The Parque nacioal “La Campana” is in any decent tourist guide as a day-trip from Santiago; though, unless you rent a car, it’s somewhat further. Other than that, it’s known for the fact that Darwin stopped by on his second trip on the Beagle. We went to La Campana from Valparaiso, by train, bus and some walking and arrived rather late in the day despite an early morning start.
Though it didn’t matter too much in the end as we would not have had the equipment to climb the top of La Campana. Plus, it takes 4:30 hours for the 7km trip (one way), of which 2 hours are for the last 1800 meters alone.
We, on the other hand, got all the way to the basecamp thanks to a really sweet couple that was driving up and kindly answered to our “hacer dedo“. As we already had walked and hiked 8km by that time, it was just perfect to get up this high and enjoy the beautiful view on the top. Before hiking a relaxing 5 km down to the park entrance and catching another ride into the nearest town where we enjoyed a well deserved late afternoon lunch.
La puce, die Welt and everything else 