We were about five miles away from Mendoza when the message came through. It made me smile. Chile. We were back.
Mendoza is, of course, in neighboring Argentina, but those borders blur when you’re close to the limiter at 550mph. And the five miles? Vertical.
The message?
“Ladies and gentlemen, please fasten your seatbelts… we will be crossing the Andes in a couple of minutes.
Nothing special for those who trek South America regularly, but for an Englishman who hasn’t been down this way for four years, it was a special moment.
Rallying in this part of the world is special – Argentina, certainly, needs no introduction. But the challenge of Chile is still comparatively new to the World Rally Championship. This is only our second time here and that debut came pre-COVID in 2019. It’s been too long.
It’s probably because we haven’t been coming here for decades and certainly because it remains so far from an overly Euro-centric WRC, but there’s something almost mythical about Chile.
Standing in downtown Santiago with the towering Andes looking over one shoulder and another enormous national flag flying high over the other is enough to remind you that you’ve come somewhere different.
And then there’s the blossom. Forget the fall; it’s a rewind – or a fast forward – to a southern hemisphere spring this week. And the trees are on the same page with their pinks and purples.
Well south of Santiago and closer to the stages around Concepción it’s easy to tell winter’s not too small in the rear-view mirror. Out to catch up with the crews on the recce, there’s plenty of frost around as that trademark blanket of fog sits above the valley carrying the Biobío River (Chile’s second longest).
Temperatures take their time to climb, the morning mist reluctant to leave the scene completely.
By lunchtime, the sun’s out and this part of the world has put a smile on every face.
“This is an amazing place,” winner last time out Ott Tänak told DirtFish. “Chile has a bit of everything.”
But where it really does hit home is when you climb up through Saturday’s stages and catch a big glimpse of the wide open Pacific Ocean. Again, it’s probably a European thing – the Atlantic’s no big deal really, just a bigger version of the English Channel.
But the Pacific is something different. Head out from here, make a 45-degree left and your next port of call is probably going to be Auckland. (Don’t do that, by the way, I was speaking hypothetically, but the geography’s not a million miles away.)
There are road signs warning of big cats for the next five kilometers, while smaller dogs doze in the afternoon sunshine, watching the world go about its business.
Chile. It’s been too long. But now there’s no time to wait. The stages are very much set and the world is waiting to be once more awed by big South American skies and some of the season’s most aesthetically stunning action sitting beneath them.
