An Introduction to Chile
Chile is a country of contrasts and extreme beauty, with attractions ranging from the towering volcanic peaks of the Andes to the ancient forests of the Lake Region. There are a multitude of very good parks and forests here, and plenty of opportunities for adventure travel. Chile is justly famous as the location of Torres del Paine, considered by many to be the finest nature travel destinations in all of South America.Location, Geography Climate
For anyone who has ever been fascinated by geography, the long, impossibly thin line of Chile has always produced a tiny moment of astonishment. Chile stretches over 4,300 km (2,700 mi) along the southwestern coast of South America, a distance roughly the same as that from San Francisco to New York, or Edinburgh to Baghdad. At the same time, its width never exceeds 240 km (150 mi), making the country more than eighteen times longer than its widest point.The most obvious factor in Chile's remarkable slenderness is the massive, virtually impassable wall of the Andes, a mountain range that is still rising and that contains more than fifty active volcanic peaks. The western border is of course the Pacific Ocean, but it is a misconception to picture Chile as nothing more than the steep western slope of the Andean peaks. All along its length Chile is marked by a narrow depression between the mountains and the sea. To the north the land rises and becomes more arid, until one reaches the forbidding Atacama Desert, one of the most inhospitable regions on earth. To the south just the opposite transformation takes place: the land falls away, and the region between mountains and ocean fades into the baffling archipelagic maze that terminates in Chilean Patagonia.Chile's southern extremity is marked by Cape Horn, a treacherous headland surrounded by almost continuously storm-tossed seas and passable only through the foggy stillness of the Strait of Magellan.
In the center of the country, however, is a long and expansive river valley, a five hundred mile corridor occupied in the north by vineyards and great farms and in the south by primeval forests and enchanting lakes. Santiago, the capital, anchors the northern and more prosperous section of the central valley. The lush Lake District to the south, however, is the homeland of Chile's indigenous peoples, the Araucanians.
Also part of Chile are two notable Pacific possessions the Juan Fernandez Islands and the famous Easter Island, both of which are administered as national parks. The Juan Fernandez islands are located about 670 km off the Chilean coast, while Easter Island is situated 3700 km distant.
Chile's climate is as diverse as its geography. Aside from the obviously extreme climatic conditions of the Andes and the Atacama, however, the country enjoys a comfortable temperate climate.
History & Culture
Surrounded on three sides by virtually impassable barriers, Chile's rich central valley remained largely unknown to the outside world until the middle of the fifteenth century, when the Incas began their great conquests of much of the continent. Under Tupac Yupanqui, an Inca army succeeded in crossing the six hundred mile string of salt basins that are the Atacama Desert, moving from oasis to oasis in a region so dry that some parts of it show no evidence of ever having been rained upon. After coming at last into the central valley, the Incas encountered the Mapuche, one of the three Araucanian peoples who occupied the region.
The invading army seemed at first to be enjoying the same success that the Incas were experiencing all over South America, and they advanced about half way down the valley's five hundred mile length. However, the Incas soon found that they had met their match in the Mapuche, who decisively defeated the Incan attempt to cross over the Rio Maule into the Lake Region. The Incas established a stable presence in the territory they had gained, but they did not see fit to pursue the redoubtable Mapuche any further.
Less than a century later, a Spanish army attempted to do just that. In 1541, Pedro de Valdivia crossed into the central valley, having followed the Inca road south from Peru. He founded Santiago in February, and soon afterward crossed into Mapuche domains and established strongholds there. In 1553, in a gesture no doubt familiar to the Spaniard Valdivia, they bound him to a tree and beheaded him.
For the next four hundred years the Spanish, like the Incas before them, found it appropriate to maintain a massive defensive presence in the central valley. During these centuries the regions under Spanish control were permitted to trade directly with Peru: smuggling flourished, and privateers swarmed along the coasts. Chile gained its independence from Spain in 1817, after seven years of warfare. The Mapuche region to the south, which had remained largely independent of Spanish rule, also resisted the new Chilean government. Capable of marshalling full cavalry forces and even modern artillery, the Mapuche succeeded in holding onto their autonomy until the middle of the century, when large numbers of armed settlers gradually moved into the region.
Although Chile's war of independence brought into place a system of representative democracy, the country's political history has not always been smooth. In 1970, a Marxist government under Dr. Salvador Allende came to power, having responded to the perceived failure of the established liberal party. Allende's attempts to radically change the structure and direction of the country brought about a second political crisis however, and in 1973 a right-wing government under General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte seized power with assistance from the United States Central Intelligence Agency. Allende commits suicide in the coup, when he knews that his colleagues, he haven't excuse for lost the power and Pinochet's government maintained power for the next decade and a half, frequently resorting to terror in order to stifle discontent. In 1990, having failed in his bid to gain popular ratification for his rule, Pinochet handed over the presidency to the rightfully-elected Patricio Aylwin Azocar. Chile's political climate has since remained stable, although there is still considerable tension between the military and the government concerning the human rights violations of the Pinochet era.
Chile's population is composed predominantly of mestizos, who are descended from marriage between the Spanish colonizers and the indigenous people. The surviving indigenous groups consist of the Aymara, in the north, and the Mapuche, who number roughly 100,000 and continue to inhabit the forested areas of the lake district. Chile is also home to a number of significant immigrant groups, including minority populations from virtually every European country. There are signifcant numbers of Basques and Palestinians. The high proportion of mestizos among Chile's people has made race a minor issue in comparison to class, which continues to be a source of considerable tension. The great majority of Chile's people, as one might expect, are concentrated in the central valley. Spanish is the country's official language, but some of the Indian dialects remain. In the north, they speak Aymara, in the south Mapuche, and on Easter Island the Polynesian language of Rapa Nui.
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