Pan de Azucar

"Ocean: A body of water occupying two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills." ~Ambrose Bierce

Monday, November 24th to Wednesday, November 26th 2008

I left the desert town of San Pedro de Acatama on early Monday morning with Dennis and Kathy in a surprisingly comfortable bus that drove us 10 hours to the small fishing town of chañaral. Our destination was the Pan de Azucar national park which was chosen due to it's location about half way between the Atacma desert and Santiago. As the bus dropped us in the small bus terminal we were approached by a friendly man who offered information and transportation to the park. Being a little suspicious we ask about an economy hostel instead and he offered to take us to one - a short drive away. Having nothing to lose we boarded the banged up van and found ourselves in a very nice hotel, with a little quirky owner and nice recently redecorated rooms with good shower. Feeling safer we sat down with José, our driver, in the small kitchen and accepted his reasonable offer for transportation and camping in the park for the next morning. After a visit to the town well stocked supermarket for provisions and buying the bus tickets for the town of La Serena 2 days ahead, we ate a good spaghetti dinner and retired to bed. We boarded José's van again next morning, stopping briefly for water and gasoline for the stove, for the 40 minutes drive to the park entrance. At the entrance we were given a short tour of the excellent camping site and were left to our own devices looking at the breaking waves and the Pan de Azucar island 2km away.

We set up our tents and after a short visit to the CONAF information center we headed down the closest trail that led to the park mirador. We left the main road to the left preferring the small trails amongst the rocks above the stormy sea below - a great feeling after being away from the sea for long I forgot how good it is to fill your lungs with salty air... the small trail ended after 20 minutes on a small cliff above a bay filled with boats from a nearby tiny fishermen village. After admiring the view we descended to the village, passing it and the goals who filled the beach feeding on leftover fish and joined the main road again. What followed next was a long boring walk on what seemed to be an endless dirt road. Although passing in a familiar desert scenery (the ocean was obscured at this point) I wanted the road to end and walked as fast as I could to the intersection with the narrower mirador trail where I waited for Kathy and Dennis. As we hiked up the gently climbing trail the scenery started to change and we found ourselves in a huge cacti field - a weird place considering that the ocean was less than 1km away over the hill we climbed. Finally we got to the top and found that our efforts were worth it - we had a great view of the shore line with the Island on one side and towering cliffs on the other and waves breaking on the granite reefs below us. We ate a little and rested on the top and decided that we prefer to walk along the shore, a much difficult unmarked route, than to walk down the dirt road again. The descend down to the beach was much harder than it looked from above with few sections of loose rocks that clamored down as we stepped on them, but we made it safely to the bottom. The next 3 hours were pure pleasure of traversing the granite rocks that the beach was made of - walking between colorful crabs and giants lizards and with big waves breaking mere meters from were we stood. The rocky beach was finally replaced by soft sand which we crossed as we headed back to the small village and our camping site. After another great spaghetti dinner (this time cooked on Dennis new gasoline stove) we went to sleep in our tents. With soft sand below me, the sounds of the ocean and a little tired after the long walk I slept soundly for more than 12 hours waking up at around 11am just in time to get organized, pack up and board the van back to to chañaral where our bus to La Serena waited for us...