Wake up covered in bites. Since they’re lined up in straight lines along my skin and it’s no longer mosquito season, I come to the conclusion that the bedbugs got me. What I don’t understand is how they’ve managed to bite me through my pyjamas.
Spend an hour wandering through the cemetery next door. I’ve always been keen on cemeteries – the mystery and the supernatural occurrences attributed to them – and this one is particularly impressive, with its alleys of sculpted trees and the mix of elaborate tombs and modest ‘lockers’ that represent the ethnic mix of this city. The founding families who made their fortune here – Braun, Nogueira and Menéndez have vast marble creations in which their earthly remains are stored, while the ‘lockers’ belong to the Croatians and others who emigrated here to work in the booming wool and shipping industries before the Panama Canal was created and trade from Europe no longer had to go around Cape Horn to get to the west coast of the United States. There are a lot of British, German, Spanish names as well. Feel a bit melancholy.
Do the rounds in the rain, checking out hostels. Pass by the local eatery I found with Nik last year when he refused to have breakfast at Hostal Calafate; it’s still completely full of locals and deserves to go in the guide as an emergency breakfast spot. Since I don’t eat breakfast myself, it’s quite good that I had to go look for a place that did. Stop by Café Montt for an injection of coffee and sugar; they still do an excellent moccachino with condensed milk. Try to send an Easter Island carving home via DHL only to discover that anything made of wood has to be certified before it can be sent. The woman’s looking at me as if I’m trying to steal some priceless museum article made of extinct toromiro wood. Looks like the carving will be travelling with me to Peru.
Visit one of my favourite spots – the naval museum. The nerd in me loves the scale models of famous military and exploration vessels, with minute painted features. My friend Edd used to be into Games Workshop, where you’d paint tiny little dragons and orcs and things; this is just as cool. There are several blocks of Antarctic ice in a glass display; the history of the War of the Pacific (which Chile won with the help of an illustrious British mercenary, and which Bolivia and Peru are still smarting over); a display on Ernest Shackleton’s exploration of the Antarctic and how his crew was rescued; a map of Tierra del Fuego with a little sunken ship symbol where a famous ship was wrecked – Cape Horn looks like a veritable graveyard – and buttons you can push to light up different shipping routes from Punta Arenas, a ship’s steering wheel to play with. I’m unashamed to say that this is fun.
‘Brocolino’ is open today. Have a chinwag with Chef Hector, a local character and a classically-trained chef who prepares the five-star lunches for the Antarctica flights, as well as cooking up some of the most innovative food in Patagonia. We gossip about the time our friend Mike brought over a tour group (the restaurant is frequented by Journey Latin America packs) and they got drunk late into the night, or the time Hector fell for another guide, Kerry (apparently there was chemistry between them): “Only one problem: I’m married. But wouldn’t mind sleeping with her!” His wife looked in on them, disapproving, and Mike pretended that he was together with Kerry to deflect attention from Hector.
I ask him what he thinks of the other fine dining establishments in Punta Arenas. “La Marmita? Yes, he cooks well, but there’s so much decoration around, you feel like you’re in a museum.” So that’s why Brocolino’s décor is so…average. Hector wants you to focus on the food. “Remezón? Luis, the chef, is excellent – he works with interesting ingredients, like beaver.” What about the established local favourite, Sotito? Hector’s not a huge fan: “There are no surprises there. What he does, he does well, but lamb is only one way – Patagonian style, steak is plain grilled, seafood is with the same sauce.” Hector himself is very creative – sometimes too much so. When curiosity gets the better of me and I want to know what ‘steak in the style of Paris Hilton’ is, he laughs and admits that he hasn’t yet thought of what it’ll consist of, exactly. My lunch? Why, sweetbreads in champagne sauce and a lamb creation of some kind. Then Hector sends me to check out his new hostel, Art Nouveau.
On the bus ride to Puerto Natales, I make serious inroads into “All My Sins Remembered” – it’s turning out to be a really engrossing novel, tracing the history of one aristocratic family through their lives in the early 20th century Britain, Nazi Germany, and beyond. Currently traumatised by the disappearance of a Jewish main character in 1936 Berlin. I fear the worst.
The bus passes through wide open spaces, past isolated farms, sheep grazing grounds, a lake dotted with pink flamingoes, roadside shrines to commemorate those who died in road accidents...Happy to see Puerto Natales. From a distance it looks like a tiny huddle of houses on the banks of Last Hope Sound, dwarfed by leaden skies and the mountains across the sound. The sea is choppy, it’s windy as heck and it feels as if a storm is coming.
I go straight to Erratic Rock, my home base down south. It’s the most popular hostel in town, run by ‘burnt out Oregonian hippies’ as Bill and his brother like to refer to themselves. They won’t be in the guide because Bill specifically asked me not to put them in; they get more business than they can handle and he likes it to be spread between all the hostels in town. They’re still the best place for information on the Torres del Paine National Park, as well as any other onward travel info, and they’ve expanded in terms of tours – multi-day adventures on Isla Navarino, Tierra del Fuego, Cabo Froward – off-the beaten-track, challenging stuff that I’d love to take part in if I had the time and if I were here at the right time of year. They fill me in on what’s new, I admire the three cats who’ve moved in, and then go shopping for food, as I’m leaving for the park tomorrow morning and rent a sleeping bag from the guys.
It’s still not clear whether I can make it to El Chaltén on the 3rd; I’ve been trying to find out about bus connections, and it seems that April 30th is the cutoff point: in May, there are fewer services. Will have to play it by ear.
Do a spot of quality control at La Mesita Grande – the best pizzeria in the south of Chile. It’s still good.
Early night. Have to pack for the park and be ready for 7.30am. Will be away from civilisation until Saturday.
Thursday 29 April 2010
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Day 21 - Punta Arenas.
Woken up at 7am by what sounds like a military marching band. It’s the neighbours’ TV. The room that’s not big enough to swing a cat in also has paper-thin walls.
Midday flight to Punta Arenas. I guess that counts as a break, because I actually get to read for half the flight. The other half is spent marking things on my Punta Arenas maps and making notes on the printout of the text I have to work on. Like many flights up and down this thin country, this one stops midway in Coyhaique. The landscape beneath us is quite incredible: Patagonia is a mass of bare mountains, sprinkled with fresh snow, lakes that are an incredible turquoise colour – like the huge one that I had to cross by boat from the town of Chile Chico last year, sandy-coloured steppe, dotted with hardy little bushes, ribbons of rivers, the odd lonely straight line indicating a dirt road…
I love this country; it’s the most incredible country I’ve ever been to and I love its cold, inhospitable parts all the more for their stark beauty. I have Isabel Allende to thank for wanting to come here in the first place: if I hadn’t read “House of the Spirits” at university and then gone on to read everything else she’d ever written, including her memoirs, then my imagination wouldn’t have been buzzing with the sensations she described – the first taste of a sea urchin on her tongue, the smell of the forest by the sea near Valparaíso, the wrenching emotional pain of having to go into exile after Pinochet’s coming to power…When I was originally asked which country I’d like to research, I didn’t hesitate in naming Chile, and for that I’m eternally grateful to Rough Guides.
There’s the part of the flight where it’s about to land in Punta Arenas, and to do so, the plane has to make an about turn over the Magellan Strait before going down really low over the water, as the airstrip is right near the sea, and even though the Magellan Strait was the calmest today I’ve ever seen it – just a flat expanse of dark blue, without the white crests of waves – I didn’t like going low over the water. When it looked like we were slowing down, I mentally willed it to make it back to dry land. My heart was hammering like mad and I was so relieved when we touched down, that my legs seemed to be made of jelly. It’s the first time in my life that I thought: “Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to have pisco sour this evening to get over this.” I need to watch it or I’ll turn into a rotund drunk.
Last time I flew here, Nik and I had to wait for ages for public transport, but this time there are a couple of minibuses there, ready to deliver us to the guesthouses of our choice. Am the only person at Hostal Keokenk. It was advertised as being ‘just blocks from the plaza’. Eight blocks, to be precise. I didn’t have much of a choice; the other ones I called this morning either didn’t pick up or the number was wrong on their websites.
My room has no heating, but it does have cable TV; I don’t quite understand their priorities.
The afternoon is devoted to map work; pay a visit to all the bus companies (Punta Arenas doesn’t have a central bus terminal),find out phone numbers and timetables, do the same with airline offices, mark on internet cafes, museum opening hours – all that jazz. Punta Arenas is a big city that stretches along the Magellan Strait, but downtown is pretty compact. Of all Chilean big cities, this is probably my favourite: in spite of the weather, which seems to be rainy, windy and cold whenever I visit, I like its energy, the giant murals on buildings, the sculpted trees on Avenida Colón, and the city of the dead (which is conveniently located right next to my hostel). Will visit it tomorrow.
Finding a place to have dinner turns out to be a challenge: my favourite restaurant, ‘Brocolino’, seems to be closed. Ever since Mike and Pete, my fellow gourmets, have recommended it to me, it’s been an essential part of my visit to the city. And chef Hector has a sense of humour. Who else would feature ‘aphrodisiac soup’ or steak ‘in the style of Paris Hilton’? If it doesn’t open before I have to leave for Puerto Natales, I may always wonder about the Paris Hilton bit.
Next I try Remezón, a bit out of the centre, which is supposed to do really creative dishes. Same story. Beginning to give up hope of dining on anything other than a hamburger, I last try La Marmita, and hit the jackpot. Firstly, the décor is great – warm colours, really cosy, paintings of indigenous people on walls, tabletops with different grains and herbs under the glass, and even a little book exchange. Secondly, I’m followed in by a garrulous quarter of Canadian geologists (whom I first mistake for Americans because I can’t tell the difference between accents), who invite me to have dinner with them. “We’ve heard all of each other’s stories by now; let’s hear yours.”
We end up agreeing that there are many similarities between travel writing and geology – they’re also away from home for months and spend a lot of time outdoors, and they all count themselves lucky because their hobbies are also their job. They ask me for local tips and tell me that they’re moving on to La Paz afterwards to study landslides – identifying the soil/rock makeup in areas most prone to them and figuring out how to prevent them. They’re loud and funny and good company and dinner ends up lasting three hours. By the end, I’m tipsy after one very strong pisco sour (the best I’ve had in Chile so far!) and stuffed after the ceviche with coconut milk, the garlic soup (which wards off evil spirits, allegedly) and the little freebies – crackers with homemade pate and seafood dip. This is gonna be my author pick – the food is great and so is the presentation. And the chocolate and calafate berry mousse is just superb!
Too tipsy to do much writing and it’s too late. Early bedtime and an early alarm so that the writing gets done in the morning.
Midday flight to Punta Arenas. I guess that counts as a break, because I actually get to read for half the flight. The other half is spent marking things on my Punta Arenas maps and making notes on the printout of the text I have to work on. Like many flights up and down this thin country, this one stops midway in Coyhaique. The landscape beneath us is quite incredible: Patagonia is a mass of bare mountains, sprinkled with fresh snow, lakes that are an incredible turquoise colour – like the huge one that I had to cross by boat from the town of Chile Chico last year, sandy-coloured steppe, dotted with hardy little bushes, ribbons of rivers, the odd lonely straight line indicating a dirt road…
I love this country; it’s the most incredible country I’ve ever been to and I love its cold, inhospitable parts all the more for their stark beauty. I have Isabel Allende to thank for wanting to come here in the first place: if I hadn’t read “House of the Spirits” at university and then gone on to read everything else she’d ever written, including her memoirs, then my imagination wouldn’t have been buzzing with the sensations she described – the first taste of a sea urchin on her tongue, the smell of the forest by the sea near Valparaíso, the wrenching emotional pain of having to go into exile after Pinochet’s coming to power…When I was originally asked which country I’d like to research, I didn’t hesitate in naming Chile, and for that I’m eternally grateful to Rough Guides.
There’s the part of the flight where it’s about to land in Punta Arenas, and to do so, the plane has to make an about turn over the Magellan Strait before going down really low over the water, as the airstrip is right near the sea, and even though the Magellan Strait was the calmest today I’ve ever seen it – just a flat expanse of dark blue, without the white crests of waves – I didn’t like going low over the water. When it looked like we were slowing down, I mentally willed it to make it back to dry land. My heart was hammering like mad and I was so relieved when we touched down, that my legs seemed to be made of jelly. It’s the first time in my life that I thought: “Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice to have pisco sour this evening to get over this.” I need to watch it or I’ll turn into a rotund drunk.
Last time I flew here, Nik and I had to wait for ages for public transport, but this time there are a couple of minibuses there, ready to deliver us to the guesthouses of our choice. Am the only person at Hostal Keokenk. It was advertised as being ‘just blocks from the plaza’. Eight blocks, to be precise. I didn’t have much of a choice; the other ones I called this morning either didn’t pick up or the number was wrong on their websites.
My room has no heating, but it does have cable TV; I don’t quite understand their priorities.
The afternoon is devoted to map work; pay a visit to all the bus companies (Punta Arenas doesn’t have a central bus terminal),find out phone numbers and timetables, do the same with airline offices, mark on internet cafes, museum opening hours – all that jazz. Punta Arenas is a big city that stretches along the Magellan Strait, but downtown is pretty compact. Of all Chilean big cities, this is probably my favourite: in spite of the weather, which seems to be rainy, windy and cold whenever I visit, I like its energy, the giant murals on buildings, the sculpted trees on Avenida Colón, and the city of the dead (which is conveniently located right next to my hostel). Will visit it tomorrow.
Finding a place to have dinner turns out to be a challenge: my favourite restaurant, ‘Brocolino’, seems to be closed. Ever since Mike and Pete, my fellow gourmets, have recommended it to me, it’s been an essential part of my visit to the city. And chef Hector has a sense of humour. Who else would feature ‘aphrodisiac soup’ or steak ‘in the style of Paris Hilton’? If it doesn’t open before I have to leave for Puerto Natales, I may always wonder about the Paris Hilton bit.
Next I try Remezón, a bit out of the centre, which is supposed to do really creative dishes. Same story. Beginning to give up hope of dining on anything other than a hamburger, I last try La Marmita, and hit the jackpot. Firstly, the décor is great – warm colours, really cosy, paintings of indigenous people on walls, tabletops with different grains and herbs under the glass, and even a little book exchange. Secondly, I’m followed in by a garrulous quarter of Canadian geologists (whom I first mistake for Americans because I can’t tell the difference between accents), who invite me to have dinner with them. “We’ve heard all of each other’s stories by now; let’s hear yours.”
We end up agreeing that there are many similarities between travel writing and geology – they’re also away from home for months and spend a lot of time outdoors, and they all count themselves lucky because their hobbies are also their job. They ask me for local tips and tell me that they’re moving on to La Paz afterwards to study landslides – identifying the soil/rock makeup in areas most prone to them and figuring out how to prevent them. They’re loud and funny and good company and dinner ends up lasting three hours. By the end, I’m tipsy after one very strong pisco sour (the best I’ve had in Chile so far!) and stuffed after the ceviche with coconut milk, the garlic soup (which wards off evil spirits, allegedly) and the little freebies – crackers with homemade pate and seafood dip. This is gonna be my author pick – the food is great and so is the presentation. And the chocolate and calafate berry mousse is just superb!
Too tipsy to do much writing and it’s too late. Early bedtime and an early alarm so that the writing gets done in the morning.
Tuesday 27 April 2010
Day 20 - Chepu Valley, Ancud, Puerto Montt.
In Chepu there’s complete silence and darkness at night. Sleep like a brick.
When I walk to the main house bit in the morning, the southern lapwings start screeching. “They’re like an alarm,” Fernando says. “When we have campers, I can always hear if one of them is going to the bathroom area or if a stranger walks in.” The lapwings are extremely territorial.
I decide against kayaking because there’s too much work to be done and long for the day when I can come back to Chepu and just relax for a few days – hike along the coast, spend quality time with Fernando and Amory, go kayaking for hours in the sunken forest, sit on the veranda and play with the cats…
As I’m eating breakfast, I gasp. Across the little meadow from the main area, by the wooden fence, a tiny deer emerges from some bushes. It’s the elusive and very shy pudú; they are supposed to dwell in all the national parks, but you never see them. Then another! My ‘Chilean’ parents are supposed to have an entire family that visits their property, because they feel protected there. They’re the size of a small dog, and look a bit like large rodents. “We’re not going to tell any on our neighbours,” Amory says. “Some people hunt for them and eat them.” A man down the road boasts that his dog catches pudú. They’re protected species, but no one protects them. It’s the same problem: in Europe, because we’ve largely destroyed our wildlife and our forests, and polluted our sources of fresh water, we have mentality that those things are important and in need of protection. “In Chile, we have the nature but not the mentality,” Amory sighs.
My ‘Chilean parents’ are a great source of information. They know more about trail conditions in Parque Nacional Chiloé than the useless CONAF office in Castro, or even the local rangers, because Fernando’s always taking people on walks along the Chepu part of the park. The idea is to eventually link the three sections of the park, but at the moment, the Chepu one is the most accessible because it’s now part of the Sendero de Chile, Abtao (the middle section) is difficult unless you go with a knowledgeable local (and they happen to know such a guide) and Anay, the popular section down south, is the one that people seem to know less about – at least about the conditions in the depths of the park, since most backpackers just get to the wide Pacific beach and camp out there, without going further. I’d love to hike in the park extensively, and so I’m hoping I get offered Chile (the country guide) again.
Amory calls her guide friends on my behalf, and I spend the morning typing away. Am very pleased with the amount of information I’ve gathered, and they’re always happy for me to get in touch with any more questions.
I decide that I have to stop in Ancud to check out two things that they recommended: the Mundo de Papas (café specialising in everything made of potato, because Chiloé has several native kinds, don’tcha know?) and ICA – the church/museum run by the organisation that’s currently restoring all the UNESCO churches around the island. Before I leave, they arrange for a friend of theirs to meet me in Ancud; the night before I complained that there were no new hostels in Ancud, and he’s got a good one that’s not very well advertised, apparently. Then Fernando drops me off at the crossroads and I hail the first Ancud-bound bus I see.
I get dropped off at the wrong bus terminal – the rundown one that’s a fair walk out of town, that’s barely in any of the guides. On the upside, it turns out that quite a few long-distance buses still stop here, so I make notes while I wait for Marco, my ride.
Marco is a really energetic man who talks very fast, translating directly from Spanish into English; any words he doesn’t know, he makes up (but I understand what he’s trying to say) and he says ‘you know’ after every couple of words. His hostel really is all that. It’s a guesthouse, really, but with an epic sea view and the most incredible common space I’ve seen in a hostel so far – lots of light, really tall ceiling and the superb Chilote woodwork. Yep, this one’s for the guide.
