In two weeks I travelled from one end of this long, narrow country to the other, but both my destinations made the tortuous journeys worthwhile. I climbed an extinct volcano to 18,500 feet on the edge of the Atacama desert on the northern borders of Chile and Bolivia, after thrilling hikes in the south, following Lady Dixey’s horseback route in the remote Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia.Chile stretches 2,666 miles from north to south, a long arm down the western coast of South America, nowhere more than 125 miles wide. It’s a country of geographical extremes, from high desert to coastal fjords and towering mountains Chileans often boast they can surf and ski on the same day. The capital, Santiago, is the best base for a visit, and it’s well worth a stopover – full of terrific Spanish architecture and extremely hospitable people. Now that political stability has been restored, Chile feels confident and thriving, with a conservative middle class which is well educated and travelled.

Nitrate and copper mining, farming and wine production are crucial to the economy, with tourism just starting to take off. One of the first people to see the potential was Pedro Ibanez, a 58-year-old multimillionaire, who has farming and wine interests among his business. Mr Ibanez is obsessed with travel, keen on exploring remote places. He gained permission in 1989 to build an eco-friendly lodge in the most sensational part of the Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia, facing the Cuernos, or Horns, 2,600m-high towers of windswept granite.

His concept was to create a place that offered decent food, wine and comfortable rooms at the end of a day’s trekking, opening up these remote areas to people not prepared to sleep in huts or dormitories with shared bathrooms and cooking. It’s hiking for those of us too middle class or too old to backpack. And why not?He followed up his explora hotel in Patagonia with another in the north, on the outskirts of San Pedro in the Atacama desert In both places the philosophy is the same. There are at least 10 highly trained guides in each hotel, and every night before dinner you discuss possibilities for the next day: riding, climbing, hiking, Jeep trips or bike rides, depending on your capabilities and the weather.