El Largo y Sinuoso Calle – The Long and Winding Road

There is one main road (una calle) through all of Chile, well almost all of it, because you have to take a boat to get through the lakes regions. Yet, stretching from the top to the bottom, from the north (el norte) to the south (al sur) is Route 5, which runs like the spine of the body of Chile. Route 5 connects the people (la gente) from Region I to Region X and all points in between, it is the way to move from La Serena to Valdivia, from Santiago to Ancud.  It is the way to go on bus, in car (en auto) or on horseback; it is the historic trail throughout the country (todo el país) and is the main road. I would estimate in large parts that Route Five helped make Chile connected to itself.

The part of Route 5 (Ruta 5) in South America is known as the Pan-American Highway (Carretera Panamericana) and its official route turns east from Santiago and heads to Buenos Aires. There are 2 “unofficial” stretches, one in Chile and one in Argentina. The first unofficial part is in Chile and extends south past Castro, the capital of Chiloé, until it hits the town of Quellón, where the lakes region makes impossible to have any connected system of roads, where one can only continue in boat (un barco).   The other part extends south from Buenos Aires to the southern tip of South America in Ushuaia, Argentina, a place know as the “End of the World”(“el fin del mundo) and where I spent some time before and after a trek to Antarctica.

So, I have been to the bottom of Route Five, which actually begins, or ends, depending on which direction in which you are heading, in Ushuaia, Argentina.  At this point, there is a sign, that points to all things north, and this road crisscrosses (entrecruzado) Argentina before making a beeline north through Chile, and then by a series of sinews and connection, makes its way through all of South America, through Central America, through Mexico, up the Californian coast, and the Pacific Northwest, before ending some 30,000 miles (48.000 kilómetros) later in Fairbanks and beyond (más allá) to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.  In total, it passes through a total of 13 different countries.

In Chile, this highway covers just over 2000 miles (mas de 3350 kilómetros) and starts at the border of Peru in the grasslands (las pampas) of Arica, where it then heads due south, passing through La Serena, making a huge impact in Santiago and ultimately to all points south.  To know Chile is to know Route 5, and I have often daydreamed (sonaba) of a time when I might cannel the spirit (el espíritu) of Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy and head out for entire length in Chile of perhaps one day, start in Ushuaia and head north until the end (el fin) in Alaska, but right now (ahora) , that is a dream for the future.  Suffice it to say, that this great truly wholly and uniquely American, North, Central and South American, highway has brokered my journeys (mis viajes) in Chile.