Fred Drummond said he and his wife, Kim, of De Soto wanted to “do something big” for their 25th wedding anniversary.
They achieved that goal, but it came with a twist courtesy of COVID-19.
Fred, 50, and Kim, 46, are avid hiking enthusiasts, so they planned a three-week trip to South America to see and hike some of the places they’d been reading about.
“It was kind of a bucket-list thing,” Fred said. “We celebrated our anniversary last year, but put off the trip unatil March.”
The trip was to include a five-day trek through the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, then a few days of hiking at El Chalten, a small town at the edge of the Southern Patagonian ice field.
Partway through that first trek, though, the worldwide coronavirus pandemic caused borders to begin closing and airlines to cancel flights, and the Drummonds found themselves being politely shooed out of the country toward home.
It took them several days of negotiating, many hours on the phone and countless hours of waiting before they arrived safely back.
Change of plan
The Drummonds were excited upon landing in Santiago, Chile, on March 8.
“The park is way down there, so we knew it would take a couple of days to get there,” Fred said. “We flew to Punta Arenas and spent the day, checking things out and getting our food and supplies.”
A three-hour bus ride got them to Torres del Paine National Park on March 11, and soon they embarked on a 60-mile, five-day trek through a breathtaking landscape of mountains, glaciers and lakes.
“It was so gorgeous,” Kim said. “It’s even better than the pictures we had seen.”
They encountered other through-hikers in both directions, some of whom began talking about the possibility of border closures.
“But we didn’t really know what was going on,” Kim said. “There’s no cell phone reception out there, so we didn’t talk to anybody back here.”
They had a single day of their hike left when they were notified that the park would be closing the next day and that all hikers were advised to leave as soon as possible.
“We were supposed to go that last day to a place called the Towers,” Kim said. “So we got up at 2:30 a.m., put on our headlamps and started up there. We were there when the sun came up, and it was so beautiful. Then we went back and headed out of the park.”
Getting back
Once out of the park, the Drummonds got back in touch with the outside world.
“We had internet service again and we could talk to our family,” Fred said. “We had reservations at a family-owned B&B in this little town near the park, and they let us stay on a couple of days. Each day there were fewer and fewer people around.”
Eventually, the Drummonds were the only guests still on the premises as they worked to arrange transportation back to the U.S.
“We went out to grab some dinner, but everything was just closed,” Fred said. “When we came back right away, the owner looked at us funny. I told him all the restaurants were closed, and he put one finger up in a ‘Hang on” gesture and went into the kitchen.
“He came back and said, ‘Nine thirty. You like chicken?’ and I told Kim, ‘I think we just got invited to dinner.’
“So we sat down to a big dinner with the family, and they broke out the special things – smoked trout, pisco sours – and we stayed up until 3:30 a.m. It was one of the highlights of the trip for us, and it would never have happened if it wasn’t for the virus.”
The Drummonds finally arranged to get to a hotel in Santiago, where they spent two days waiting to book a flight back to the U.S. They flew first to Houston, then on to St. Louis.
“On that last flight, there were four passengers and one flight attendant,” Fred said. “By the time we got to St. Louis, there was nobody there. We landed on March 23, and our two suitcases were the only ones in the baggage pickup area.”
What the...?
The Drummonds arrived home to a country radically different from the one they left just two weeks before.
“When we left, everything was normal,” Fred said. “It was busy and just regular. Then we come home to this and it was just crazy.”
The Drummonds went home, sent their son out for food and settled in at home for a strict, 14-day quarantine that ended April 7. Neither has shown any symptoms of the disease, and both are back at work.
They have had plenty of time to reflect on their trip and how it took a huge right turn from the original plan.
“This trip was pretty adventurous to start with,” Fred said. “But it got quite a bit more so as we went along.”
He praised the Chilean officials and his fellow travelers for making the best of a strange situation.
“We were supposed to fly back from Buenos Aires on the 30th,” he said. “Some (fellow hikers) were planning to stay for months. But then, all of a sudden, all these people were supposed to get on all these different flights all at once. It had to be a logistical nightmare.
“There were so many stories of people trying to get home to Europe, and their flights were more difficult than ours. There was a lot of uncertainty.
“But the people of Chile really stepped up. Everybody was so accommodating, because they knew everyone was stressed out. That made it feel a lot better.”
Both the Drummonds said they think the trip they had was, in some ways, better than the one they first planned.
“One of our goals in this was to wing it, not to over-plan,” Fred said. “One of the things I really wanted to do was to somehow arrange to stay with a local family, but I just couldn’t make it happen.
“But then this happened, and it turned out to be such a neat experience. We made friends we wouldn’t have otherwise.
“Everything worked out well in the end. We had a great time.”