He then drives me to the Mundo de Papas, where the Ancud tourism association is having a meeting. Then end up giving me a glass of champagne because they’re toasting something, and every now and then, Marco slips away from the group to hand me a business card of someone who does boat trips in the bay, or does penguin-watching tours. Everyone’s really upset that the older Lonely Planet guide just dismissed Ancud out of hand, suggesting that people head straight to Castro if they don’t have much time. It really depends on what you’re looking for, though.
My potato pizza with smoked salmon is superb. The base, made of potato flour, is a bit crunchier than regular flour, but really tasty. And you totally can’t tell that the chocolate cake is 25% potato. Really cute café, and really cheap, too. Long live the potato!
I find the ICA church and a helpful girl shows me around, explaining what they’re doing. The church hall is full of scale models of all the Chiloé UNESCO churches – one half is painted, to show its actual colours, and the other is left open so you can see in minute detail the way it’s constructed. On the walls, there are large posters, showing how the churches are put together, and there are displays showing different kinds of wooden joints used and the twenty different types of wood. This is definitely the place to come before checking out the churches, because then you can actually tell what you’re looking at. And I just love the scale models! If I were a kid again, forget Lego castles – I’d love to have a couple of the models to play with instead!
My bus back to Puerto Montt smells like a Portaloo and I’m sitting to a red-faced bloke who looks like he enjoys a tipple a bit too much. Escape the smell on the car ferry, when I climb on deck and watch scores of seals frolic in the channel.
My guesthouse is up a steep hill from the bus station. The woman running it is friendly, and my room has cable TV in spite of not being big enough to swing even a very small cat – it really is the cupboard under the stairs. Am asked for payment in advance – that seems to be a Puerto Montt thing; maybe cheapo tourists have a reputation for running off without paying – and then take myself off to the movies, stopping for street meat on a stick and Colombian empanadas along the way.
“Clash of the Titans” is an inspired choice; no problem understanding it in Spanish. I do enjoy my Greek myths and Liam Neeson makes a fine Zeus.
When I walk to the main house bit in the morning, the southern lapwings start screeching. “They’re like an alarm,” Fernando says. “When we have campers, I can always hear if one of them is going to the bathroom area or if a stranger walks in.” The lapwings are extremely territorial.
I decide against kayaking because there’s too much work to be done and long for the day when I can come back to Chepu and just relax for a few days – hike along the coast, spend quality time with Fernando and Amory, go kayaking for hours in the sunken forest, sit on the veranda and play with the cats…
As I’m eating breakfast, I gasp. Across the little meadow from the main area, by the wooden fence, a tiny deer emerges from some bushes. It’s the elusive and very shy pudú; they are supposed to dwell in all the national parks, but you never see them. Then another! My ‘Chilean’ parents are supposed to have an entire family that visits their property, because they feel protected there. They’re the size of a small dog, and look a bit like large rodents. “We’re not going to tell any on our neighbours,” Amory says. “Some people hunt for them and eat them.” A man down the road boasts that his dog catches pudú. They’re protected species, but no one protects them. It’s the same problem: in Europe, because we’ve largely destroyed our wildlife and our forests, and polluted our sources of fresh water, we have mentality that those things are important and in need of protection. “In Chile, we have the nature but not the mentality,” Amory sighs.
My ‘Chilean parents’ are a great source of information. They know more about trail conditions in Parque Nacional Chiloé than the useless CONAF office in Castro, or even the local rangers, because Fernando’s always taking people on walks along the Chepu part of the park. The idea is to eventually link the three sections of the park, but at the moment, the Chepu one is the most accessible because it’s now part of the Sendero de Chile, Abtao (the middle section) is difficult unless you go with a knowledgeable local (and they happen to know such a guide) and Anay, the popular section down south, is the one that people seem to know less about – at least about the conditions in the depths of the park, since most backpackers just get to the wide Pacific beach and camp out there, without going further. I’d love to hike in the park extensively, and so I’m hoping I get offered Chile (the country guide) again.
Amory calls her guide friends on my behalf, and I spend the morning typing away. Am very pleased with the amount of information I’ve gathered, and they’re always happy for me to get in touch with any more questions.
I decide that I have to stop in Ancud to check out two things that they recommended: the Mundo de Papas (café specialising in everything made of potato, because Chiloé has several native kinds, don’tcha know?) and ICA – the church/museum run by the organisation that’s currently restoring all the UNESCO churches around the island. Before I leave, they arrange for a friend of theirs to meet me in Ancud; the night before I complained that there were no new hostels in Ancud, and he’s got a good one that’s not very well advertised, apparently. Then Fernando drops me off at the crossroads and I hail the first Ancud-bound bus I see.
I get dropped off at the wrong bus terminal – the rundown one that’s a fair walk out of town, that’s barely in any of the guides. On the upside, it turns out that quite a few long-distance buses still stop here, so I make notes while I wait for Marco, my ride.
Marco is a really energetic man who talks very fast, translating directly from Spanish into English; any words he doesn’t know, he makes up (but I understand what he’s trying to say) and he says ‘you know’ after every couple of words. His hostel really is all that. It’s a guesthouse, really, but with an epic sea view and the most incredible common space I’ve seen in a hostel so far – lots of light, really tall ceiling and the superb Chilote woodwork. Yep, this one’s for the guide.
He then drives me to the Mundo de Papas, where the Ancud tourism association is having a meeting. Then end up giving me a glass of champagne because they’re toasting something, and every now and then, Marco slips away from the group to hand me a business card of someone who does boat trips in the bay, or does penguin-watching tours. Everyone’s really upset that the older Lonely Planet guide just dismissed Ancud out of hand, suggesting that people head straight to Castro if they don’t have much time. It really depends on what you’re looking for, though.
My potato pizza with smoked salmon is superb. The base, made of potato flour, is a bit crunchier than regular flour, but really tasty. And you totally can’t tell that the chocolate cake is 25% potato. Really cute café, and really cheap, too. Long live the potato!
I find the ICA church and a helpful girl shows me around, explaining what they’re doing. The church hall is full of scale models of all the Chiloé UNESCO churches – one half is painted, to show its actual colours, and the other is left open so you can see in minute detail the way it’s constructed. On the walls, there are large posters, showing how the churches are put together, and there are displays showing different kinds of wooden joints used and the twenty different types of wood. This is definitely the place to come before checking out the churches, because then you can actually tell what you’re looking at. And I just love the scale models! If I were a kid again, forget Lego castles – I’d love to have a couple of the models to play with instead!
My bus back to Puerto Montt smells like a Portaloo and I’m sitting to a red-faced bloke who looks like he enjoys a tipple a bit too much. Escape the smell on the car ferry, when I climb on deck and watch scores of seals frolic in the channel.
My guesthouse is up a steep hill from the bus station. The woman running it is friendly, and my room has cable TV in spite of not being big enough to swing even a very small cat – it really is the cupboard under the stairs. Am asked for payment in advance – that seems to be a Puerto Montt thing; maybe cheapo tourists have a reputation for running off without paying – and then take myself off to the movies, stopping for street meat on a stick and Colombian empanadas along the way.
“Clash of the Titans” is an inspired choice; no problem understanding it in Spanish. I do enjoy my Greek myths and Liam Neeson makes a fine Zeus.
Monday 26 April 2010
Day 19 - Chepu valley.
Copiously sick in the middle of the night. It’s not food poisoning; if it were, I’d still be seriously unwell. I suspect it’s the mysterious illness that afflicts me from time to time ever since my return from Istanbul after celebrating the New Year there in the 2006; for several months, I was throwing up almost on a daily basis with no discernible reason for it. My GP couldn’t find anything wrong with me, and those who wondered if I were ‘with child’ had to be told that if so, I must’ve been knocked up the same way as the Virgin Mary. After a while, it all stopped, but every now and then, it pops in to say hello.
There’s a flock of black-necked swans floating outside my window in the morning. Back home we don’t get more than a couple at a time, usually, whereas here you’re not likely to see less than twenty.
Having finished with Castro’s accommodation options, I catch a bus back across the island, instructing the bus driver to drop me off at Km 25, or the ‘cruce de Chepu’, from where a gravel road leads west into the Chepu Valley. The driver almost misses my stop and I have to walk back to where grey-ponytailed Fernando awaits me with open arms beside his pickup truck. Fernando is one half of a middle-aged couple from Santiago; he and Amory moved to Chepu ten years ago, fed up with city life and aiming to live off the land and become self-sufficient. Not only did they succeed, but they now run the Miradór de Chepu, an amazing eco-campsite that’s powered by the wind turbine on the property; Fernando’s got a water desalination project in the works and is planning to introduce several electric boats to enable people to get close to wildlife without disturbing it, as they are silent and eco-friendly. I was last here in November 2008, when my Ancud contact Britt introduced me to Fernando and I ended up staying here and helped Amory with waitressing because a party of National Geographic folks arrived on the same day and she made them lunch.
The campsite sits on a bluff above the confluence of Rio Puntra and Rio Grande, and in the middle you have a mass of marshland with dead tree stumps - it's a haven for an incredible number of bird species. I went kayaking at dawn in this sunken forest, created by a massive tidal wave that ran inland after the devastating earthquake of 1960, and it was an incredibly tranquil experience.
Fernando fills me in: they had to give away Luca, their excitable dog, because he loved people too much and would attempt to scramble into the kayaks with them. On one occasion, he stole a fat woman’s underwear from a tent and was chased around by her, much to the amusement of the other campers.
“The house was really empty without him for a while,” Amory adds. “But now we have a family of pudú (pygmy deer) that come every day.” They also have a family of cats that was here before, and a new addition that followed Amory home one day – a little white cat that isn’t half feral like the others. Blanquita hops onto my lap the minute I sit down on the porch, and then follows us around. I try to persuade them to adopt her as a pet.
The place is still looking the same, though I’m staying in a new en-suite little house that was still being built last time. Fernando tells me that their house burned down not too long ago - it was on a different plot of land – and that they lost everything in it. “What caused it?” “I don’t know,” he says, but his face darkens. Later, when he tells me about the things that some locals have been doing to sabotage their work, such as making it difficult for travellers to get here by having the bus stop a mile away, or telling them that their place is very expensive, or even putting up fake ‘Miradór’ signs at other places to stay, I wonder if he thinks that the fire may have been deliberate. Still, as he says, his attitude is different here from what it had been in Santiago; there, he may not have recovered from a loss like that, but here, it’s doable.
They’re on good terms with lots of locals, though – they buy fresh produce from them and send their guests their way to eat, as they don’t provide food (apart from the odd barbecue), they really passionate about protecting wildlife and Fernando shakes his head when he informs me that the nearby penguin colony is suffering because the local fishermen will drop anyone off there for a fee – people with children, with dogs – so the birds don’t feel safe, and the government environmental agency, Conaf, does nothing to protect them; there are no rules in place.
I love staying here; they are both such warm people, and a fantastic source of information. Amory looks like Meryl Streep, with wonderful laughter lines, a voice throaty from too many cigarettes, and an American accent, while Fernando’s English is more stilted, though fluent. When Amory sits at the computer to find something to show me, Fernando puts his arms around her and strokes her cheek. They’ve met late in life and are still very much in love.
I show them that they’re in the Lonely Planet and the Moon Handbook. They already know that they’re in the Rough Guide because I told them that I was going to put them in and someone’s given them a copy. Embarrassed to see that I made a typo and put their phone number in incorrectly (which the Moon Handbook then copied), but the website’s there and people have been calling to arrange for pickup from the main road, just as I’d instructed them.
For dinner, Amory produces some of the amazing smoked salmon done by a German woman who brought over German smoking equipment but uses local woods to achieve a unique flavour, but unfortunately she lives near Chacao, and orders have to placed in advance ever since the local salmon farm shut down after a major disease amongst the fish. Amory mentions the Lonely Planet writer who also stayed here. “He said to me: ‘Are you sure you want to be in the guide? Your life will change forever.’” It didn’t, but they have been getting more visitors because word has spread, they’re on various eco-websites and TripAdvisor.com. Where Lonely Planet’s influence has been detrimental, it’s where it suggests in the guide that Ancud’s not worth visiting, so most people go straight to Castro, and it’s really affecting local business in Ancud. That’s not terribly professional; the LP writer should’ve realised how detrimental such a comment would be. I, personally, may not like Castro, but I won’t tell people not to go there on the basis of my own prejudice; I would only advise so if a place is really grotty/dangerous. I tell them that I’ll see what I can do.
They are very enthusiastic about my future travels and Amory follows my perambulations on Facebook. They themselves haven’t moved from Chepu for the past five years, because there’s no one who can take care of their place – they would only entrust it to someone who is as passionate about nature as they are. “Unfortunately, Fernando’s children are all city people and they don’t care, and I’ve never had any kids,” Amory says.
We discuss Piñera and what his presidency means for Chile. They think that it’s a good thing, that twenty years in power led to great levels of corruption amongst the centre-left, and that he may try to reverse the damage done in the previous years, when the government managed to sell off the water rights to a Spanish hydro-electricity company, ENDESA. Piñera is encouraging businesses to invest in national assets and since he’s always been massively successful as a businessman, the hope is that he’ll run Chile equally efficiently.
Amory asks me if I’ve checked out ‘The World of Potato’ in Ancud. I’ve walked past it, but no. Apparently, it’s a really great eatery where most things (not everything) are made of the native Chiloé potatoes. I think I may have to stop in Ancud on the way back from Chepu tomorrow for that, and also to check out a church/museum which shows how the unique construction process of the Chiloé churches, which would help visitors to the island to understand what they’re looking at when they go and visit the actual churches. Amory and Fernando have also given me an idea about eco-tourism that I may look into further…
This is the third night that I’ve had alcohol with my meal. I fear I may be turning into a lush.
Debate going kayaking at dawn tomorrow, but the forecast is for rain, so I’ll play it by ear.
There’s a flock of black-necked swans floating outside my window in the morning. Back home we don’t get more than a couple at a time, usually, whereas here you’re not likely to see less than twenty.
Having finished with Castro’s accommodation options, I catch a bus back across the island, instructing the bus driver to drop me off at Km 25, or the ‘cruce de Chepu’, from where a gravel road leads west into the Chepu Valley. The driver almost misses my stop and I have to walk back to where grey-ponytailed Fernando awaits me with open arms beside his pickup truck. Fernando is one half of a middle-aged couple from Santiago; he and Amory moved to Chepu ten years ago, fed up with city life and aiming to live off the land and become self-sufficient. Not only did they succeed, but they now run the Miradór de Chepu, an amazing eco-campsite that’s powered by the wind turbine on the property; Fernando’s got a water desalination project in the works and is planning to introduce several electric boats to enable people to get close to wildlife without disturbing it, as they are silent and eco-friendly. I was last here in November 2008, when my Ancud contact Britt introduced me to Fernando and I ended up staying here and helped Amory with waitressing because a party of National Geographic folks arrived on the same day and she made them lunch.
The campsite sits on a bluff above the confluence of Rio Puntra and Rio Grande, and in the middle you have a mass of marshland with dead tree stumps - it's a haven for an incredible number of bird species. I went kayaking at dawn in this sunken forest, created by a massive tidal wave that ran inland after the devastating earthquake of 1960, and it was an incredibly tranquil experience.
Fernando fills me in: they had to give away Luca, their excitable dog, because he loved people too much and would attempt to scramble into the kayaks with them. On one occasion, he stole a fat woman’s underwear from a tent and was chased around by her, much to the amusement of the other campers.
“The house was really empty without him for a while,” Amory adds. “But now we have a family of pudú (pygmy deer) that come every day.” They also have a family of cats that was here before, and a new addition that followed Amory home one day – a little white cat that isn’t half feral like the others. Blanquita hops onto my lap the minute I sit down on the porch, and then follows us around. I try to persuade them to adopt her as a pet.
The place is still looking the same, though I’m staying in a new en-suite little house that was still being built last time. Fernando tells me that their house burned down not too long ago - it was on a different plot of land – and that they lost everything in it. “What caused it?” “I don’t know,” he says, but his face darkens. Later, when he tells me about the things that some locals have been doing to sabotage their work, such as making it difficult for travellers to get here by having the bus stop a mile away, or telling them that their place is very expensive, or even putting up fake ‘Miradór’ signs at other places to stay, I wonder if he thinks that the fire may have been deliberate. Still, as he says, his attitude is different here from what it had been in Santiago; there, he may not have recovered from a loss like that, but here, it’s doable.
They’re on good terms with lots of locals, though – they buy fresh produce from them and send their guests their way to eat, as they don’t provide food (apart from the odd barbecue), they really passionate about protecting wildlife and Fernando shakes his head when he informs me that the nearby penguin colony is suffering because the local fishermen will drop anyone off there for a fee – people with children, with dogs – so the birds don’t feel safe, and the government environmental agency, Conaf, does nothing to protect them; there are no rules in place.
I love staying here; they are both such warm people, and a fantastic source of information. Amory looks like Meryl Streep, with wonderful laughter lines, a voice throaty from too many cigarettes, and an American accent, while Fernando’s English is more stilted, though fluent. When Amory sits at the computer to find something to show me, Fernando puts his arms around her and strokes her cheek. They’ve met late in life and are still very much in love.
I show them that they’re in the Lonely Planet and the Moon Handbook. They already know that they’re in the Rough Guide because I told them that I was going to put them in and someone’s given them a copy. Embarrassed to see that I made a typo and put their phone number in incorrectly (which the Moon Handbook then copied), but the website’s there and people have been calling to arrange for pickup from the main road, just as I’d instructed them.
For dinner, Amory produces some of the amazing smoked salmon done by a German woman who brought over German smoking equipment but uses local woods to achieve a unique flavour, but unfortunately she lives near Chacao, and orders have to placed in advance ever since the local salmon farm shut down after a major disease amongst the fish. Amory mentions the Lonely Planet writer who also stayed here. “He said to me: ‘Are you sure you want to be in the guide? Your life will change forever.’” It didn’t, but they have been getting more visitors because word has spread, they’re on various eco-websites and TripAdvisor.com. Where Lonely Planet’s influence has been detrimental, it’s where it suggests in the guide that Ancud’s not worth visiting, so most people go straight to Castro, and it’s really affecting local business in Ancud. That’s not terribly professional; the LP writer should’ve realised how detrimental such a comment would be. I, personally, may not like Castro, but I won’t tell people not to go there on the basis of my own prejudice; I would only advise so if a place is really grotty/dangerous. I tell them that I’ll see what I can do.
They are very enthusiastic about my future travels and Amory follows my perambulations on Facebook. They themselves haven’t moved from Chepu for the past five years, because there’s no one who can take care of their place – they would only entrust it to someone who is as passionate about nature as they are. “Unfortunately, Fernando’s children are all city people and they don’t care, and I’ve never had any kids,” Amory says.
We discuss Piñera and what his presidency means for Chile. They think that it’s a good thing, that twenty years in power led to great levels of corruption amongst the centre-left, and that he may try to reverse the damage done in the previous years, when the government managed to sell off the water rights to a Spanish hydro-electricity company, ENDESA. Piñera is encouraging businesses to invest in national assets and since he’s always been massively successful as a businessman, the hope is that he’ll run Chile equally efficiently.
