A journey to spiritual enlightenment

From Mendoza, I crossed the border back into Chile, armed with Kafka´s "The Trial", a book that left me a little cold, and not in a good, chilling sense. Because of the crazy road system, I had to retrace my steps back to Santiago, passing through Puente del Inca for the third time, and eating salted, greasy chips in the huge bus terminal in the Chilean capital.

I have realised that I haven´t yet mentioned the food and drink on offer here in South America. There is a huge array of things on offer, many of which revolve around char-grilled meat. You have the tradtional, lomo, which is just a beaf steak, or can branch out and try the lomo a lo pobre, or poor man´s steak. A poor man would die for this steak, a huge slab of meat with a sloppy egg on top. This has been a favourite for the last few weeks. Down in Patagonia, restauranteurs specialise in lamb burgers, while in Bolson and Bariloche, I had the best ice-cream that I had ever tasted, dark, bitter chocolate interspersed with pieces of real orange and tart, refreshing grapefruit that tasted as if you were eating the real thing. Around Valpo, they go for their fish dishes, sopa de mariscos and reineta a la salsa margarita, being just a couple of the wonders on offer, the latter a delicate white fish bathed in an intolerably rich, creamy sauce. On every street corner in Santiago, streetvendors cry out in front of temporary stands piled high with caramel nuts and offer a strange peach drink, with sweetcorn at the bottom, too sweet to be recommended, while in the restaurants you are always given an appetiser of bread and a tangy tomato sauce, full of coriander. Wholemeal bread has yet to come to South America. They subsist instead on crumbly white bread filled with small holes, served on its own, or filled with hard pieces of fat. And then there are the empanadas, cornish pasty type confections filled with meat or cheese and ham. They are far bigger in Chile than in Argentina. The South Americans also maintain a fatuous distinction between the medialuna and the croissant, the former a very small, sweet pastry and the latter, a normal croissant as a European would understand it. Cakes they have inherited from the Germans and call them kuchen. When they try to create a native variety, it inevitably ends in an ugly mountain of whipped cream. Under the stars of the Andes and served by a local of indigenous blood, I ate a fantastic sandwich filled with steak, tomato salsa, lettuce, cheese and ham. On this trip up the Elqui valley, I tried Cazuela con ave for the first time, a steaming, refreshing soup served in a small, deep bowl, packed full of chicken, vegetables and coriander.

Pisco sour is a drink served in Chile and Peru and consists of the spirit, Pisco, lemon juice and sugar. Often it is topped off with frothed eggwhite and a sprinkling of sugar around the rim of the glass. One of the reasons for going to the Elqui valley was to see one of the Pisco factories that harvest the grapes hanging languidly from the vines and turn them into this strange concoction. The valley is spectacular for its contrasts; between the lush valley floor and the barren mountain sides, the bright green vines and the thousands of towering cactic, the sweltering hot days and the cold, clear nights. Such a climate is perfect for growing grapes, and also for viewing the stars. Many international organisations have taken advantage of this fact and have built huge observatories in the area. I took a tour to the Mamalluco observatory from Vicuna, a charming small village hidden between the folds of the hills, with low adobe houses and gardens where orange and lemon trees spring forth, the fruit almost indecently ripe. The tour to the observatory was spectacular, if a little marred by two screaming children (memory of your own childhood fades fast). The guide taught us how to locate the Cruz del Sur (cross of the south), an imperfect figure formed of five stars. If you measure four and a half metres following the line that connects the head and foot of the cross and then trace this virtual line vertically downwards, you will have reached due south. You must not confuse the cruz del sur with the Cruz falso, though, which will lead the unsuspecting traveller astray.

Yesterday, I ventured up the Valle Cochiguaz after poking my head into Pisco Elqui, a tiny village that seemed to have been lulled to sleep by the peaceful atmosphere of the valley. Almost no-one was around and I had to resort to asking directions to a cafe in a cerveceria where two fat men were repairing a toilet on the floor. The cerveceria alone was open for business. The settlements in the Valle Cochiguaz were established by hippies in the 1960s who believed that the age of Aquarius had shifted the centre of the world´s energy away from the Himalayas and towards this small tributary of the Rio Elqui. Significantly, the river in the Cochiguaz valley is not called the Rio Cochiguaz, but the Rio Magico. The valley looked strangely bleak in the grey light, but became more interesting further up as the rock changed colour from grey to a dark purple and the ubiquitous alamo trees reared up next to the river. Weeping willows, trumpet like flowers and thick undergrowth followed the line of the river and stopped abruptly at the valley sides, where tawny srcub and bulging cacti took over, clinging to the steep valley sides. I passed hundreds of bushes on the side of the road which must have evolved to conserve their leaves in this harshe, arid environment. Long, sharp thorns as big as my index finger (and I have a big index finger) spiralled out between the leaves, to deter the hardy, speculative goats that swarmed around (they make another local dish, by the way). Never trust the Rough Guide. The place where I had intended to stay didn´t exist, so I continued on up the dusty track, passing my first new-age hotel (surely it should be called dark age) which offered to unlock your bodies physical and mental energy through massage, reflexology, connection with the earth (I feel like writing galvanism) and magnetic therapy. Maybe a little like shock-therapy, or api-therapy, a treatment where you are repeatadly stung by bees in order to cure numerous ailments. You can fork out over a hundred dollars for this therapy in Alcohuaz at the upper end of the Elqui valley.

In the dirk back yard, concentric circles had been daubed in white paint, suggesting some rite. After hitching a ride on the back of a capricious horse with some gauchos, I finally reached my destination, a small hamlet whose doors shook in the howling wind. Cotton like buds had been blown off near-by bushes and were swirling through the air. After settling in, I set off in search of the Piedra del guanaco. It stands alone in an isolated field, guarded by Alsation dogs which threatened to make it an expensive trip. There are three different symbols scraped into the granite rock of the piedra, all of them stick-like. One is a strange symbol which looks like an upturned table with circular knobs, the second is the guanaco and the third is an impressionistic drawing of a snake (Inca). If I hadn´t known that the animals represented on the rock were supposed to be guanaco, I would have said they looked like deer (cue Karl Pilkington comment from podcast with Ricky Gervais). A sign to the left of the Piedra announced that that this was a Centro Magnetico, or Magnetic centre. The 60s have a lot to answer for. Incidentally, I see that Hazel Blears is being touted as the Labour Party´s Margaret Thatcher. If so, God help the Labour party.