping district, somewhere near the coach depot. It took me half an hour to find it, walking around the side streets trying to figure out where it might be: I know he had dropped me fairly close to it because I recognized some of the roads on the way in, but several streets were closed off for a street party – there was a national charity fund raiser last weekend, similar to the BBC Children in Need thing. But eventually I found the depot and there was a coach leaving in ten minutes – perfect.
I slept most of the way back, and arrived at the hotel a little before nine. It had been a long and tiring day, but a good day.
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