For twelve years they laboured, building 100km annually. A kilometer every three or four days; that’s not bad, with limited machinery. And it’s all on the Chilean side of the frontier too (since relations with the Argentine neighbours were a little strained). Today the Ruta 7 crosses 1240km of rural Chilean Patagonia, and most is still unpaved. And that’s where I am heading for the next few weeks.

Wikipedia: Carretera Austral (English)

Wikipedia: Carretera Austral (Spanish; and more detailed!)

On Wednesday I begin an exploration of this remote part of Chile. When I have internet access I will keep you updated with my progress here: Journey on the Carretera Austral.

And I will refer to the place names on this Carretera Austral Map, so you can see where I am.

So that’s the end of three years as head of a school in Santiago de Chile. I am pretty sure I finished everything. I cleared my desk. I deleted the rubbish from my computer and backed up the rest. I left some notes for my successor (not really notes so much as a huge file of documents, in fact). I locked the door at 7pm, and took a ride to the metro station with my loyal and wonderful secretary Maribel.

There are four days before I leave my apartment and five before I depart Santiago. Starting Wednesday I will be in Patagonia for a few weeks; I will tell you more in a day or two.

The city is slightly cooler today, with temperatures in the twenties not thirties. To the south, numerous wildfires continue burning. More than two hundred families have lost their homes. Some are homeless for a second time in two years, having previously suffered as recently as the earthquake in February 2010. Seven firefighters have died; one was a volunteer aged just nineteen. Many (including some politicians) blame members of the indigenous Mapuche community for starting the fires; if that is true it would not be the first time. Chile’s native population complain at losing ancestral lands and have fought a long campaign against forestry companies.

BBC Report: Mapuche activists responsible for forest fires?

BBC Pictures: Chile battles wildfires

Emol video: Fires in the Bio-Bio region

Now I need to go and pack up my apartment. Before I go, here are four pictures from Santiagio on New Year’s Day.

BBC Report

BBC Pictures

My final five days of work will be the first week of January, and after that I fly south to Puerto Montt to join a ship to Puerto Chacabuco, from where I plan to spend most of January and February camping in Patagonia, and hitchhiking the length of the Carretera Austral, from Villa O’Higgins back to Puerto Montt.

In preparation for departure I have been packing up my apartment. I sold my piano, mountain bike and some furniture and have given away a load of other things I no longer need. Soon I will be back in the state I arrived in Chile, in material terms at least, with just one bag and a few things stuffed into my pockets (see: Journey into Chile).

But disregarding what I carry, I am certainly not the same as when I arrived. Chile has given me a lot, and I hope I have contributed a little in return. I have gained new skills in language and school leadership, new depths of understanding of cultures and peoples, a healthy additional helping of self-knowledge too, and a catalogue of memories and experiences from three years in Latin America.

I am frequently asked where I am going next. It seems to freak people out that I don’t yet know (with the exception of the few who respond with envious admiration).  A few weeks ago I contacted by a headhunter regarding a job in Spain, but then didn’t get it! I was also invited to look at a school in Cairo, but chose not to go. And there are currently some opportunities here in Chile and Peru. But all that can wait; for now I will be taking some time for me whist I study the next module of my Masters in Development Management, and sort through the spaghetti I have in my head as a result of living and working five years in West Africa and South America.

Following this recent silence, you and I have a little catching-up to do. On returning from Easter Island in September, Louise and I spent a few days in Caldera, 1000km north of Santiago, at the southern fringe of the Atacama Desert. By coincidence, that places Caldera on almost exactly the latitude of Easter Island, 27 degrees south of the equator.

Follow this link to read the story of our trip to Caldera.

Last weekend (which, you may recall, was Christmas) I travelled again to the coast, this time just 200km north. Here is a short article about Christmas in Pichidangui.

Two years ago I visited the far south of Chile in January, (See: Torres del Paine). This national park is currently closed due to a huge fire, probably started by a careless tourist with a camping stove or even a cigarette.

Here is a BBC Report of the incident.

And here are some dramatic photographs of the fire on the website of the Chilean newsgroup Emol.
(Click <Comenzar> to start the slides).

So that wraps up the year. Over five thousand hits on this blog this year, so thank you for your loyal readership! I will do my best to keep you informed during the months ahead, when I encounter internet connection.

Best wishes for your 2012. I intend to make the most of mine. To finish, here is Robert Frost’s well-known poem that in some ways describes where I currently am at.

Feliz año.

The road not taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Follow this link for pictures of Scuba Diving off Easter Island.

On Sunday we drove down the Colchagua valley, which is a wine producing area. Hot days and cool nights make this valley a good place for producing red wine, and most vineyards have vines of Carmenere, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. There are a few Malbecs too, stolen from Argentina.

This region took a big hit in the February 2010 earthquake, and there are many damaged buildings in and around the town. Some have been repaired, of course, and there are houses with evident cracks newly-cemented closed. Other buildings have been demolished and replaced. But families lacking the means to rebuild continue to live in damaged properties with tarpaulins over the roof or sections or missing sections of walls boarded-up in makeshift repairs.

Construction of a new church at Santa Cruz, after the old one was destroyed in the quake.

We visited the cementario in Chépica. This weekend, for the festival of Todos Santos, many families visit the graves of loved ones and place new flowers. Here in Chile it is now spring and the graveyard was awash with colour. There was earthquake damage here too, and a number of graves for those who perished on the night of the quake, in the early hours of 27th February 2010.

On Monday we drove into the Andes cordillera alongside the Tinguiririca river. The climate in these southern latitudes produces more rain than around Santiago, and the lower hillsides were covered in lush greens of spring.

We also came across a new hydro-electric project. Mountain streams are diverted through this pipe to power turbines in the building below. There are small-scale hydro-projects all along the Chilean Andes, producing 40% of the electricity consumed in the country. The dimensions of the pipe are difficult to appreciate until you stand alongside!

When I was planning my first summer holiday here, I didn’t realise all this, and everyone had raved about going to the South. So I bought a flight to Punta Arenas, which is in the South South, the far South, the deep South. And from there I travelled in Patagonia, including a foray into Argentina which I wrote about and added to this blog some time ago.

El Chalten (published in January 2010)

Calafate (published in January 2010)

On that same trip I visited the Torres del Paine National Park. This mountainous area is one of Chile’s gems and is popular with hikers who walk the famous W route there. In common with many places, there is no real reason why this spot has become popular, and neighbouring locations of equal beauty receive almost no visitors at all; that’s the way it seems to be with tourism. But no matter, following the masses, I packed my boots and my tent and set out early one morning from the town of Puerto Natales, to spend 5 days walking the W.

Click here to read about my long walk in the Torres del Paine.

Stones and petrol bombs are thrown, shops and cars attacked, barricades built, roads blocked and public transport interrupted. And this time, protesters burned a bus. Police respond with water cannon and baton charges. The green armoured vehicles are a regular sight throughout the central areas of the city.

Here are BBC reports of the trouble this week.

BBC Video http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15381459

BBC Report http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15379672

BBC Pictures http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15209187

and if you prefer your news reports in Spanish, try this from the Chilean newsgroup Emol:

http://www.emol.com/videos/actualidad/indexSub.asp?id_emol=9300

I was passing earlier this afternoon, and the road was blocked by huge crowds, hoping for a glimpse of young Bieber.

“Justin, we love you,” they were screaming. It was an odd moment; my life story does not generally feature hysterical crowds chanting my name.