Amory asks me if I’ve checked out ‘The World of Potato’ in Ancud. I’ve walked past it, but no. Apparently, it’s a really great eatery where most things (not everything) are made of the native Chiloé potatoes. I think I may have to stop in Ancud on the way back from Chepu tomorrow for that, and also to check out a church/museum which shows how the unique construction process of the Chiloé churches, which would help visitors to the island to understand what they’re looking at when they go and visit the actual churches. Amory and Fernando have also given me an idea about eco-tourism that I may look into further…
This is the third night that I’ve had alcohol with my meal. I fear I may be turning into a lush.
Debate going kayaking at dawn tomorrow, but the forecast is for rain, so I’ll play it by ear.
Sunday 25 April 2010
Day 18 - Castro.
Finish with Ancud. The Irish guy and the American guy have warned me over homemade bread and kiwi jam at breakfast that it’s getting bloody cold in Punta Arenas down south and that it’s been snowing in Torres del Paine National Park. That last bit’s not terribly surprising: when Nikolai and I camped out there in December 2008, it snowed then, in the summer! I shan’t be camping this time.
Catch a bus to Castro, the island’s capital. Even bus rides can be used productively: I use the hour to mark on the things I need to check out onto my map of Castro.
Have finally figured out how I might be able to have my cake and eat it: since flying from Punta Arenas to Coyhhaique is out of the question (too expensive) and I do need to cover the northern bit of the Carretera Austral, when I’m in Patagonia, if I can get from Puerto Natales to Calafate, Argentina, and if I can then go from Calafate to El Chaltén and back again in two days AND catch an overnight bus to Comodoro Rivadavia in time for the Coyhaique connection, then yes, I can visit Zoe AND cover all the bits I have to do. If not, then I just have to get to Coyhaique on time.
In Castro, I abandon the bulk of my luggage at the luggage room (luggage storage for 24 hours: CH$1000; not having to carry 20kg of weight up and down the world’s biggest hill on the way to and from my guesthouse: priceless). Palafito Hostel, where I’m staying, is a bit out of the centre and I debate whether or not I should warn out readers about the hill walk; after, all this really is the nicest budget place to stay. It’s a converted palafito – a traditional wooden fishermen’s dwelling on stilts. There are very few of them left, mostly in Castro, due to the 1960 earthquake/tsunami combo. The idea is that you can moor your boat out back and walk out into the street through the front door. The ones at the north end of town – which get photographed a lot – are pretty grotty; there’s trash floating in the water and I’m not convinced that the sewage system is 100% effective, but they are picturesque in a dilapidated kind of way.
I’ll say this now: I’m not too keen on Castro. I respect that it’s the third oldest city in Chile and that it’s survived being sacked by pirates, numerous fires and the world’s biggest earthquake, but I don’t like its business, its rundown houses and its unfriendly dogs. I think that Ancud is much nicer, and I’m glad that I’m only here for a day and a half. Just for the record, I should probably tell you that I can only do this because I know Castro very well, this being my third time here in as many years. I know exactly what I’m looking for and can do my rounds with military efficiency. If I were new to a place, or didn’t know it too well, I’d stay for as long as necessary.
Lunch at Brújula del Cuerpo – a diner that serves burger-and-chip combos to people who manage to get fed up with all the fresh fish and seafood. My friend Dawn would love it.
Do map work for most of the afternoon. Discover that one of my favourite places – indeed, one of the few places with real character and a bar made out a fishing boat, Años Luz – has been demolished to make way for yet another pharmacy. The museum is closed, and so is the tourist office. I try to find a place to call an American friend of mine only to find that there’s a proliferation of internet cafes/ call centres, but most of them don’t let you call abroad. How absurd.
Get a pretty good workout, walking up and down the steep streets. Check out the knitted woollen goodies in the waterside market (Chiloé makes excellent knitwear) and though I’m tempted to buy stuff, I really have no space in my luggage at all. It’s funny how Castro is the capital, but how it also feels very provincial: there are women walking around wearing traditional woollen cloaks, some eateries serve a humble fishermen’s dish made with cochayuyo (grim seaweed), and there are signs everywhere, offering firewood for sale.
Linger in the plaza and check out the wooden church again. It’s not the prettiest of Chiloé churches, but I’m still impressed by the architecture; when I was covering Chile last year, I ended up visiting about a dozen of these UNESCO heritage sites because I was covering Chiloé in detail, and they all have roofs which are made the same way they build their traditional wooden boats – only put upside down.
Check bus timetables at the Rural Bus Terminal and the Cruz del Sur one; Chiloé really well-connected when it comes to long distance destinations, but it can be a real bugger trying to get out to some of the tinier villages. I’d love to hire a car and take my time, explore the island properly, maybe find the warlocks’ cave next time, or spot the Caleuche, the warlocks’ ship, sailing out of the mist.
Dinner invokes a sense of déjà vu. I’m at Octavio, an old, established place on the waterfront, consisting of a large hall, decorated with random bits of artwork, old clocks, knick-knacks. I get placed in front of the wood-burning stove. I recognise the middle-aged waiter from two years ago. The waiter recognises me too, and says so. He ends up being an excellent source of information. No, there have been no tourists – Chilean or otherwise – since the earthquake. Yes, they’re building a passenger port nearby. The museum is closed because it’s being perpetually renovated; it’s a ‘summer museum’. No, there are no amazing drinking holes around; the locals tend to entertain at home, while the places catering to foreigners go in and out of business.
When I get curanto (for quality control) again, he explains the difference between the dark potato dumpling (milcao) and the light one (chapalele) and confirms that the ‘liquid Viagra’ is for drinking, and not for pouring over the dish, as someone erroneously told me.
I tell him about my work and when I leave, Vicente gives me his number and email address and tells me to get in touch if I need any more info. A good person to know.
Everything seems closed when I walk back, and this is a Saturday night! Tomorrow I’ll check out accommodation and then I’m out of here. My Chilean parents are waiting for me in the Chepu valley.
.
Catch a bus to Castro, the island’s capital. Even bus rides can be used productively: I use the hour to mark on the things I need to check out onto my map of Castro.
Have finally figured out how I might be able to have my cake and eat it: since flying from Punta Arenas to Coyhhaique is out of the question (too expensive) and I do need to cover the northern bit of the Carretera Austral, when I’m in Patagonia, if I can get from Puerto Natales to Calafate, Argentina, and if I can then go from Calafate to El Chaltén and back again in two days AND catch an overnight bus to Comodoro Rivadavia in time for the Coyhaique connection, then yes, I can visit Zoe AND cover all the bits I have to do. If not, then I just have to get to Coyhaique on time.
In Castro, I abandon the bulk of my luggage at the luggage room (luggage storage for 24 hours: CH$1000; not having to carry 20kg of weight up and down the world’s biggest hill on the way to and from my guesthouse: priceless). Palafito Hostel, where I’m staying, is a bit out of the centre and I debate whether or not I should warn out readers about the hill walk; after, all this really is the nicest budget place to stay. It’s a converted palafito – a traditional wooden fishermen’s dwelling on stilts. There are very few of them left, mostly in Castro, due to the 1960 earthquake/tsunami combo. The idea is that you can moor your boat out back and walk out into the street through the front door. The ones at the north end of town – which get photographed a lot – are pretty grotty; there’s trash floating in the water and I’m not convinced that the sewage system is 100% effective, but they are picturesque in a dilapidated kind of way.
I’ll say this now: I’m not too keen on Castro. I respect that it’s the third oldest city in Chile and that it’s survived being sacked by pirates, numerous fires and the world’s biggest earthquake, but I don’t like its business, its rundown houses and its unfriendly dogs. I think that Ancud is much nicer, and I’m glad that I’m only here for a day and a half. Just for the record, I should probably tell you that I can only do this because I know Castro very well, this being my third time here in as many years. I know exactly what I’m looking for and can do my rounds with military efficiency. If I were new to a place, or didn’t know it too well, I’d stay for as long as necessary.
Lunch at Brújula del Cuerpo – a diner that serves burger-and-chip combos to people who manage to get fed up with all the fresh fish and seafood. My friend Dawn would love it.
Do map work for most of the afternoon. Discover that one of my favourite places – indeed, one of the few places with real character and a bar made out a fishing boat, Años Luz – has been demolished to make way for yet another pharmacy. The museum is closed, and so is the tourist office. I try to find a place to call an American friend of mine only to find that there’s a proliferation of internet cafes/ call centres, but most of them don’t let you call abroad. How absurd.
Get a pretty good workout, walking up and down the steep streets. Check out the knitted woollen goodies in the waterside market (Chiloé makes excellent knitwear) and though I’m tempted to buy stuff, I really have no space in my luggage at all. It’s funny how Castro is the capital, but how it also feels very provincial: there are women walking around wearing traditional woollen cloaks, some eateries serve a humble fishermen’s dish made with cochayuyo (grim seaweed), and there are signs everywhere, offering firewood for sale.
Linger in the plaza and check out the wooden church again. It’s not the prettiest of Chiloé churches, but I’m still impressed by the architecture; when I was covering Chile last year, I ended up visiting about a dozen of these UNESCO heritage sites because I was covering Chiloé in detail, and they all have roofs which are made the same way they build their traditional wooden boats – only put upside down.
Check bus timetables at the Rural Bus Terminal and the Cruz del Sur one; Chiloé really well-connected when it comes to long distance destinations, but it can be a real bugger trying to get out to some of the tinier villages. I’d love to hire a car and take my time, explore the island properly, maybe find the warlocks’ cave next time, or spot the Caleuche, the warlocks’ ship, sailing out of the mist.
Dinner invokes a sense of déjà vu. I’m at Octavio, an old, established place on the waterfront, consisting of a large hall, decorated with random bits of artwork, old clocks, knick-knacks. I get placed in front of the wood-burning stove. I recognise the middle-aged waiter from two years ago. The waiter recognises me too, and says so. He ends up being an excellent source of information. No, there have been no tourists – Chilean or otherwise – since the earthquake. Yes, they’re building a passenger port nearby. The museum is closed because it’s being perpetually renovated; it’s a ‘summer museum’. No, there are no amazing drinking holes around; the locals tend to entertain at home, while the places catering to foreigners go in and out of business.
When I get curanto (for quality control) again, he explains the difference between the dark potato dumpling (milcao) and the light one (chapalele) and confirms that the ‘liquid Viagra’ is for drinking, and not for pouring over the dish, as someone erroneously told me.
I tell him about my work and when I leave, Vicente gives me his number and email address and tells me to get in touch if I need any more info. A good person to know.
Everything seems closed when I walk back, and this is a Saturday night! Tomorrow I’ll check out accommodation and then I’m out of here. My Chilean parents are waiting for me in the Chepu valley.
.
Saturday 24 April 2010
Day 17 - Ancud, the island of Chiloe.
In the morning, I leave Puerto Varas. At the bus station, I notice that even though I have no food, the local canines gravitate towards me in particular. I compare my reaction to those of the other passengers. When the Alsatian and another dog, whose thick fur is so matted in places that it’s got dreadlocks, come over for a bit of attention, the American girls shriek and aim half-hearted kicks in the dogs’ direction; the Chileans ignore them and I’m the only one who coos over them and rubs their bellies. I love having instant pets wherever I go.
The bus goes via Puerto Montt and then on to Pargua, where we roll onto the car ferry for the crossing to the island of Chiloé – the second largest in Latin America after Tierra del Fuego. Up on deck, I scan the waters with a practised eye, looking for signs of life. There it goes – a flipper breaks the water, then the smooth form of a seal leaps out and dives in again. Nearby a black-and-white bird’s head pops up: it’s a Magellanic penguin. How can you tell a penguin in the water from other sea birds? Other birds float on top of the water, whereas with penguins you only see their head and shoulders. No matter how many times I’ve seen wildlife in these parts, it never gets old: my heart does a little leap whenever I see an exotic creature.
In Ancud, one of two towns on the island, I check into my favourite Hostal Mundo Nuevo (Swiss-run hostel right by the waterfront) and make straight for La Pincoya, a restaurant that does particularly good salmon ceviche. Quality control is an important part of my work. The ceviche doesn’t disappoint, though I have to shoo away the waitress who seems determined to make me eat more than I planned.
Then I do the rounds: wander the streets around the main plaza, visit the rural bus terminal to check departures to various villages, check out several hostels, a campsite, compare prices and opening hours of internet cafes, try to visit the local history museum again, only to discover that it’s being renovated, stop by the tourist office to see what I can find out about Agroturismo (‘rural tourism’ where you arrange to stay with some villagers and partake in cow-milking, that kind of thing) and pause to take in the view from some cliff-top fort ruins.
There seems to be a bit of discontent among the local population, according to the graffiti. One tag artist demonstrates fluent use of English: “Fuck the system!” and another budding socialist scribbles: “El capitalismo no se discute, se le destuye.” (Capitalism shouldn’t be discussed; it should be destroyed.” Reminds me of left-wing graffiti in Andalucía. The trouble is, they never follow it up by making helpful suggestions as to what should replace capitalism.
There are lots of drunks about. And not just slightly tipsy people: so far I’ve spotted two men lying prone on the coastal walk. They’re not dead; I did look to check that they were breathing.
The Spanish built another fort on the peninsula across from the Bay of Ancud to cover all angles. Chiloe was actually one of the first parts of Chile to be conquered, but since it’s an island, it was isolated from the mainland for a very long time, resulting in a unique culture that I can’t help but be drawn towards. In the summer, lots of day-tripping gringos come here for a day tour – maybe to see the penguin colony at Puñihuíl – one of only two in Chile (and in the world) where you have the Magellanic and thee Humboldt penguins sharing a breeding ground – or to see the famous wooden churches, and they often complain that Chiloé’s nothing special. I beg to differ. This is the place where black magic is still very much believed in by the older generations, especially in the villages, and when a dense mist hangs over the island, you can almost see the creatures yourself.
“In Patagonia”, by Bruce Chatwin, describes in detail the ritual a man had to go through to become a brujo (warlock), including making a purse out of the skin of a loved one and bathing in a waterfall for forty days and forty nights. It figures that in a macho country, only men were allowed to be witches. Last year I attempted to find the warlocks’ legendary cave near the village of Quicaví and failed. The mystery and the mythology really appeals to me, since I’ve been raised on myths and legends of different countries when I was a child. I love the local creatures, such as Trauco, a repulsive little troll who lives in the forest and has an insatiable appetite for young virgins; he hypnotises them with his gaze and impregnates them. The Trauco is blamed for all unexplained pregnancies on the island.
At the fort ruins I’m surrounded by smooching couples; no doubt some of them will eventually be pointing the finger at Trauco.
Call on Britt, the American married to a Peruvian who lives and runs tours here, but he’s not at the office.
Get an email from the commissioning editor for Lonely Planet’s forthcoming guide to Eastern Europe; Jo’s asking whether I’d be interested in doing the Lithuania chapter. Just when I was starting to despair about getting turned down for every LP gig I’ve applied for! Immediately reply to the affirmative and start figuring out how I can tack it onto the end of my trans-Siberian research. Looks like I’ll be spending July at home and then be away for another three months.
The reason I wasn’t stuffing myself at lunchtime is because I knew that dinner would be at the Kurantón, and that it would be curanto – one of my favourite dishes. It comes from Polynesia originally and involves slow-cooking shellfish, meat and potato dumplings on hot rocks inside an earthen pit, covering it with giant leaves to create a kind of pressure cooker. In the countryside here they do it that way, but in town, the best you can get is curanto cooked in a cast iron pot and Kurantón is still the best place in Ancud. It’s really cool, with a proper bow-tied waiter and whimsical décor consisting of old Wanted! posters from the American west, antique telephones (by ‘antique’ I mean ones like what we had in the Soviet Union), carvings of Chilote mythological creatures…I do myself proud and manage to finish most of the dish, washing it down with the potent shellfish broth that the Chileans call ‘liquid Viagra’. Then again, Chileans think that pretty much everything that comes out of the sea improves one’s performance, up to and including sea urchins. On the wall, the slogan reads (in Spanish): “Curanto: helping people to have good sex since 1826”. I wonder if those people first had to wait for their meal to digest.
Manage to get a lot of writing done this evening, spurred on by the pisco sour I had in honour of my first LP gig. It’s a potent combination of pisco (local grape brandy), sugar syrup, egg whites, lemon juice and crushed ice, and it packs a heck of a punch. Manage to work the sex quote into the restaurant review. Maybe alcohol-fuelled writing sessions are the way to go.
The bus goes via Puerto Montt and then on to Pargua, where we roll onto the car ferry for the crossing to the island of Chiloé – the second largest in Latin America after Tierra del Fuego. Up on deck, I scan the waters with a practised eye, looking for signs of life. There it goes – a flipper breaks the water, then the smooth form of a seal leaps out and dives in again. Nearby a black-and-white bird’s head pops up: it’s a Magellanic penguin. How can you tell a penguin in the water from other sea birds? Other birds float on top of the water, whereas with penguins you only see their head and shoulders. No matter how many times I’ve seen wildlife in these parts, it never gets old: my heart does a little leap whenever I see an exotic creature.
In Ancud, one of two towns on the island, I check into my favourite Hostal Mundo Nuevo (Swiss-run hostel right by the waterfront) and make straight for La Pincoya, a restaurant that does particularly good salmon ceviche. Quality control is an important part of my work. The ceviche doesn’t disappoint, though I have to shoo away the waitress who seems determined to make me eat more than I planned.
Then I do the rounds: wander the streets around the main plaza, visit the rural bus terminal to check departures to various villages, check out several hostels, a campsite, compare prices and opening hours of internet cafes, try to visit the local history museum again, only to discover that it’s being renovated, stop by the tourist office to see what I can find out about Agroturismo (‘rural tourism’ where you arrange to stay with some villagers and partake in cow-milking, that kind of thing) and pause to take in the view from some cliff-top fort ruins.
There seems to be a bit of discontent among the local population, according to the graffiti. One tag artist demonstrates fluent use of English: “Fuck the system!” and another budding socialist scribbles: “El capitalismo no se discute, se le destuye.” (Capitalism shouldn’t be discussed; it should be destroyed.” Reminds me of left-wing graffiti in Andalucía. The trouble is, they never follow it up by making helpful suggestions as to what should replace capitalism.
There are lots of drunks about. And not just slightly tipsy people: so far I’ve spotted two men lying prone on the coastal walk. They’re not dead; I did look to check that they were breathing.
