Like a streak of lightnin' flashing 'cross the sky



Brian, Kate, Nicolas, C & J - Torres del Paine, Chile

Country number three on the Ryder odyssey began with a low-key shuffle over the Argentina – Chile border on our way to Torres del Paine national park in the extreme south of Chile. On the advice of one of our team of South American travel consultants, we decided to splash out and stay at the Ecocamp, a small enclave of permanent dome things (huts? tents?) in the middle of some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet.

The walk to the foot of the granite towers that give the park its name was a definite high point for both of us. A seven hour power-stomp with our fabulous guide Nicolas and our new Bostonian bezzies followed up with an evening of beer, wine and perhaps a pisco sour too far, with the outrageously entertaining inmates of the other domes, was one of the best days of the trip so far.

Torres del Paine was followed by a stop in Punta Arenas, a city that is about as far south as you can get in the world without leaving mainland South America. One wander round the maritime museum later, interesting chiefly for the exhibits on the rescue of Shackleton’s crew, which was launched from the town in 1916, and we had somehow managed to pad out three days.

From there we went north to Puerto Varas for a canyoning trip on the Rio Blanco. Having ‘canyoned’ twice before we regarded ourselves as veterans of the scene, but nothing prepared us for the Pachamagua experience. Check out the videos if you need further convincing. The company is run by an exuberant, charming, and quite possibly insane Frenchman and alarm bells started ringing from the moment he gunned his battered camper van over the dirt roads leading up the mountain. What followed was an exhilarating, heart-stopping couple of hours of piling down an Andean river, forwards, backwards, headfirst, spinning round whirlpools and jumping off vertiginous cliff faces. We finished with a rappel down a 34 meter waterfall and a giant final leap in to the river. If you are ever in the area, look it up, the bloke is a genius, and make sure to ask him to recreate the scene from the matrix where Nemo runs horizontally along a wall. A word of warning, though; when performed by an uncoordinated, 41 year old redundant civil servant, this manoeuvre may look a bit more Vic Reeves than Keanu Reeves and may terminate in a tragi-comic flop into the icy water.

A short (by South American standards) bus journey has brought us to Pucon where we have just returned from an overnight horse ride and camping trip; setting up our tents in a high Andean pasture and (one of us, at least) enjoying the giant hunk of beef cooked over the fire. Those readers with their faculties intact will recall that equine expertise is not a key Ryder strength and this ride, though spectacular, was not entirely without incident, most notably a bucking horse trying to unseat its entirely unqualified (female) rider. But by the end of the two days both riders (or Ryders) were wearing their chaps with a confident swagger and were at one with their horses.  

So here we sit (subtly shifting from cheek to cheek to ease the pain of the horse ride), in our little cabin in the woods by the fire, contemplating our pasta supper and two litre £3 wine box. A Ryder’s cautious budgetary instincts never stray too far.

Highlight: the cast of characters at Ecocamp, giving us the chance to drink and make conversation in the company of others, providing a brief respite from the usual Ryder domestic repartee.

Lowlight: an early calamitous horseback foray into a tree, resulting in a bloody gash to the head and a final goodbye to the never-ending pack of Boots baby-wipes.

Pisco sour count: 12 so far, but it is hard to keep the average up when the beer and wine is so good (and did we mention cheap) too.