The Spanish built another fort on the peninsula across from the Bay of Ancud to cover all angles. Chiloe was actually one of the first parts of Chile to be conquered, but since it’s an island, it was isolated from the mainland for a very long time, resulting in a unique culture that I can’t help but be drawn towards. In the summer, lots of day-tripping gringos come here for a day tour – maybe to see the penguin colony at Puñihuíl – one of only two in Chile (and in the world) where you have the Magellanic and thee Humboldt penguins sharing a breeding ground – or to see the famous wooden churches, and they often complain that Chiloé’s nothing special. I beg to differ. This is the place where black magic is still very much believed in by the older generations, especially in the villages, and when a dense mist hangs over the island, you can almost see the creatures yourself.
“In Patagonia”, by Bruce Chatwin, describes in detail the ritual a man had to go through to become a brujo (warlock), including making a purse out of the skin of a loved one and bathing in a waterfall for forty days and forty nights. It figures that in a macho country, only men were allowed to be witches. Last year I attempted to find the warlocks’ legendary cave near the village of Quicaví and failed. The mystery and the mythology really appeals to me, since I’ve been raised on myths and legends of different countries when I was a child. I love the local creatures, such as Trauco, a repulsive little troll who lives in the forest and has an insatiable appetite for young virgins; he hypnotises them with his gaze and impregnates them. The Trauco is blamed for all unexplained pregnancies on the island.
At the fort ruins I’m surrounded by smooching couples; no doubt some of them will eventually be pointing the finger at Trauco.
Call on Britt, the American married to a Peruvian who lives and runs tours here, but he’s not at the office.
Get an email from the commissioning editor for Lonely Planet’s forthcoming guide to Eastern Europe; Jo’s asking whether I’d be interested in doing the Lithuania chapter. Just when I was starting to despair about getting turned down for every LP gig I’ve applied for! Immediately reply to the affirmative and start figuring out how I can tack it onto the end of my trans-Siberian research. Looks like I’ll be spending July at home and then be away for another three months.
The reason I wasn’t stuffing myself at lunchtime is because I knew that dinner would be at the Kurantón, and that it would be curanto – one of my favourite dishes. It comes from Polynesia originally and involves slow-cooking shellfish, meat and potato dumplings on hot rocks inside an earthen pit, covering it with giant leaves to create a kind of pressure cooker. In the countryside here they do it that way, but in town, the best you can get is curanto cooked in a cast iron pot and Kurantón is still the best place in Ancud. It’s really cool, with a proper bow-tied waiter and whimsical décor consisting of old Wanted! posters from the American west, antique telephones (by ‘antique’ I mean ones like what we had in the Soviet Union), carvings of Chilote mythological creatures…I do myself proud and manage to finish most of the dish, washing it down with the potent shellfish broth that the Chileans call ‘liquid Viagra’. Then again, Chileans think that pretty much everything that comes out of the sea improves one’s performance, up to and including sea urchins. On the wall, the slogan reads (in Spanish): “Curanto: helping people to have good sex since 1826”. I wonder if those people first had to wait for their meal to digest.
Manage to get a lot of writing done this evening, spurred on by the pisco sour I had in honour of my first LP gig. It’s a potent combination of pisco (local grape brandy), sugar syrup, egg whites, lemon juice and crushed ice, and it packs a heck of a punch. Manage to work the sex quote into the restaurant review. Maybe alcohol-fuelled writing sessions are the way to go.
Friday 23 April 2010
Day 16. Puerto Montt. Still undecided about Patagonia.
The first thing I do is buy a ticket with Sky Airlines from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas. My preferred option would be to bus it in 32 hours at less than half the price, but am too pressed for time.
Catch a minibus to Puerto Montt or ‘Muerto Montt’ (‘Dead Montt’) as some locals call it. I wouldn’t want to stay there because it’s pretty grotty and a bit rough at night, but I don’t dislike it. Whenever I come here, the weather is always stunning, and today’s no exception: the water in the bay is crystal-clear in spite of this being a major port, and you can see the snow-tipped volcanoes in the distance.
I stop by the coastal shopping mall to look for a better rain jacket and am aghast at the prices; I’ll take my chances with the one I’ve got. Since I’ll be popping over to the island of Chiloé before heading south to Patagonia, I check the cinema timetables for the night I’ll be staying in Puerto Montt before my flight. Am torn between “Men Who Stare At Goats” and “Clash of the Titans”.
While pottering about near the plaza, checking the tourist office opening hours and marking banks, money exchanges, laundries and internet cafes on my map, I stumble across a little hole-in-the-wall which does Columbian food, which is manned by the first black man I’ve seen since coming to Chile (Chile’s a bit homogenous). The place does oh-my-Gaad-awesome deep-fried empanadillas filled with meat and potatoes with spicy homemade salsa which is most welcome since bog-standard Chilean cuisine tends to err on the bland side. Am very pleased with my discovery.
My editor told me to find more places to eat, so that’s exactly what I’m doing. I then have my first plate of crudos (raw beef on toast, accompanied by minced onions, lemon juice and some sort of creamy sauce) at Café Haussmann – a popular chain in German Chile. I’ve liked raw meat ever since I’ve had my first lot in Odessa, Ukraine, where it was topped with raw egg yolk for that extra bit of will-I-won’t-I-get-severe-food-poisoning excitement. Crudos are supposed to be a German thing, but since I’ve last been to Germany at the age of fifteen, I couldn’t tell you for sure.
Go pester the guy at the bus station who sold me the ticket to Futaleufú. Explain my complicated travel plans, get a refund, get a ticket from Coyhaique (further down south) back to Puerto Montt.
Catch one of the numerous little route taxis along the coastal road to the port area, where I check out the fish/produce market and note which little eateries seem to be the most popular. Glad to see that the one I ate in two years ago is still doing well. Some fishmongers are feeding two enormous sea lions who have waddled up the steps to the market in search of food.
Check timetables for the Navimag cruise ships. I use the term ‘cruise ships’ loosely here – two years ago, I took the Navimag south to Puerto Natales in Patagonia, and the conditions are pretty basic: unless you pay over $1000 for the four days, you get a bunk bed with curtains and a locker, unexciting food and on-board entertainment consisting of a bizarre choice of DVDs and a bingo night (though that was really raucous and when I won a map of Chile, they made me dance for it. I did a raunchy dance to Tom Jones’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and though the only thing I removed was my fleece, ever since I’ve been dubbed the ‘Navimag stripper’ by my fellow passengers into whom I kept running into all over Patagonia). We were extremely lucky with the weather: the boat staff kept taking photos of each other next to landmarks that had always been shrouded in mist before, and even the bit in the open ocean was relatively calm. You won’t get me on the Navimag again, though; it's not so much a fear of rough seas, but more a fear of capsizing. For some reason, I find the idea of drowning in cold water more objectionable than simply the idea of drowning.
Back to the bus station. Find out which bus companies serve which destinations and get the phone number for each. Trying to find out which buses go to and from Futaleufu made me realise just how important it is to have as many contact numbers in the guidebook as possible.
Finish checking out hostels in Puerto Varas. At a book exchange, swap “Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea” for “All My Sins Remembered”, with a positive blurb by Cosmo magazine. Hmm. My reading matter is deteriorating rapidly.
The clouds have lifted and the volcanoes across the bay are bathed in the reddish sunset glow – the perfect cone of the Osorno volcano and the less pleasing, rumpled looking Calbuco. Spend a few minutes resting by the lake with my new canine friend at my feet – a massive part-Alsatian beast known to me only as ‘good boy’ who’s taller than me when he puts his front paws on my shoulders.
Go in search of the best steak in Puerto Varas for dinner. ‘La Parilla’, along the coastal road, was recommended to me but the steak snob in me is disappointed: the sweetbreads are too salty and the steak is not seasoned properly. Humbug.
Still agonising over what to do about the rest of my time in Chile. I have three options: I can stick to my current plan, which consists of doing Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia, then doing a little detour to El Chaltén, Argentina, to visit my friend Zoe, before bussing it to Argentina’s Comodoro Rivadavia to catch a bus to Coyhaique back in Chile, and then catching a bus from Coyhaique back to Puerto Montt. However, that would mean missing out the north section of the Carretera Austral, to do which I’d have to get to Coyhaique earlier – either by flying from Punta Arenas or by catching an earlier bus (which would mean missing Zoe). What do I do???
Catch a minibus to Puerto Montt or ‘Muerto Montt’ (‘Dead Montt’) as some locals call it. I wouldn’t want to stay there because it’s pretty grotty and a bit rough at night, but I don’t dislike it. Whenever I come here, the weather is always stunning, and today’s no exception: the water in the bay is crystal-clear in spite of this being a major port, and you can see the snow-tipped volcanoes in the distance.
I stop by the coastal shopping mall to look for a better rain jacket and am aghast at the prices; I’ll take my chances with the one I’ve got. Since I’ll be popping over to the island of Chiloé before heading south to Patagonia, I check the cinema timetables for the night I’ll be staying in Puerto Montt before my flight. Am torn between “Men Who Stare At Goats” and “Clash of the Titans”.
While pottering about near the plaza, checking the tourist office opening hours and marking banks, money exchanges, laundries and internet cafes on my map, I stumble across a little hole-in-the-wall which does Columbian food, which is manned by the first black man I’ve seen since coming to Chile (Chile’s a bit homogenous). The place does oh-my-Gaad-awesome deep-fried empanadillas filled with meat and potatoes with spicy homemade salsa which is most welcome since bog-standard Chilean cuisine tends to err on the bland side. Am very pleased with my discovery.
My editor told me to find more places to eat, so that’s exactly what I’m doing. I then have my first plate of crudos (raw beef on toast, accompanied by minced onions, lemon juice and some sort of creamy sauce) at Café Haussmann – a popular chain in German Chile. I’ve liked raw meat ever since I’ve had my first lot in Odessa, Ukraine, where it was topped with raw egg yolk for that extra bit of will-I-won’t-I-get-severe-food-poisoning excitement. Crudos are supposed to be a German thing, but since I’ve last been to Germany at the age of fifteen, I couldn’t tell you for sure.
Go pester the guy at the bus station who sold me the ticket to Futaleufú. Explain my complicated travel plans, get a refund, get a ticket from Coyhaique (further down south) back to Puerto Montt.
Catch one of the numerous little route taxis along the coastal road to the port area, where I check out the fish/produce market and note which little eateries seem to be the most popular. Glad to see that the one I ate in two years ago is still doing well. Some fishmongers are feeding two enormous sea lions who have waddled up the steps to the market in search of food.
Check timetables for the Navimag cruise ships. I use the term ‘cruise ships’ loosely here – two years ago, I took the Navimag south to Puerto Natales in Patagonia, and the conditions are pretty basic: unless you pay over $1000 for the four days, you get a bunk bed with curtains and a locker, unexciting food and on-board entertainment consisting of a bizarre choice of DVDs and a bingo night (though that was really raucous and when I won a map of Chile, they made me dance for it. I did a raunchy dance to Tom Jones’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and though the only thing I removed was my fleece, ever since I’ve been dubbed the ‘Navimag stripper’ by my fellow passengers into whom I kept running into all over Patagonia). We were extremely lucky with the weather: the boat staff kept taking photos of each other next to landmarks that had always been shrouded in mist before, and even the bit in the open ocean was relatively calm. You won’t get me on the Navimag again, though; it's not so much a fear of rough seas, but more a fear of capsizing. For some reason, I find the idea of drowning in cold water more objectionable than simply the idea of drowning.
Back to the bus station. Find out which bus companies serve which destinations and get the phone number for each. Trying to find out which buses go to and from Futaleufu made me realise just how important it is to have as many contact numbers in the guidebook as possible.
Finish checking out hostels in Puerto Varas. At a book exchange, swap “Are You There Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea” for “All My Sins Remembered”, with a positive blurb by Cosmo magazine. Hmm. My reading matter is deteriorating rapidly.
The clouds have lifted and the volcanoes across the bay are bathed in the reddish sunset glow – the perfect cone of the Osorno volcano and the less pleasing, rumpled looking Calbuco. Spend a few minutes resting by the lake with my new canine friend at my feet – a massive part-Alsatian beast known to me only as ‘good boy’ who’s taller than me when he puts his front paws on my shoulders.
Go in search of the best steak in Puerto Varas for dinner. ‘La Parilla’, along the coastal road, was recommended to me but the steak snob in me is disappointed: the sweetbreads are too salty and the steak is not seasoned properly. Humbug.
Still agonising over what to do about the rest of my time in Chile. I have three options: I can stick to my current plan, which consists of doing Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales and Torres del Paine national park in Patagonia, then doing a little detour to El Chaltén, Argentina, to visit my friend Zoe, before bussing it to Argentina’s Comodoro Rivadavia to catch a bus to Coyhaique back in Chile, and then catching a bus from Coyhaique back to Puerto Montt. However, that would mean missing out the north section of the Carretera Austral, to do which I’d have to get to Coyhaique earlier – either by flying from Punta Arenas or by catching an earlier bus (which would mean missing Zoe). What do I do???
Thursday 22 April 2010
Day 15 - Puerto Varas.
Dream that my mother is nagging me to get a ‘proper’ job. No, wait – that’s actually true.
A very productive morning: walk around the small downtown area in figures of eight, making sure I’ve covered every stretch of very street. Do map work. Pop into all the different bus offices and enquire about timetables. Browse the culinary delights at the Emporio Puerto Varas (though that’s not strictly work). I had no idea that such things as Sauvignon Blanc salt and rose sugar even existed and imagine recipes in which I’d use them. Get away with only some wild boar ham. Prevent myself from purchasing darling little tiny bottles of raspberry vinegar at the Vicki Johnson gourmet shop.
I try to find out which companies go south from Futaleufú (the little town at the north end of Carretera Austral) to Coyhaique, the only large town in the area, from where I plan to make my way further south into Patagonia – either by flying or via Argentina. Look through the three guidebooks I’ve got with me: my own, the Moon Handbook and Lonely Planet. The Rough Guide and the Moon Handbook have the same information: that Buses Daniela is the one to call. Am told that Buses Daniela is no longer in service. Call the Futaleufú tourist office; it’s closed. Get through to the municipality; the woman gives me the number for Buses Altamirano. Call Buses Altamirano; the woman tells me that no, they don’t run from Futa to Coyhaique, they now only run to La Junta (a godforsaken little outpost in the middle of nowhere consisting of three people, some chickens, and a hut with a corrugated iron roof). The Buses Altamirano woman tells me to call Buses Daniela. This time I have the presence of mind to ask Buses Daniela whether they know who does the Futa-Coyhaique route now. The woman tells me to call Buses Becker, who apparently have a Sunday morning service to Coyhaique. That would be ideal, giving me a whole day to explore Futa. I almost decide to go to Futa without checking with Buses Becker first, but in the end, I’m glad I did. The man tells me that yes, they run a weekly service to and from Futa but not on the weekend that I plan to be there. No reason is given.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is travel down the Carretera Austral in a nutshell. Why, oh why did Rough Guides send me here during the off-season? I wonder for the umpteenth time why I didn’t ask to do the northern half of Chile instead, where buses are frequent and reliable and where it doesn’t rain.
At the moment I’m trying to figure out whether I can do the Carretera Austral at all or whether I’ll just have to fit in Coyhaique, the armpit of Chile. Bugger the infrequent public transport. I look into all the transport options and it seems that if I get to Coyhaique from Argentina, I’ll then have to wait nearly a week to get a ride up to Futa, and vice versa.
For lunch I go to ‘Imperial 605’, a renowned gourmet spot. It’s not only closed, but it’s changed its name to ‘Almodobar’ (possibly a play on ‘Almodovar’, as in 'Pedro'). I then decide to seek out testicles. Rumour has it, ‘Ibis’ along the coastal road has them on the menu. I’m deeply disappointed when they don’t. I very much enjoyed eating testicles in a gourmet restaurant in Lithuania. I have to settle for salmon ceviche and conger eel in a scallop, prawn and king crab sauce. Very good, but a little bit short of excellent.
I follow the Heritage Route up Imperial, stopping to admire the 19th century German architecture. I very much like the coloured wooden houses here, especially the ones covered in shingles made of alerce (a hardwood from the second oldest trees on earth, whose waterproof properties meant that it was almost completely cut down). Puerto Varas is at the heart of ‘German Chile’, which shows in its cooking as well as its architecture: everywhere you’re offered strudel and kuchen. Some places claiming German roots are impostors, though: when I was here two years ago, my Swiss and Austrian friends mocked a number of places that don’t seem to know the difference between kuchen (cakes) and küchen (kitchens). Neither does the Lonely Planet guide.
I’m looking for 'Sweet Home Puerto Varas', a new hostel, and either I’m completely incapable of map reading, or the street numbers are arranged in no particular order. Stop at my favourite budget place, 'Compass del Sur' – beautiful wooden house, big rooms, incredibly friendly staff, a book exchange. I wish I were staying there, if only because I live in fear of running out of quality reading material. I’ve just finished reading “Are you there, vodka? It’s me, Chelsea”, a collection of memoirs by a Jewish stand-up comic that I picked up in Pucón, and am down to my last Frederick Forsyth novel. Whenever I'm on the road for a long time, I never take any books that I mind leaving behind or exchanging.
The sun comes out briefly, for the first time in a week, and for the first time in my life I see a perfect double rainbow against the backdrop of stormy clouds over the lake.
In the evening, I stumble across a complete gem: an eatery that’s also the first microbrewery in Puerto Varas, with really chilled out music and a really informal, homely atmosphere. It’s the kind of place where you feel you’ve popped into a friend’s house. A friend who lets you write on their walls – every available bit of space is covered with well-wishing messengers. There are even two in Russian, and now there are three: mine’s next to the Dizzy Gillespie poster. My only quibble is that the food’s a bit pricey for what it is and if I were a pedant, I’d also say that a paella Valenciana traditionally includes rabbit and chicken, but not razor clams, but I’m not, so I won’t. I don’t want to leave.
Catch up on my writing, my emails. Exchange photos with my American human rights lawyer friend Steve: he sends me his Antarctica cruise, and I send him my Easter Island ones. Am now Facebook friends with Sister Helen Prejean, an incredible Catholic nun who made anti-death penalty campaigning her life’s work and who wrote the incredible and traumatic “Dead Man Walking” and “Death of Innocents”. One of the reasons I’m banned from the States is because I technically overstayed my visa waiver by five days in order to hear her talk at an anti-death penalty convention in Santa Monica, where I got my books signed and mingled with nuns, lawyers and Hollywood do-gooders. Then she talked and I became so emotional that I wept into my salad. It was a heck of a night.
Tomorrow I will make major decisions regarding the rest of my time in Chile.
A very productive morning: walk around the small downtown area in figures of eight, making sure I’ve covered every stretch of very street. Do map work. Pop into all the different bus offices and enquire about timetables. Browse the culinary delights at the Emporio Puerto Varas (though that’s not strictly work). I had no idea that such things as Sauvignon Blanc salt and rose sugar even existed and imagine recipes in which I’d use them. Get away with only some wild boar ham. Prevent myself from purchasing darling little tiny bottles of raspberry vinegar at the Vicki Johnson gourmet shop.
I try to find out which companies go south from Futaleufú (the little town at the north end of Carretera Austral) to Coyhaique, the only large town in the area, from where I plan to make my way further south into Patagonia – either by flying or via Argentina. Look through the three guidebooks I’ve got with me: my own, the Moon Handbook and Lonely Planet. The Rough Guide and the Moon Handbook have the same information: that Buses Daniela is the one to call. Am told that Buses Daniela is no longer in service. Call the Futaleufú tourist office; it’s closed. Get through to the municipality; the woman gives me the number for Buses Altamirano. Call Buses Altamirano; the woman tells me that no, they don’t run from Futa to Coyhaique, they now only run to La Junta (a godforsaken little outpost in the middle of nowhere consisting of three people, some chickens, and a hut with a corrugated iron roof). The Buses Altamirano woman tells me to call Buses Daniela. This time I have the presence of mind to ask Buses Daniela whether they know who does the Futa-Coyhaique route now. The woman tells me to call Buses Becker, who apparently have a Sunday morning service to Coyhaique. That would be ideal, giving me a whole day to explore Futa. I almost decide to go to Futa without checking with Buses Becker first, but in the end, I’m glad I did. The man tells me that yes, they run a weekly service to and from Futa but not on the weekend that I plan to be there. No reason is given.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is travel down the Carretera Austral in a nutshell. Why, oh why did Rough Guides send me here during the off-season? I wonder for the umpteenth time why I didn’t ask to do the northern half of Chile instead, where buses are frequent and reliable and where it doesn’t rain.
At the moment I’m trying to figure out whether I can do the Carretera Austral at all or whether I’ll just have to fit in Coyhaique, the armpit of Chile. Bugger the infrequent public transport. I look into all the transport options and it seems that if I get to Coyhaique from Argentina, I’ll then have to wait nearly a week to get a ride up to Futa, and vice versa.
For lunch I go to ‘Imperial 605’, a renowned gourmet spot. It’s not only closed, but it’s changed its name to ‘Almodobar’ (possibly a play on ‘Almodovar’, as in 'Pedro'). I then decide to seek out testicles. Rumour has it, ‘Ibis’ along the coastal road has them on the menu. I’m deeply disappointed when they don’t. I very much enjoyed eating testicles in a gourmet restaurant in Lithuania. I have to settle for salmon ceviche and conger eel in a scallop, prawn and king crab sauce. Very good, but a little bit short of excellent.
I follow the Heritage Route up Imperial, stopping to admire the 19th century German architecture. I very much like the coloured wooden houses here, especially the ones covered in shingles made of alerce (a hardwood from the second oldest trees on earth, whose waterproof properties meant that it was almost completely cut down). Puerto Varas is at the heart of ‘German Chile’, which shows in its cooking as well as its architecture: everywhere you’re offered strudel and kuchen. Some places claiming German roots are impostors, though: when I was here two years ago, my Swiss and Austrian friends mocked a number of places that don’t seem to know the difference between kuchen (cakes) and küchen (kitchens). Neither does the Lonely Planet guide.
I’m looking for 'Sweet Home Puerto Varas', a new hostel, and either I’m completely incapable of map reading, or the street numbers are arranged in no particular order. Stop at my favourite budget place, 'Compass del Sur' – beautiful wooden house, big rooms, incredibly friendly staff, a book exchange. I wish I were staying there, if only because I live in fear of running out of quality reading material. I’ve just finished reading “Are you there, vodka? It’s me, Chelsea”, a collection of memoirs by a Jewish stand-up comic that I picked up in Pucón, and am down to my last Frederick Forsyth novel. Whenever I'm on the road for a long time, I never take any books that I mind leaving behind or exchanging.
The sun comes out briefly, for the first time in a week, and for the first time in my life I see a perfect double rainbow against the backdrop of stormy clouds over the lake.
In the evening, I stumble across a complete gem: an eatery that’s also the first microbrewery in Puerto Varas, with really chilled out music and a really informal, homely atmosphere. It’s the kind of place where you feel you’ve popped into a friend’s house. A friend who lets you write on their walls – every available bit of space is covered with well-wishing messengers. There are even two in Russian, and now there are three: mine’s next to the Dizzy Gillespie poster. My only quibble is that the food’s a bit pricey for what it is and if I were a pedant, I’d also say that a paella Valenciana traditionally includes rabbit and chicken, but not razor clams, but I’m not, so I won’t. I don’t want to leave.
Catch up on my writing, my emails. Exchange photos with my American human rights lawyer friend Steve: he sends me his Antarctica cruise, and I send him my Easter Island ones. Am now Facebook friends with Sister Helen Prejean, an incredible Catholic nun who made anti-death penalty campaigning her life’s work and who wrote the incredible and traumatic “Dead Man Walking” and “Death of Innocents”. One of the reasons I’m banned from the States is because I technically overstayed my visa waiver by five days in order to hear her talk at an anti-death penalty convention in Santa Monica, where I got my books signed and mingled with nuns, lawyers and Hollywood do-gooders. Then she talked and I became so emotional that I wept into my salad. It was a heck of a night.
Tomorrow I will make major decisions regarding the rest of my time in Chile.
Wednesday 21 April 2010
Day 14 - Osorno and Puerto Varas.
In the morning I discover that I don’t have to be in Patagonia to risk debilitating injury. My own bathroom is fraught with danger: I slip on the ‘non-slip’ mat in the shower and am now sporting a badly-bruised shin.
Go to check out the three museums across the river from the main part of Valdivia. The Museum of Modern Art is still under renovation, a year on. The history museum showcases the Anwandter family’s contribution to Valdivia – lots of black-and-white photos and 19th century household objects, whereas the other one is dedicated to the naturalist Rudoph Philippi who travelled all over Chile for his research. Big on explanations, and low on exhibits.
The sea lions seem to live on a wooden platform moored near the shore. There are several little ones. The big ones don't look terribly cute close-up; they all seem to have mange and piggy little eyes which peer at me suspiciously.
On the way back a shop display window stops me in my tracks: there are two jars of dog foetuses pickled in formaldehyde. It's not a shop; it's a veterinarian clinic. What a perfectly logical way to entice customers!
Spend time chatting to the lovely staff at my hostel about the earthquake and life in Valdivia. They’re amazed that the UK doesn’t suffer from earthquakes, or tornadoes, or volcanic eruptions. The last bit’s clearly not true. The guy takes me up to the roof terrace, points at the chimneys belching smoke all around us and explains that many people use wood-burning stoves for heating because it’s the cheapest fuel, even though it pollutes the air. Am hugged like an old friend when I leave.
Am heading south. Brief stop in the city of Osorno – an administrative and agricultural centre. The only reason most travellers stop here is because it’s a major bus hub with connections to all parts of Chile, as well as the Argentine Lake District. It wins my coveted ‘most boring city in the Lake District’ title; Temuco’s a close second, but at least it has a vibrant Mapuche presence. Lots of graffiti. It occurs to me that you don’t really see graffiti that reflects political strife or social activism at home. I can’t imagine tag artists in inner city London writing “We’re not terrorists; we’re not criminals; we have the right to a good education.”
Leave my luggage at the bus station and do my rounds. The great thing about Chilean bus stations is that most of them, even the dinky little ones, have luggage storage – something you won’t find at home. Terrorism is not a concern here.
Back on the bus and down to Puerto Varas – a lovely little town on the banks of Lake Llanquihue and one of my favourite places in the Lake District. On a good day, you can see two volcanoes rising up beyond the lake. Today’s not one of those days. It’s getting wetter and colder. I check into my usual downtown haunt – the cheapo Hospedaje Ellenhaus with its warren of little rooms, and then catch a bus to Puerto Montt – the last major city in the Lake District – in order to determine my next course of action. I need to travel the length of the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway), but ever since the Chaitén volcano erupted in 2008, traffic has been diverted via Argentina and there’s only one weekly bus that goes to Futaleufú - the white-water rafting mecca that I need to visit.
At the Puerto Montt bus station, an energetic little man from the tourism booth takes me under his wing. “You’re from England? My sister lives in Middlesborough. Her name is Alajandra; do you know her?” He rapidly rattles down the phone:: “Sergio, where are you? There’s a girl here, and she’s from England! Yes, she wants to go to Futa! Get over here!” Two handshakes later, and I’m sorted. I’m leaving on Friday, which means I have to reschedule my plans to visit the island of Chiloé. I also have to decide whether to fly in and out of Patagonia or whether to bus it one way at least.
Puerto Varas seems oddly subdued out of season. There's a cold mist over the lake and my favourite restaurant – Sirocco – is inexplicably closed. Still, perfectly-cooked steak at “El Mediterraneo” is a good way to finish off the day.
Go to check out the three museums across the river from the main part of Valdivia. The Museum of Modern Art is still under renovation, a year on. The history museum showcases the Anwandter family’s contribution to Valdivia – lots of black-and-white photos and 19th century household objects, whereas the other one is dedicated to the naturalist Rudoph Philippi who travelled all over Chile for his research. Big on explanations, and low on exhibits.
The sea lions seem to live on a wooden platform moored near the shore. There are several little ones. The big ones don't look terribly cute close-up; they all seem to have mange and piggy little eyes which peer at me suspiciously.
On the way back a shop display window stops me in my tracks: there are two jars of dog foetuses pickled in formaldehyde. It's not a shop; it's a veterinarian clinic. What a perfectly logical way to entice customers!
Spend time chatting to the lovely staff at my hostel about the earthquake and life in Valdivia. They’re amazed that the UK doesn’t suffer from earthquakes, or tornadoes, or volcanic eruptions. The last bit’s clearly not true. The guy takes me up to the roof terrace, points at the chimneys belching smoke all around us and explains that many people use wood-burning stoves for heating because it’s the cheapest fuel, even though it pollutes the air. Am hugged like an old friend when I leave.
Am heading south. Brief stop in the city of Osorno – an administrative and agricultural centre. The only reason most travellers stop here is because it’s a major bus hub with connections to all parts of Chile, as well as the Argentine Lake District. It wins my coveted ‘most boring city in the Lake District’ title; Temuco’s a close second, but at least it has a vibrant Mapuche presence. Lots of graffiti. It occurs to me that you don’t really see graffiti that reflects political strife or social activism at home. I can’t imagine tag artists in inner city London writing “We’re not terrorists; we’re not criminals; we have the right to a good education.”
Leave my luggage at the bus station and do my rounds. The great thing about Chilean bus stations is that most of them, even the dinky little ones, have luggage storage – something you won’t find at home. Terrorism is not a concern here.
Back on the bus and down to Puerto Varas – a lovely little town on the banks of Lake Llanquihue and one of my favourite places in the Lake District. On a good day, you can see two volcanoes rising up beyond the lake. Today’s not one of those days. It’s getting wetter and colder. I check into my usual downtown haunt – the cheapo Hospedaje Ellenhaus with its warren of little rooms, and then catch a bus to Puerto Montt – the last major city in the Lake District – in order to determine my next course of action. I need to travel the length of the Carretera Austral (Southern Highway), but ever since the Chaitén volcano erupted in 2008, traffic has been diverted via Argentina and there’s only one weekly bus that goes to Futaleufú - the white-water rafting mecca that I need to visit.
At the Puerto Montt bus station, an energetic little man from the tourism booth takes me under his wing. “You’re from England? My sister lives in Middlesborough. Her name is Alajandra; do you know her?” He rapidly rattles down the phone:: “Sergio, where are you? There’s a girl here, and she’s from England! Yes, she wants to go to Futa! Get over here!” Two handshakes later, and I’m sorted. I’m leaving on Friday, which means I have to reschedule my plans to visit the island of Chiloé. I also have to decide whether to fly in and out of Patagonia or whether to bus it one way at least.
Puerto Varas seems oddly subdued out of season. There's a cold mist over the lake and my favourite restaurant – Sirocco – is inexplicably closed. Still, perfectly-cooked steak at “El Mediterraneo” is a good way to finish off the day.
Tuesday 20 April 2010
Day 13 - Valdivia.
Up at 5am, having gone to bed only four hours prior to that. Vague recollections of a spirited, wine-fuelled conversation with Cristian about ‘blood diamonds’ - we both agreed that diamond engagement rings are unnecessary and wrong, though some people think that nothing says ‘I love you’ like supporting the civil war in Angola. If someone had that much money to spend on me, I’d rather they take care of my ‘wish list’ on Amazon or book me a flight to south-east Asia. We also discussed how Cristian’s not terribly popular with the majority of the mountain guides in Pucón because he’s a professional mountaineer himself and demands very high standards from people he chooses to work with. The way most Chilean businesses work is that people tend to get commission for everything, whereas Cristian’s rejected commission offers from large tour companies in favour of working with less well-established guides who do the job because they love the mountains rather than because they get paid to do it. Luckily, I don’t get hangovers – just nausea…
I leave a bag of my Peruvian gear with Cristian and do not understand how my rucksack can still be completely full and heavy after leaving behind a mosquito net, four guidebooks, sun cream and other assorted clutter.
By 9am, I’m in Valdivia, also knows as the ‘City of the Rivers’ because it strategically sits at the confluence of three rivers. I rather like Valdivia; it’s a vibrant university town, and this is the first time I’m here during term-time, whereas previously I’ve only been here during the summer holidays, when the place is pretty dead.
Since it’s off-season, I don’t bother booking accommodation; I just turn up a new hostel that I wanted to check out – Bosque Nativo – and am pleasantly surprised. After many years of staying in mediocre hostels, it’s great to find one that a) has lovely staff who go out of their way to be helpful and b) that actually donates its profits to a really good cause – in this case, the preservation of native Chilean forests. Plus, foreigners don’t have to pay tax, which means reduced room prices. The house itself is just lovely – it’s a restored wooden 1920s building – one of the few that survived the most devastating earthquake ever recorded, back in 1960.
My first stop is the Mercado Fluvial (the river market), right by the Valdivia river. I just love produce markets – the colours, the smells, the abundance of food – the Soviet kid in me rejoices! I particularly like markets where there are foodstuffs that I don’t recognise; I like trying new things. Here I know everything by now: the bundles of a rubbery-looking plant are cochayuyo (disgusting seaweed that you either love or hate. To me, it was reminiscent of the fried jellyfish I once ate in Thailand: unpleasantly crunchy and chewy at the same time); the dried red things on a string that look a bit like little hearts are piure (an iodine-rich sea creature that we don’t have a word for in English. Chileans claim that eating it is like eating Viagra – but then again, they say that about pretty much any sea creature); then we have piles of razor clams, and about a zillion different kinds of mussels.
This market has a lot of character: apart from watching the fishmongers expertly gut, scale and ply their wares on the side nearest to the river, you also get a free show a la 'Sea World', courtesy of the colony of sea lions who may have swum up the river by mistake but have now decided to settle here because they get fed. Every now and then, a fishmonger flings some scraps in the river and the grunting, thrashing sea lions fight it out with the seagulls, cormorants, pelicans and birds of prey. The cacophony is incredible.
Whenever you get a fish market in Chile, there are always cheapo fish/seafood eateries nearby – no frills, with chequered tablecloths and waitresses who are rushed off their feet because those places are really popular with locals. I indulge in a Chilean speciality – chupe de locos (abalone chowder) – though it’s a bit naughty of me, because not everyone fishing for abalone observes the restrictions placed on the endangered mollusc. Back home, it’s really expensive and really difficult to come by, so I savour the firm, rubbery texture while I can.
Spend several hours doing map work, wandering along the river in the rain, checking out places to stay, seeing if new eateries/bars have sprung up since last year. My favourite hostel (apart from the one I’m staying in) is a huge, rambling old wooden house with bright murals, rooms named after Latin American countries and an adorable sausage dog named after one of my favourite street foods: Choripan.
Siesta. Then catch the #20 bus out of town to the little village of Niebla by the coast, right at the mouth of the Valdivia River. There are three Spanish forts built in the mid-17th century to defend the estuary against British, French and Dutch privateers, now mostly consisting of ruined battlements and a few rusty cannons. I like forts and castles and I have a whole collection of photos of myself sitting on cannons around the world. I’m too late to catch a boat out to the fort across the estuary, but not too upset because I’ve already photographed myself on those particular cannons. The boat trip itself would’ve been enjoyable; you often see a flipper of a sea lion break the surface, or a flock of black-necked swans.
On the way back, I stop at the Kunstmann Brewery. I cackle to myself when I consider that visiting a ‘beer museum’ is a legitimate part of my job. Valdivia’s part of ‘German Chile’, strongly influenced by the influx of German settlers in the 19th century, and the city’s been shaped by the Anwandter and Kunstmann families in particular. I’m not a big beer drinker, but I’ve been won over by Kunstmann beer, particularly the Honey Ale, which doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste and goes down very smoothly. The Kunstmann slogan is 'Das Gute Bier' and I concur.
The ‘museum’ is really cheesy, with mannequins dressed in lederhosen sitting next to antique machinery, and glass cases displaying beer bottles through the ages. It does explain the beer-making process, though. The best thing about the place is dinner in a Bavarian-style beer hall (or at least what I imagine a Bavarian beer hall would look like, having never been in one): great big plates of meat with potatoes, apple sauce and copious amounts of sauerkraut. Afterwards I feel not unlike that one time in Brazil, when I was in a ‘by kilo restaurant’ with my friend Mike. You pay for the weight, and you can have a kilo of sushi, or pasta or steak, and Mike dared me to eat exactly a kilo. I managed it, but couldn’t move afterwards and had to be rolled out like a small barrel.
Back in Valdivia, I check out bus timetables and walk around some more, stopping by a few drinking holes to check out which ones are the most popular.
Tomorrow’s going to be quite intense: I’m heading further south, covering two towns along the way.
I leave a bag of my Peruvian gear with Cristian and do not understand how my rucksack can still be completely full and heavy after leaving behind a mosquito net, four guidebooks, sun cream and other assorted clutter.
By 9am, I’m in Valdivia, also knows as the ‘City of the Rivers’ because it strategically sits at the confluence of three rivers. I rather like Valdivia; it’s a vibrant university town, and this is the first time I’m here during term-time, whereas previously I’ve only been here during the summer holidays, when the place is pretty dead.
Since it’s off-season, I don’t bother booking accommodation; I just turn up a new hostel that I wanted to check out – Bosque Nativo – and am pleasantly surprised. After many years of staying in mediocre hostels, it’s great to find one that a) has lovely staff who go out of their way to be helpful and b) that actually donates its profits to a really good cause – in this case, the preservation of native Chilean forests. Plus, foreigners don’t have to pay tax, which means reduced room prices. The house itself is just lovely – it’s a restored wooden 1920s building – one of the few that survived the most devastating earthquake ever recorded, back in 1960.
My first stop is the Mercado Fluvial (the river market), right by the Valdivia river. I just love produce markets – the colours, the smells, the abundance of food – the Soviet kid in me rejoices! I particularly like markets where there are foodstuffs that I don’t recognise; I like trying new things. Here I know everything by now: the bundles of a rubbery-looking plant are cochayuyo (disgusting seaweed that you either love or hate. To me, it was reminiscent of the fried jellyfish I once ate in Thailand: unpleasantly crunchy and chewy at the same time); the dried red things on a string that look a bit like little hearts are piure (an iodine-rich sea creature that we don’t have a word for in English. Chileans claim that eating it is like eating Viagra – but then again, they say that about pretty much any sea creature); then we have piles of razor clams, and about a zillion different kinds of mussels.
This market has a lot of character: apart from watching the fishmongers expertly gut, scale and ply their wares on the side nearest to the river, you also get a free show a la 'Sea World', courtesy of the colony of sea lions who may have swum up the river by mistake but have now decided to settle here because they get fed. Every now and then, a fishmonger flings some scraps in the river and the grunting, thrashing sea lions fight it out with the seagulls, cormorants, pelicans and birds of prey. The cacophony is incredible.
Whenever you get a fish market in Chile, there are always cheapo fish/seafood eateries nearby – no frills, with chequered tablecloths and waitresses who are rushed off their feet because those places are really popular with locals. I indulge in a Chilean speciality – chupe de locos (abalone chowder) – though it’s a bit naughty of me, because not everyone fishing for abalone observes the restrictions placed on the endangered mollusc. Back home, it’s really expensive and really difficult to come by, so I savour the firm, rubbery texture while I can.
Spend several hours doing map work, wandering along the river in the rain, checking out places to stay, seeing if new eateries/bars have sprung up since last year. My favourite hostel (apart from the one I’m staying in) is a huge, rambling old wooden house with bright murals, rooms named after Latin American countries and an adorable sausage dog named after one of my favourite street foods: Choripan.
Siesta. Then catch the #20 bus out of town to the little village of Niebla by the coast, right at the mouth of the Valdivia River. There are three Spanish forts built in the mid-17th century to defend the estuary against British, French and Dutch privateers, now mostly consisting of ruined battlements and a few rusty cannons. I like forts and castles and I have a whole collection of photos of myself sitting on cannons around the world. I’m too late to catch a boat out to the fort across the estuary, but not too upset because I’ve already photographed myself on those particular cannons. The boat trip itself would’ve been enjoyable; you often see a flipper of a sea lion break the surface, or a flock of black-necked swans.
On the way back, I stop at the Kunstmann Brewery. I cackle to myself when I consider that visiting a ‘beer museum’ is a legitimate part of my job. Valdivia’s part of ‘German Chile’, strongly influenced by the influx of German settlers in the 19th century, and the city’s been shaped by the Anwandter and Kunstmann families in particular. I’m not a big beer drinker, but I’ve been won over by Kunstmann beer, particularly the Honey Ale, which doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste and goes down very smoothly. The Kunstmann slogan is 'Das Gute Bier' and I concur.
The ‘museum’ is really cheesy, with mannequins dressed in lederhosen sitting next to antique machinery, and glass cases displaying beer bottles through the ages. It does explain the beer-making process, though. The best thing about the place is dinner in a Bavarian-style beer hall (or at least what I imagine a Bavarian beer hall would look like, having never been in one): great big plates of meat with potatoes, apple sauce and copious amounts of sauerkraut. Afterwards I feel not unlike that one time in Brazil, when I was in a ‘by kilo restaurant’ with my friend Mike. You pay for the weight, and you can have a kilo of sushi, or pasta or steak, and Mike dared me to eat exactly a kilo. I managed it, but couldn’t move afterwards and had to be rolled out like a small barrel.
Back in Valdivia, I check out bus timetables and walk around some more, stopping by a few drinking holes to check out which ones are the most popular.
Tomorrow’s going to be quite intense: I’m heading further south, covering two towns along the way.
Monday 19 April 2010
Day 12 - Conguillio National Park.
Have an early morning argument via Skype with Nationwide Building Society. They tell me that my debit card should work, and - what do you know! - after the phone call, it does.
Cristian and I head off to Conguillío National Park through intermittent rain; he drives on the way there because he knows the way and to give me a chance to check out the terrain. It’s a beautiful drive – first along the banks of Lake Villarica, then north along a pitted gravel road that runs through dense forest, through a couple of villages, and then up another dirt road into the park. It takes us just over two hours to get to the first CONAF ranger checkpoint; Cristian explains that I’m doing guidebook research and the old chap waves us through without us paying the entrance fee (Cristian slips him some money, though).
The first part of the drive is absolutely spectacular: it takes us through the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) – a great expanse of what I take to be great colds of churned-up black earth, but what is, in fact, an old magma field. To our right rises the active Llaima volcano, which has had minor eruptions in the last few years; the top is hidden in the clouds, but its enormous base is covered with freshly fallen snow. Cristian has traversed the volcano several times during his mountaineering expeditions and he tells me that it’s an amazing experience. I’ve been wanting to get to the park ever since I’ve come to Chile, but on both previous occasions it’s been closed due to volcanic activity.
We cross the enormous black expanse, which leads up to the volcano’s base, showing where the lava had flown during a major eruption in the 1930s. A single tiny beech tree grows in this field of desolation, reminding me that life always finds a way. On the volcano’s slopes there are islands of greenery – copses of trees that the magma had flown around. To our right rise great cliffs, the bottoms covered in dense lenga and coigue forest, while the tops are covered with the familiar shapes of the araucaria trees – tall, bare tree trunks with a crown of prickly branches.
As we progress inside the park, we’re surrounded by them, their great trunks covered with lichen, with ‘old man’s beard’ moss dangling from their branches. We’re in an enchanted forest. I’ve never seen so many araucaria in one place. It’s one of the oldest species of tree on earth – over 265 million years old and only found at an altitude as it needs the cold to produce its seeds. It was here millions of years before the dinosaurs, and way, way before the first amoebas to evolve into humans crawled out of the primordial ooze. “The quila (native bamboo) is even older,” Cristian informs me. We take a short walk through the wet forest, following one of the many marked trails, until we see the mother of all trees – an absolutely enormous araucaria, over 1200 years old. I’m so overcome that I embrace the tree – or part of it, since it would take a small crowd of Anna Ks to reach all the way around the trunk.
In the midst of the forest hides a number of Alpine-looking chalets; numerous Chileans come to stay here in the summer. We visit another CONAF hut to ask for information about seasonal accommodation, view several camp sites overlooking the biggest lake in the park. Cristian shows me a tiny pristine lagoon, so clear that you can see all the way to the bottom where the dead trunks of drowned trees are reaching for the surface. All the while, we are rained on and at the end of our visit, one thing is clear: my rain jacket may have been waterproof years ago, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Unless I find a new one pretty sharpish, I’m in for a wet and miserable time in Patagonia.
What a great day! We’ve accomplished our fact-finding goal and Cristian and I take turns driving on the way back. I take us across the lava field, wary of the ripio (loose gravel and rocks) along the edges of the dirt road. If you’re going too fast, it’s easy to lose control of the vehicle, and if it rains, you end up sliding off the road. Glad that Cristian’s with me because the road further into the park is absolutely dire: pitted, narrow, steep, with several enormous puddles that threaten to swallow a lesser vehicle. I reckon I would’ve made it by the skin of my teeth if I were by myself; I’d rather take my chances with a bad road than with the drunk drivers and cyclists who abound in these parts.
Chileans know how to party: when they start drinking on a Friday night after getting their paycheque, they see no reason to stop until the weekend is well and truly over. We pass a sozzled guy, passed out on the side of the road next to his bike, and an old borracho (drunk) barely able to stand, trying to hail a cab in one of the villages. Driving in Cambridgeshire really doesn't prepare you for anything; besides the above, I also have to contend with assorted livestock: cows, pigs, chickens, horses. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" I ask, narrowly missing a hen. "Because it wanted to become cazuela (stew)," Cristian responds.
Just out of the village of Mellipeuco, we come across a sobering scene: there’s a queue of cars waiting by a bridge, where a fire engine is parked. The road is blocked off, and will stay blocked off until a judge comes down from the town of Temuco to sign an official order to say that the bodies can be moved to a morgue. In the middle of the road is an old rattlebanger car, completely ‘mash up’ as Jamaicans would say. There are a couple of body bags lying nearby and the firemen are trying to fish something out of the river – another body. A driver so drunk that he must've had pure alcohol running through his veins had managed to run the car into a crash barrier at high speed on a road that I couldn't crash on even if I tried - completely straight, smooth and without any obstacles. No one was wearing seat belts.
We have to detour via another atrocious dirt road and make it back with two minutes to spare, accompanied by a soundtrack of Pink Floyd and David Grey. We have been on the road for ten hours and haven’t eaten since the morning. Our reward? Giant pizzas at Pizza Cala and beer on an empty stomach while we wait. Cristian has to practically carry me home along with the pizzas. As I write this, I have had red wine on top of that, which I shall most likely regret tomorrow when my alarm goes off at 5am. I’m getting out of town on the 6am bus, heading south.
Cristian and I head off to Conguillío National Park through intermittent rain; he drives on the way there because he knows the way and to give me a chance to check out the terrain. It’s a beautiful drive – first along the banks of Lake Villarica, then north along a pitted gravel road that runs through dense forest, through a couple of villages, and then up another dirt road into the park. It takes us just over two hours to get to the first CONAF ranger checkpoint; Cristian explains that I’m doing guidebook research and the old chap waves us through without us paying the entrance fee (Cristian slips him some money, though).
The first part of the drive is absolutely spectacular: it takes us through the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) – a great expanse of what I take to be great colds of churned-up black earth, but what is, in fact, an old magma field. To our right rises the active Llaima volcano, which has had minor eruptions in the last few years; the top is hidden in the clouds, but its enormous base is covered with freshly fallen snow. Cristian has traversed the volcano several times during his mountaineering expeditions and he tells me that it’s an amazing experience. I’ve been wanting to get to the park ever since I’ve come to Chile, but on both previous occasions it’s been closed due to volcanic activity.
We cross the enormous black expanse, which leads up to the volcano’s base, showing where the lava had flown during a major eruption in the 1930s. A single tiny beech tree grows in this field of desolation, reminding me that life always finds a way. On the volcano’s slopes there are islands of greenery – copses of trees that the magma had flown around. To our right rise great cliffs, the bottoms covered in dense lenga and coigue forest, while the tops are covered with the familiar shapes of the araucaria trees – tall, bare tree trunks with a crown of prickly branches.
As we progress inside the park, we’re surrounded by them, their great trunks covered with lichen, with ‘old man’s beard’ moss dangling from their branches. We’re in an enchanted forest. I’ve never seen so many araucaria in one place. It’s one of the oldest species of tree on earth – over 265 million years old and only found at an altitude as it needs the cold to produce its seeds. It was here millions of years before the dinosaurs, and way, way before the first amoebas to evolve into humans crawled out of the primordial ooze. “The quila (native bamboo) is even older,” Cristian informs me. We take a short walk through the wet forest, following one of the many marked trails, until we see the mother of all trees – an absolutely enormous araucaria, over 1200 years old. I’m so overcome that I embrace the tree – or part of it, since it would take a small crowd of Anna Ks to reach all the way around the trunk.
In the midst of the forest hides a number of Alpine-looking chalets; numerous Chileans come to stay here in the summer. We visit another CONAF hut to ask for information about seasonal accommodation, view several camp sites overlooking the biggest lake in the park. Cristian shows me a tiny pristine lagoon, so clear that you can see all the way to the bottom where the dead trunks of drowned trees are reaching for the surface. All the while, we are rained on and at the end of our visit, one thing is clear: my rain jacket may have been waterproof years ago, but it certainly isn’t anymore. Unless I find a new one pretty sharpish, I’m in for a wet and miserable time in Patagonia.
What a great day! We’ve accomplished our fact-finding goal and Cristian and I take turns driving on the way back. I take us across the lava field, wary of the ripio (loose gravel and rocks) along the edges of the dirt road. If you’re going too fast, it’s easy to lose control of the vehicle, and if it rains, you end up sliding off the road. Glad that Cristian’s with me because the road further into the park is absolutely dire: pitted, narrow, steep, with several enormous puddles that threaten to swallow a lesser vehicle. I reckon I would’ve made it by the skin of my teeth if I were by myself; I’d rather take my chances with a bad road than with the drunk drivers and cyclists who abound in these parts.
Chileans know how to party: when they start drinking on a Friday night after getting their paycheque, they see no reason to stop until the weekend is well and truly over. We pass a sozzled guy, passed out on the side of the road next to his bike, and an old borracho (drunk) barely able to stand, trying to hail a cab in one of the villages. Driving in Cambridgeshire really doesn't prepare you for anything; besides the above, I also have to contend with assorted livestock: cows, pigs, chickens, horses. "Why did the chicken cross the road?" I ask, narrowly missing a hen. "Because it wanted to become cazuela (stew)," Cristian responds.
Just out of the village of Mellipeuco, we come across a sobering scene: there’s a queue of cars waiting by a bridge, where a fire engine is parked. The road is blocked off, and will stay blocked off until a judge comes down from the town of Temuco to sign an official order to say that the bodies can be moved to a morgue. In the middle of the road is an old rattlebanger car, completely ‘mash up’ as Jamaicans would say. There are a couple of body bags lying nearby and the firemen are trying to fish something out of the river – another body. A driver so drunk that he must've had pure alcohol running through his veins had managed to run the car into a crash barrier at high speed on a road that I couldn't crash on even if I tried - completely straight, smooth and without any obstacles. No one was wearing seat belts.
We have to detour via another atrocious dirt road and make it back with two minutes to spare, accompanied by a soundtrack of Pink Floyd and David Grey. We have been on the road for ten hours and haven’t eaten since the morning. Our reward? Giant pizzas at Pizza Cala and beer on an empty stomach while we wait. Cristian has to practically carry me home along with the pizzas. As I write this, I have had red wine on top of that, which I shall most likely regret tomorrow when my alarm goes off at 5am. I’m getting out of town on the 6am bus, heading south.
Sunday 18 April 2010
Day 11 - Curarrehue. And I get a pickup truck.
When I wake up, it’s raining. The rain changes its tempo throughout the day: sometimes it’s drizzle, sometimes it’s torrential rain, but it never lets up. This is the Lake District weather that I know and love. The show must go on, though, so I catch a bus to Curarrehue, a small Mapuche settlement near the border with Argentina. Having said that, pretty much ALL of Chile is near the border with Argentina. Curarrehue feels very much like a frontier town. On the main street, O’Higgins, people loiter in doorways and stare at you. A huaso (Chilean cowboy), dressed in the traditional woollen poncho and hat with a narrow brim, clip-clops down the street on his horse and there are more poncho-clad men walking around.
I’m looking for the Mapuche museum; there’s supposed to be an eatery attached to it which served traditional food as well. I wonder around for some time because the guidebook does not tell you how to get there and I’m like a typical man when it comes to asking for directions: I don’t like it and I won’t do it unless I absolutely have to. In the end, it’s a tossup between admitting that my homing instincts have failed me and stopping a passerby, or wandering some more in torrential rain. A kindly old woman shows me the way to the lime green municipality building on the main square – the only bit of colour in an otherwise drab settlement – and the museum is behind it, housed in a modern take on a traditional ruka dwelling.
A cheerful Mapuche woman offers to show me around; the museum’s big on written explanations of traditions and even though it doesn’t have that much in the way of exhibits, the musical instruments, wooden masks and weaving equipment is attractively arranged in the airy wooden space. I like the trutruka – made of a long hollowed-out tree branch with horse intestine wrapped tightly around it: it looks a bit like an alpine horn and is traditionally used to warn people of impending disaster, such as an earthquake.
The eatery is predictably closed; Cristian’s warned me that the chef in question is unreliable, which apparently also goes for the Mapuche Guide Association. Tree House Hostel tried working with them, so that their guests could go and learn about Mapuche culture, but the guides couldn’t be counted on to turn up or to do what they said they’d do. Which is too bad, because if I had more time, I’d like to spend time in a traditional Mapuche community and learn more about their plight. There’s an element of risk attached; police have been known to harass and even arrest foreigners who associate themselves with prominent Mapuche who lead protests in the struggle for land rights. The police slogan is ‘siempre amigo’ (‘always a friend’ or ‘a friend forever’); I bet the irony was not lost on the Chilean people during the Pinochet years.
Back in Pucón, I investigate ¡ecole!, a hostel/restaurant that has the reputation for doing the best vegetarian food. When I first came here five years ago, the vegetable lasagna was amazing; I confirm that that’s still the case. This is another part of my research I enjoy very much.
By the end of the afternoon, I have secured a vehicle for tomorrow: it’s a white Nissan pickup truck the size of a small house. I’ve never driven anything larger than my mum’s Nissan Primera, so this should be fun. It has to be either a 4WD or a pickup, though, because tomorrow I’m heading to Conguillío National Park, and regular cars can’t cope with the rough dirt road into the park, especially not after heavy rains. Luckily, Cristian’s offered to come with me, so perhaps he can drive there, and I can drive back. I drive us back to the hostel and manage to stall three times in as many minutes – something that I’ve never done even when taking driving lessons. Hugely embarrassing. Cristian doesn’t seem to be too perturbed. I’m fine once I get going, though it would be better if there were no other road users in my way, at least to start with. I like riding in the pickup, I’ve decided – I enjoy towering above most other road users. I can now understand why men who are challenged in the trouser department go for big and impressive cars. We little people have a lot to prove.
The volcano’s been playing up lately. Alberto shows me a video he shot at the top of the Villarica volcano two days ago: the crater emits the usual clouds of sulphurous smoke, but now it’s accompanied by thunderous rumbling, and a massive jet of red lava shoots out of the hole, again and again and again. I wish I’d gone up the volcano to see it when the weather was clear! I wonder how the permanent residents of Pucón feel, knowing that the earth here is very much alive and unpredictable.
More fun and games at the cash machine. I try three different ones, and none of them work, inexplicably so because my bank balance is perfectly healthy (for a change). This being my first major trip in a long time without the crutch of credit cards, it occurs to me that should one of these cash machines choose to swallow my credit card, I'll be monumentally buggered. From now on, I’ll be withdrawing money in person.
Poring over my maps of Chile and Argentina to determine my route south, I have a great idea: after I’m finished with the south, why don’t I make my way up north not via Chile, as originally planned, but via Argentina, pausing briefly in Salta before crossing over to Chile’s San Pedro de Atacama…?
I’m looking for the Mapuche museum; there’s supposed to be an eatery attached to it which served traditional food as well. I wonder around for some time because the guidebook does not tell you how to get there and I’m like a typical man when it comes to asking for directions: I don’t like it and I won’t do it unless I absolutely have to. In the end, it’s a tossup between admitting that my homing instincts have failed me and stopping a passerby, or wandering some more in torrential rain. A kindly old woman shows me the way to the lime green municipality building on the main square – the only bit of colour in an otherwise drab settlement – and the museum is behind it, housed in a modern take on a traditional ruka dwelling.
A cheerful Mapuche woman offers to show me around; the museum’s big on written explanations of traditions and even though it doesn’t have that much in the way of exhibits, the musical instruments, wooden masks and weaving equipment is attractively arranged in the airy wooden space. I like the trutruka – made of a long hollowed-out tree branch with horse intestine wrapped tightly around it: it looks a bit like an alpine horn and is traditionally used to warn people of impending disaster, such as an earthquake.
The eatery is predictably closed; Cristian’s warned me that the chef in question is unreliable, which apparently also goes for the Mapuche Guide Association. Tree House Hostel tried working with them, so that their guests could go and learn about Mapuche culture, but the guides couldn’t be counted on to turn up or to do what they said they’d do. Which is too bad, because if I had more time, I’d like to spend time in a traditional Mapuche community and learn more about their plight. There’s an element of risk attached; police have been known to harass and even arrest foreigners who associate themselves with prominent Mapuche who lead protests in the struggle for land rights. The police slogan is ‘siempre amigo’ (‘always a friend’ or ‘a friend forever’); I bet the irony was not lost on the Chilean people during the Pinochet years.
Back in Pucón, I investigate ¡ecole!, a hostel/restaurant that has the reputation for doing the best vegetarian food. When I first came here five years ago, the vegetable lasagna was amazing; I confirm that that’s still the case. This is another part of my research I enjoy very much.
By the end of the afternoon, I have secured a vehicle for tomorrow: it’s a white Nissan pickup truck the size of a small house. I’ve never driven anything larger than my mum’s Nissan Primera, so this should be fun. It has to be either a 4WD or a pickup, though, because tomorrow I’m heading to Conguillío National Park, and regular cars can’t cope with the rough dirt road into the park, especially not after heavy rains. Luckily, Cristian’s offered to come with me, so perhaps he can drive there, and I can drive back. I drive us back to the hostel and manage to stall three times in as many minutes – something that I’ve never done even when taking driving lessons. Hugely embarrassing. Cristian doesn’t seem to be too perturbed. I’m fine once I get going, though it would be better if there were no other road users in my way, at least to start with. I like riding in the pickup, I’ve decided – I enjoy towering above most other road users. I can now understand why men who are challenged in the trouser department go for big and impressive cars. We little people have a lot to prove.
The volcano’s been playing up lately. Alberto shows me a video he shot at the top of the Villarica volcano two days ago: the crater emits the usual clouds of sulphurous smoke, but now it’s accompanied by thunderous rumbling, and a massive jet of red lava shoots out of the hole, again and again and again. I wish I’d gone up the volcano to see it when the weather was clear! I wonder how the permanent residents of Pucón feel, knowing that the earth here is very much alive and unpredictable.
More fun and games at the cash machine. I try three different ones, and none of them work, inexplicably so because my bank balance is perfectly healthy (for a change). This being my first major trip in a long time without the crutch of credit cards, it occurs to me that should one of these cash machines choose to swallow my credit card, I'll be monumentally buggered. From now on, I’ll be withdrawing money in person.
Poring over my maps of Chile and Argentina to determine my route south, I have a great idea: after I’m finished with the south, why don’t I make my way up north not via Chile, as originally planned, but via Argentina, pausing briefly in Salta before crossing over to Chile’s San Pedro de Atacama…?
Saturday 17 April 2010
Day 10 - Villarica.
Take a morning bus to Villarica, the nearby town that lies at the other end of Lake Villarica. Unlike Pucón which is very much a 20th century creation, Villarica’s one of the oldest towns in Chile and has been destroyed several times both by volcanic eruptions and the marauding Mapuche. It has more local character than Pucón; it's bigger, it feels more gritty and functional, and I like the little produce markets selling local cheese, honey and seasonal fruit and veg - but I’ve never really warmed to the abundance of graffiti (though some of the murals are rather striking) or to the black sand beaches strewn with rubbish – though that’s partly the fault of the city councils. Instead of providing sensible wheelie bins, they have these preposterous baskets on top of poles where people put their rubbish bags, and where they are easily accessed by stray dogs who rip them open. One of the town’s redeeming features is the Mapuche craft market, but since it’s low season, it’s closed, as is the Mapuche history museum – inexplicably so.
I wander down to the lake to have a look at the costanera – the coastal road that the majority of the residents were against. Actually, it doesn’t look so bad: though at one end, the costanera is closed off due to earthquake damage – a chunk of the road has dropped down several feet - the pedestrian strip with benches actually makes the lakeside more accessible. That opinion is shared by Glen, one of my local contacts. I pop up to the Hostería de la Colina, a really nice guesthouse run by two former teachers from Oregon who’ve been here twenty two years, and Glen always has something interesting to tell me.
Yes, business has been slow lately, but the recent earthquake means that there shouldn’t be another big one for 27 years; in fact, California’s due for a big one this year, according to seismologists.
“The earthquake was really strong here,” Glen tells me. “It lasted around three minutes and everything fell off the walls.” It’s quite lucky that it happened at 3am, when no one was driving, so there were very few casualties, unlike in the city of Concepción near the coast, where poorly-built multi-storey buildings collapsed, trapping people inside, and a massive tsunami wave washed boats a mile inland. Still, as he says, it’s part of the deal when you choose to live in the land of ice and fire. If the Villarica volcano blows, Pucón will be destroyed, as it’ll be directly in the path of the lava. Nothing in Pucón is insurable; when my friend Sarah tried to get a loan in a British bank to build the youth hostel, and they found out that it’d be at the foot of an active volcano, they laughed at her and sent her packing.
No, they haven’t seen a drop in tourism due to the recession; Chile hasn’t really suffered because copper prices are booming and Michelle Bachelet (the previous president) had several billion dollars put aside, which she was then able to spend on public works. Yes, Sebastián Piñera (the current president) is a bit of a dark horse and it’s anybody’s guess as to what he’ll do to Chile; he's Harvard-educated businessman (and billionaire with a major stake in the LAN airline) who will most likely run Chile like a business.
Glen’s concerned about the environmental implications of this: for the last few years, there’s been a battle between the Spanish-owned ENDESA energy corporation, which plans to dam Patagonia’s major rivers, and the locals, whose livelihoods will be destroyed – not to mention the implications for tourism and the fragile ecosystems, and Piñera may be likely to side with big businesses. One thing that gives me hope about Piñera is that he’s purchased a huge chunk of land in the south of the island of Chiloé and turned it into a private nature reserve, so maybe he’ll be able to balance business interests and the environment.
I’m shocked to learn that Chile doesn’t consider tourism to be a big thing, that there’s no Ministry of Tourism, unlike in Peru and Argentina, and that the annual budget per national park amounts to around $6000 – for upkeep, CONAF ranger wages, everything!
Finally, I gather information about hiking trails in the area, as Glen and Beverley are always out and about, and settle down with some awesome homemade ice cream as I watch hummingbirds flit around their garden, pausing to drink from the bird feeders filled with sugar water.
I finish my rounds, checking out a few more places to stay and eat.
Back in Pucón, I look at more hostels, find a laundry that’s also a bakery doing awesome cakes, invoice the Dutch company for last week’s translation work, type up more research and look into hiring a car to get to the harder to reach parts of the Lake District.
Dinner with Cristian, his brother, his mum, Alberto - the other guy who helps to run the hostel – and Mauricio, Cristian’s friend who’s also a mountain guide, who originally took me up the volcano two years ago. The weather’s not good enough to have a barbecue, but Alberto’s cooked lamb, Patagonian-style. Here I'm Anita; I feel very much a part of the family; after three days, it feels like I’ve been here forever, and come Sunday, I won’t want to leave. We polish off numerous bottles of Carmenere. The wine makes me hungry, causing me to consume double helpings and leaving me feeling like a happy snake that's eaten a goat (farewell, svelte girlish figure!), then it briefly improves my Spanish, and then it makes me tired. No more writing this evening, methinks.
I sleepily contemplate my dilemma: on Sunday, do I carry on with all of my current gear, bearing in mind that it’s already nearly 30kg and likely to get heavier, so that I may fly straight to the north of Chile from Patagonia, or do I leave all my Peru-destined gear with Cristian and come back to Pucón before going up north overland, which will cost me at least a couple of days? I favour the second option, because there’s no point in half-killing myself at the beginning of the trip and also because I’ve already had to sew up the tear in my rucksack twice and a split rucksack would be a disaster. Plus, it’s been two years since I’ve seen the northern half of Chile, so a 30+ hour bus ride from Pucón sounds good to me. I make a decision: I’m coming back to Pucón. Alea jacta est.
I wander down to the lake to have a look at the costanera – the coastal road that the majority of the residents were against. Actually, it doesn’t look so bad: though at one end, the costanera is closed off due to earthquake damage – a chunk of the road has dropped down several feet - the pedestrian strip with benches actually makes the lakeside more accessible. That opinion is shared by Glen, one of my local contacts. I pop up to the Hostería de la Colina, a really nice guesthouse run by two former teachers from Oregon who’ve been here twenty two years, and Glen always has something interesting to tell me.
Yes, business has been slow lately, but the recent earthquake means that there shouldn’t be another big one for 27 years; in fact, California’s due for a big one this year, according to seismologists.
“The earthquake was really strong here,” Glen tells me. “It lasted around three minutes and everything fell off the walls.” It’s quite lucky that it happened at 3am, when no one was driving, so there were very few casualties, unlike in the city of Concepción near the coast, where poorly-built multi-storey buildings collapsed, trapping people inside, and a massive tsunami wave washed boats a mile inland. Still, as he says, it’s part of the deal when you choose to live in the land of ice and fire. If the Villarica volcano blows, Pucón will be destroyed, as it’ll be directly in the path of the lava. Nothing in Pucón is insurable; when my friend Sarah tried to get a loan in a British bank to build the youth hostel, and they found out that it’d be at the foot of an active volcano, they laughed at her and sent her packing.
No, they haven’t seen a drop in tourism due to the recession; Chile hasn’t really suffered because copper prices are booming and Michelle Bachelet (the previous president) had several billion dollars put aside, which she was then able to spend on public works. Yes, Sebastián Piñera (the current president) is a bit of a dark horse and it’s anybody’s guess as to what he’ll do to Chile; he's Harvard-educated businessman (and billionaire with a major stake in the LAN airline) who will most likely run Chile like a business.
Glen’s concerned about the environmental implications of this: for the last few years, there’s been a battle between the Spanish-owned ENDESA energy corporation, which plans to dam Patagonia’s major rivers, and the locals, whose livelihoods will be destroyed – not to mention the implications for tourism and the fragile ecosystems, and Piñera may be likely to side with big businesses. One thing that gives me hope about Piñera is that he’s purchased a huge chunk of land in the south of the island of Chiloé and turned it into a private nature reserve, so maybe he’ll be able to balance business interests and the environment.
I’m shocked to learn that Chile doesn’t consider tourism to be a big thing, that there’s no Ministry of Tourism, unlike in Peru and Argentina, and that the annual budget per national park amounts to around $6000 – for upkeep, CONAF ranger wages, everything!
Finally, I gather information about hiking trails in the area, as Glen and Beverley are always out and about, and settle down with some awesome homemade ice cream as I watch hummingbirds flit around their garden, pausing to drink from the bird feeders filled with sugar water.
I finish my rounds, checking out a few more places to stay and eat.
Back in Pucón, I look at more hostels, find a laundry that’s also a bakery doing awesome cakes, invoice the Dutch company for last week’s translation work, type up more research and look into hiring a car to get to the harder to reach parts of the Lake District.
Dinner with Cristian, his brother, his mum, Alberto - the other guy who helps to run the hostel – and Mauricio, Cristian’s friend who’s also a mountain guide, who originally took me up the volcano two years ago. The weather’s not good enough to have a barbecue, but Alberto’s cooked lamb, Patagonian-style. Here I'm Anita; I feel very much a part of the family; after three days, it feels like I’ve been here forever, and come Sunday, I won’t want to leave. We polish off numerous bottles of Carmenere. The wine makes me hungry, causing me to consume double helpings and leaving me feeling like a happy snake that's eaten a goat (farewell, svelte girlish figure!), then it briefly improves my Spanish, and then it makes me tired. No more writing this evening, methinks.
I sleepily contemplate my dilemma: on Sunday, do I carry on with all of my current gear, bearing in mind that it’s already nearly 30kg and likely to get heavier, so that I may fly straight to the north of Chile from Patagonia, or do I leave all my Peru-destined gear with Cristian and come back to Pucón before going up north overland, which will cost me at least a couple of days? I favour the second option, because there’s no point in half-killing myself at the beginning of the trip and also because I’ve already had to sew up the tear in my rucksack twice and a split rucksack would be a disaster. Plus, it’s been two years since I’ve seen the northern half of Chile, so a 30+ hour bus ride from Pucón sounds good to me. I make a decision: I’m coming back to Pucón. Alea jacta est.
Friday 16 April 2010
Day 9 - Huerquehue National Park.
Early start. By 8.30, I’m on the bus to Huerquehue National Park – one of the smaller ones in the region, but also one of the loveliest. It’s well-signposted and has excellent day hiking. From the CONAF ranger hut, I take a short trail – Los Ñirriños – to the start of the main hike. It’s an easy ramble through tunnels of ñirre – Chilean bamboo.
It’s great to be here out of season, since the place is deserted, apart from a few gringo hikers whom I leave behind. Following the Los Lagos trail up through the native lenga forest, I periodically stop to gawp at these massive trees; it would take several people to get their arms around the entire trunks. I feel dwarfed by them, and while some wits amongst my friends would say that it wouldn’t take much, these trees would make any human look puny by comparison.
This is my favourite part of the job. There are few things I like more than a solitary ramble through sunlit ancient forest. It’s still work – because I’m here to check on the trail conditions, but it’s also a way for me to unwind and recharge my batteries. Perhaps I never got over leaving my hometown in Russia, having spent my childhood roaming the great forest that surrounded it. In Cambridge, nature is something I really miss, which is why the complete silence and stillness of the Huerquehue forest is greatly appreciated by someone who has very little of both in her daily life.
It takes me exactly two hours of hiking past turnoffs to waterfalls and a couple of stunning lookout points to reach the first of the bigger lakes – Lago Chico. The first time I came to the park with Mike in 2005, I remember him standing on this very bridge across the stream, knocking on wood to try and attract woodpeckers. Unsuccessfully. I toy with the idea of spending the whole day here, but I’ve still got a lot to do back in Pucón, and since there are only two Buses Caburgua in the afternoon, I have to catch the 2pm one, meaning that there’s no time to linger. I do the loop that takes me from Lago Chico to Lago Verde to Lago Toro and back. Lago Verde is particularly lovely, surrounded by strands of the araucaria tree. I think we call it the monkey puzzle tree and you know you’re in a South American forest when you’re surrounded by them. Chile in general is very popular with continental Europeans because even though they may have mountains and forests, but the ones in Chile are on a much bigger, grander scale.
As I pause to rest here, I keep a watchful eye on my surroundings; the last time I stopped to have lunch here on a previous trip, I saw something large scuttling towards me out of the corner of my eye. I idly wondered how on earth crabs would get to a mountain lake before my brain kicked in and I realised that it was, in fact, a large tarantula. I let it have my lunch spot without a fight. During my hike, I see numerous spider webs, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere else: they are large, electric blue in colour and lack the geometric pattern of a normal spider web: these ones look as if they’ve been made by spiders on acid. I’m not in a hurry to encounter their owners.
The lake loop, at a brisk pace, takes an hour, leaving me with an hour and a half to get back to the bus. I run downhill, leaping madly over tree roots, and just when I start to marvel at how my bad knee hasn’t given way, it does. I walk gingerly the rest of the way. The major hiking is yet to come and I can’t afford an injury.
Use the bus journey back as an opportunity to snooze. As the joke goes, you know you’re getting old when happy hour means a nap. I’ve perfected the art of sleeping anywhere, at any time; it’s an invaluable skill for a travel writer, since sleep is often in short supply. Once I even slept while standing up during an all-night music gig in Jamaica.
Try out Rincón del Lago for lunch; Cristian’s recommended it as a good place to solid Chilean food and that it is. Massive portions of trout and potatoes. When I came to Chile in 2008, I asked a vegetarian Australian exchange student: “How on earth do you survive in this land of carnivores?” “Chileans eat shitloads of bread,” was her response. That they do. It comes with every meal – be it the standard pockmarked white bread or the really good homemade stuff. I’m trying to lay off the bread because I need to get in shape for the later part of the trip, but the problem is, I have as much self-control as horses and dogs when I’m hungry (i.e. none) and by the time I get around to eating on an average day, I’m famished. I make deals with myself: okay - just one bit of bread but no butter, just pebre (tasty spicy tomato salsa), or – just half a slice, but with this interesting herbal butter. Eventually I need to whittle it down to no bread at all if I’m to keep my svelte girlish figure.
Siesta. Then hours and hours of writing up. The goal is to leave myself very little work to do at the end of the trip.
It’s great to be here out of season, since the place is deserted, apart from a few gringo hikers whom I leave behind. Following the Los Lagos trail up through the native lenga forest, I periodically stop to gawp at these massive trees; it would take several people to get their arms around the entire trunks. I feel dwarfed by them, and while some wits amongst my friends would say that it wouldn’t take much, these trees would make any human look puny by comparison.
This is my favourite part of the job. There are few things I like more than a solitary ramble through sunlit ancient forest. It’s still work – because I’m here to check on the trail conditions, but it’s also a way for me to unwind and recharge my batteries. Perhaps I never got over leaving my hometown in Russia, having spent my childhood roaming the great forest that surrounded it. In Cambridge, nature is something I really miss, which is why the complete silence and stillness of the Huerquehue forest is greatly appreciated by someone who has very little of both in her daily life.
It takes me exactly two hours of hiking past turnoffs to waterfalls and a couple of stunning lookout points to reach the first of the bigger lakes – Lago Chico. The first time I came to the park with Mike in 2005, I remember him standing on this very bridge across the stream, knocking on wood to try and attract woodpeckers. Unsuccessfully. I toy with the idea of spending the whole day here, but I’ve still got a lot to do back in Pucón, and since there are only two Buses Caburgua in the afternoon, I have to catch the 2pm one, meaning that there’s no time to linger. I do the loop that takes me from Lago Chico to Lago Verde to Lago Toro and back. Lago Verde is particularly lovely, surrounded by strands of the araucaria tree. I think we call it the monkey puzzle tree and you know you’re in a South American forest when you’re surrounded by them. Chile in general is very popular with continental Europeans because even though they may have mountains and forests, but the ones in Chile are on a much bigger, grander scale.
As I pause to rest here, I keep a watchful eye on my surroundings; the last time I stopped to have lunch here on a previous trip, I saw something large scuttling towards me out of the corner of my eye. I idly wondered how on earth crabs would get to a mountain lake before my brain kicked in and I realised that it was, in fact, a large tarantula. I let it have my lunch spot without a fight. During my hike, I see numerous spider webs, the likes of which I’ve never seen anywhere else: they are large, electric blue in colour and lack the geometric pattern of a normal spider web: these ones look as if they’ve been made by spiders on acid. I’m not in a hurry to encounter their owners.
The lake loop, at a brisk pace, takes an hour, leaving me with an hour and a half to get back to the bus. I run downhill, leaping madly over tree roots, and just when I start to marvel at how my bad knee hasn’t given way, it does. I walk gingerly the rest of the way. The major hiking is yet to come and I can’t afford an injury.
Use the bus journey back as an opportunity to snooze. As the joke goes, you know you’re getting old when happy hour means a nap. I’ve perfected the art of sleeping anywhere, at any time; it’s an invaluable skill for a travel writer, since sleep is often in short supply. Once I even slept while standing up during an all-night music gig in Jamaica.
Try out Rincón del Lago for lunch; Cristian’s recommended it as a good place to solid Chilean food and that it is. Massive portions of trout and potatoes. When I came to Chile in 2008, I asked a vegetarian Australian exchange student: “How on earth do you survive in this land of carnivores?” “Chileans eat shitloads of bread,” was her response. That they do. It comes with every meal – be it the standard pockmarked white bread or the really good homemade stuff. I’m trying to lay off the bread because I need to get in shape for the later part of the trip, but the problem is, I have as much self-control as horses and dogs when I’m hungry (i.e. none) and by the time I get around to eating on an average day, I’m famished. I make deals with myself: okay - just one bit of bread but no butter, just pebre (tasty spicy tomato salsa), or – just half a slice, but with this interesting herbal butter. Eventually I need to whittle it down to no bread at all if I’m to keep my svelte girlish figure.
Siesta. Then hours and hours of writing up. The goal is to leave myself very little work to do at the end of the trip.
Day 8 - I arrive in Pucon.
By morning, I’m in Araucanía – Chile’s Lake District and one of my favourite places in the world. This was the last part of Chile to be settled by Europeans, since the Mapuche managed to fight off both the Incas and the Spanish, resisting attempts at colonisation until the 19th century. The Mapuche are the largest indigenous group in Chile and while they’ve fared better than most indigenous groups in the Americas, there’s an ongoing battle for the ancestral lands against major corporations and a lot of bitterness involved.
I can see the snow-covered, gently smoking top of the Villarica Volcano way before I reach Pucón. I’m incredibly lucky with the weather; it’s warm and sunny and you can actually see the whole of the volcano for a change. The first time I set foot here, back in 2005, Mike and I arrived to rain and fog, and while we still had a great time soaking in the hot springs, after three days with no volcano sightings, we got fed up with the weather and crossed the mountains to Argentina’s San Martín de Los Andes.
Ah, Pucón! My home away from home! The little town is very touristy because of its amazing location at the foot of the volcano, but to me it feels like a very wholesome place: I love the smell of wood smoke in the evenings, the fresh air after Santiago’s smog, and the fact that it’s such a great base for all sorts of outdoor activities. When I first covered Chile for Rough Guides, I spent many days here – climbing the volcano, white water rafting, hiking, hidrospeeding (like whitewater rafting but without a raft – just you, the rapids and a foam float to hold on to), biking, horse riding…This time I’m on a tighter schedule and budget, so it may have to be largely a fact-finding mission.
I arrive at the Tree House Hostel to a rapturous welcome from my friend Cristian and Kia the husky. Cristian works for Journey Latin America when not running the hostel, and we met through our mutual friend Mike. We catch up, gossip about various friends, I congratulate him on his engagement and am invited to the wedding in Portsmouth this summer. Since the bride has some Scottish ancestry, and Cristian's spent time living in Scotland, he'll be wearing a kilt. Cristian gives me the lowdown on what’s been happening in Pucón over the past year, which new (and good) tour agencies have sprung up, which ones still to avoid (Trancura!). Business has been slow lately, he tells me. "Ever since the earthquake - nothing." Normally, in March and April, the place is still packed with tourists.
Most of my day is spent wandering around and doing map work, as well as checking the bus timetables, since there are several bus companies scattered around town. I get stopped by a woman who says that she’s offered me accommodation three times, whenever I’ve stepped off the bus in Pucón, and that I’ve turned her down every time. I don’t remember that at all; all I remember is that when Mike and I arrived, some guy offered us a room with a ‘cama matrimonial’, having mistaken us for a couple, and Mike told me that the only way he’ll share a double bed with me is if we top and tail…Anyway, I agree to check out this woman’s guesthouse; I like her enthusiasm. I’m reminded then of the power I wield: to put it in the book or not. Two years ago, when I was having coffee with Martin, a Dutch guy who runs one of the tour companies in San Pedro de Atacama, he quoted Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility”, meaning that I can make or break a place with a review, and complained about a writer for a rival guidebook who allowed himself to be wined and dined by another company in exchange for a good review.
A Mapuche woman is selling piñones, the nuts of the araucaria pine, outside the supermarket. I always like to try new things, so I buy some. Last time Cristian had me try some cachayuyo – great chunks of dried seaweed which were unpleasantly chewy and crunchy, all at the same time. Piñones are a traditional Mapuche staple and they must’ve had a lot of time on their hands: you need two hours to boil them before the shells start to come off and then peel them – a real chore - before finally sautéing them with some garlic, salt and merkén (smoked chilli powder). The result is pretty tasty – kind of like pine nuts, only far bigger.
I check out several new tour companies, including Elementos, run by an enthusiastic German girl who’s fallen in love with Pucón. Many companies seem to offer the same thing, so I seek out the ones that stand out and in each case have to establish which activities they run themselves and which they outsource to others. I also read the comments book at the tourist office, though I’ve been warned to take it with a pinch of salt: some tour companies send their guides to write glowing reviews of their own company, as if coming from a tourist.
Glad to see that two of my favourite eateries are still here: Trawén, which is the only place I’ve ever eaten Antarctic krill ravioli, and Pizza Cala – with the best thin and crispy pizzas in town, though Chileans don't always put tomato sauce on their pizzas. The first time I got cheesy bread with toppings, I thought they must've made a mistake. Your typical Chilean food tends to be quite bland – meat/fish and two veg – but because Pucón gets so many foreign visitors, there’s a lot more variety.
A good day’s work. Cristian’s off on an overnight hiking/climbing venture, so I spend the evening peacefully typing up the day’s work, as opposed to drinking late into the night. That’ll be on Friday, during the traditional Chilean barbecue.
I can see the snow-covered, gently smoking top of the Villarica Volcano way before I reach Pucón. I’m incredibly lucky with the weather; it’s warm and sunny and you can actually see the whole of the volcano for a change. The first time I set foot here, back in 2005, Mike and I arrived to rain and fog, and while we still had a great time soaking in the hot springs, after three days with no volcano sightings, we got fed up with the weather and crossed the mountains to Argentina’s San Martín de Los Andes.
Ah, Pucón! My home away from home! The little town is very touristy because of its amazing location at the foot of the volcano, but to me it feels like a very wholesome place: I love the smell of wood smoke in the evenings, the fresh air after Santiago’s smog, and the fact that it’s such a great base for all sorts of outdoor activities. When I first covered Chile for Rough Guides, I spent many days here – climbing the volcano, white water rafting, hiking, hidrospeeding (like whitewater rafting but without a raft – just you, the rapids and a foam float to hold on to), biking, horse riding…This time I’m on a tighter schedule and budget, so it may have to be largely a fact-finding mission.
I arrive at the Tree House Hostel to a rapturous welcome from my friend Cristian and Kia the husky. Cristian works for Journey Latin America when not running the hostel, and we met through our mutual friend Mike. We catch up, gossip about various friends, I congratulate him on his engagement and am invited to the wedding in Portsmouth this summer. Since the bride has some Scottish ancestry, and Cristian's spent time living in Scotland, he'll be wearing a kilt. Cristian gives me the lowdown on what’s been happening in Pucón over the past year, which new (and good) tour agencies have sprung up, which ones still to avoid (Trancura!). Business has been slow lately, he tells me. "Ever since the earthquake - nothing." Normally, in March and April, the place is still packed with tourists.
Most of my day is spent wandering around and doing map work, as well as checking the bus timetables, since there are several bus companies scattered around town. I get stopped by a woman who says that she’s offered me accommodation three times, whenever I’ve stepped off the bus in Pucón, and that I’ve turned her down every time. I don’t remember that at all; all I remember is that when Mike and I arrived, some guy offered us a room with a ‘cama matrimonial’, having mistaken us for a couple, and Mike told me that the only way he’ll share a double bed with me is if we top and tail…Anyway, I agree to check out this woman’s guesthouse; I like her enthusiasm. I’m reminded then of the power I wield: to put it in the book or not. Two years ago, when I was having coffee with Martin, a Dutch guy who runs one of the tour companies in San Pedro de Atacama, he quoted Spiderman: “With great power comes great responsibility”, meaning that I can make or break a place with a review, and complained about a writer for a rival guidebook who allowed himself to be wined and dined by another company in exchange for a good review.
A Mapuche woman is selling piñones, the nuts of the araucaria pine, outside the supermarket. I always like to try new things, so I buy some. Last time Cristian had me try some cachayuyo – great chunks of dried seaweed which were unpleasantly chewy and crunchy, all at the same time. Piñones are a traditional Mapuche staple and they must’ve had a lot of time on their hands: you need two hours to boil them before the shells start to come off and then peel them – a real chore - before finally sautéing them with some garlic, salt and merkén (smoked chilli powder). The result is pretty tasty – kind of like pine nuts, only far bigger.
I check out several new tour companies, including Elementos, run by an enthusiastic German girl who’s fallen in love with Pucón. Many companies seem to offer the same thing, so I seek out the ones that stand out and in each case have to establish which activities they run themselves and which they outsource to others. I also read the comments book at the tourist office, though I’ve been warned to take it with a pinch of salt: some tour companies send their guides to write glowing reviews of their own company, as if coming from a tourist.
Glad to see that two of my favourite eateries are still here: Trawén, which is the only place I’ve ever eaten Antarctic krill ravioli, and Pizza Cala – with the best thin and crispy pizzas in town, though Chileans don't always put tomato sauce on their pizzas. The first time I got cheesy bread with toppings, I thought they must've made a mistake. Your typical Chilean food tends to be quite bland – meat/fish and two veg – but because Pucón gets so many foreign visitors, there’s a lot more variety.
A good day’s work. Cristian’s off on an overnight hiking/climbing venture, so I spend the evening peacefully typing up the day’s work, as opposed to drinking late into the night. That’ll be on Friday, during the traditional Chilean barbecue.
Wednesday 14 April 2010
Day 7 - travelling day and night.
I really am leaving Easter Island; I’ve triple-checked my ticket. Don’t feel as if I’ve really ‘done Easter Island’. While I’ve certainly covered all the main attractions and practicalities, I don’t feel I’ve immersed myself in the culture; ideally, I’d like to come back for the annual Tapati festival in February, when islanders partake in traditional sports, such as canoe racing and tobogganing down a hill on a rough sledge made of banana tree trunks, and stay for at least two weeks. I also want to ride up to the highest point on the island (Mount Terevaka) on horseback, hike the Poike peninsula and eat traditional curanto – meat and shellfish slow-cooked on hot stones in an earth pit.
I’ve been reading the latest Lonely Planet guide to Chile. What a difference a bigger budget makes! They can afford to send five writers to Chile, who can then afford to spend weeks and weeks doing their particular section, whereas the last Rough Guide to Chile was done by myself and another writer, on a much smaller budget.
I chat to the taxi driver on the way to the Mataveri airport; she’s a mainland Chilena with German roots, who tells me that next time I must stay at least a month ‘to learn the mysteries of the island’.
Since I’m three hours early (return flights to Santiago tend to be overbooked), I wander back into Hanga Roa after checking in, buy some sopaipillas (tasty things made of dough) for the road and to try and call ‘George Edmunds’ again. No luck.
On the flight back to the mainland I type up some of my research, though am distracted by the incessant fidgeting of the kid sitting next to me. A middle-aged man, wandering around with the blank bovine stare of a dementia patient, is constantly chased by the nurse travelling with him.
Since my time is limited, and I'm already a day behind schedule, I’m travelling overnight to Pucón, a mountain town in the heart of Araucanía, or the Chilean Lake District. At Santiago airport I gaze wistfully at the Tur Bus that takes passengers straight to the main bus station, but travelling on a budget and overspending on Easter Island means taking the Centropuerto bus into the city for a third of the price, but with the additional discomfort of having to then take the Metro from Los Heroés to Universidad de Santiago and having to lug 30kg of travel gear up and down stairs. Luckily, the Centropuerto bus passes all along the Alameda, Santiago’s main artery, and it turns out that I can get dropped off the bus station anyway.
Dinner is a Chilean-style hot dog, meaning it’s smothered in mushy avocado with copious amounts of mayo. Yum yum.
I’m approached in quick succession by a boy selling rosary beads (I thought that child employment was prohibited in Chile) and by a shifty-looking young man holding out his deformed hand; the inside of his arm bears the telltale scars of a serial self-harmer. I shake my head both times. One of the reasons I prefer to give handouts to animals rather than people is because those transactions are not complicated by feelings of resentment. I feed a dog and it’s happy. I do, however, give all my spare change to little old ladies in Eastern Europe. I’ve heard people say that those old ladies are part of some organised gang, that they don’t need the money and that they all drive Mercedes, but I see no evidence of that and it really gets me that someone frail and elderly should stand on a street corner with an outstretched hand instead of enjoying their retirement.
My ride to Pucón is a luxurious semi-cama bus, where the plush seats really recline, and there’s an attendant at hand to give you a blanket, pillow and breakfast. A ten-hour ride for a bargain off-season price of just over £10. Eat your heart out, National Express!
I’ve been reading the latest Lonely Planet guide to Chile. What a difference a bigger budget makes! They can afford to send five writers to Chile, who can then afford to spend weeks and weeks doing their particular section, whereas the last Rough Guide to Chile was done by myself and another writer, on a much smaller budget.
I chat to the taxi driver on the way to the Mataveri airport; she’s a mainland Chilena with German roots, who tells me that next time I must stay at least a month ‘to learn the mysteries of the island’.
Since I’m three hours early (return flights to Santiago tend to be overbooked), I wander back into Hanga Roa after checking in, buy some sopaipillas (tasty things made of dough) for the road and to try and call ‘George Edmunds’ again. No luck.
On the flight back to the mainland I type up some of my research, though am distracted by the incessant fidgeting of the kid sitting next to me. A middle-aged man, wandering around with the blank bovine stare of a dementia patient, is constantly chased by the nurse travelling with him.
Since my time is limited, and I'm already a day behind schedule, I’m travelling overnight to Pucón, a mountain town in the heart of Araucanía, or the Chilean Lake District. At Santiago airport I gaze wistfully at the Tur Bus that takes passengers straight to the main bus station, but travelling on a budget and overspending on Easter Island means taking the Centropuerto bus into the city for a third of the price, but with the additional discomfort of having to then take the Metro from Los Heroés to Universidad de Santiago and having to lug 30kg of travel gear up and down stairs. Luckily, the Centropuerto bus passes all along the Alameda, Santiago’s main artery, and it turns out that I can get dropped off the bus station anyway.
Dinner is a Chilean-style hot dog, meaning it’s smothered in mushy avocado with copious amounts of mayo. Yum yum.
I’m approached in quick succession by a boy selling rosary beads (I thought that child employment was prohibited in Chile) and by a shifty-looking young man holding out his deformed hand; the inside of his arm bears the telltale scars of a serial self-harmer. I shake my head both times. One of the reasons I prefer to give handouts to animals rather than people is because those transactions are not complicated by feelings of resentment. I feed a dog and it’s happy. I do, however, give all my spare change to little old ladies in Eastern Europe. I’ve heard people say that those old ladies are part of some organised gang, that they don’t need the money and that they all drive Mercedes, but I see no evidence of that and it really gets me that someone frail and elderly should stand on a street corner with an outstretched hand instead of enjoying their retirement.
My ride to Pucón is a luxurious semi-cama bus, where the plush seats really recline, and there’s an attendant at hand to give you a blanket, pillow and breakfast. A ten-hour ride for a bargain off-season price of just over £10. Eat your heart out, National Express!
Tuesday 13 April 2010
Day 6 - my real last day on the island.
7am start. Frenzy of packing because I left it ‘til the last minute. Rush to post office to send my postcards. Rush to the tourist office to double-check whether camping is allowed anywhere apart from Hanga Roa because they used to allow it at Anakena Beach and Rano Raraku. It isn’t. It must be unofficially allowed, though; I’ve seen a bunch of tents in various parts of the island.
Go to pay my landlady. Happen to glance at my plane ticket and discover that I’ve been booked for tomorrow’s flight rather than today’s. At a bit of a loss because once I’ve packed, I mentally moved on to my next task, my next location.
Decide to rent Lawnmower again and see if I can visit the remote peninsula Poike at the other end of the island - there’s a volcano to be climbed and a cave where they allegedly used to imprison virgins to keep their skin milky white. As I’m walking down Atamu Tekena, I see a severe-looking man. His face breaks into a smile when he sees me and he greets me in English. I realise that it’s ‘George Edmunds’ and he no longer looks unshaven or snaggle-toothed. I’m embarrassed because I haven’t called him, so I make my excuses and scarper. I think I’ve made a mistake by not taking him up on his offer of a tour of the island, for two reasons: my second impression of him is far more favourable than the first, and also, I’ve seen some graffiti mentioning Pedro Pablo Edmunds, the governor of Rapa Nui (I’m pretty sure he told me that his Spanish name is Pedro Pablo). It seems that I may have read negative connotations into a genuine offer of friendship from a reputable citizen. What happened to my spirit of adventure? What happened to talking to complete strangers on the road? When did I become so jaded and guarded? I feel a monumental tit.
I turn around and try to find him, but to no avail. The old men sitting in Plazuela Policarpo Toro see that I’m walking back and forth and offer to help. They don’t know ‘George Edmunds’, though, so I try the number he gave me. It rings but he never picks up.
I drive though the light rain on Lawnmower II until I reach the far peninsula. The only way to go up the volcano seems to be via a farm at its foot; the rest of the land is fenced off with barbed wire. The weather’s getting worse. I can hear a dog barking and decide to do Peninsula Poike next time I’m on the island, partly because I lose my nerve, and partly because the peninsula’s main attractions are best seen with a guide. I head for nearby Rano Raraku instead. There’s no such thing as seeing the birthplace of the moai too many times.
The CONAF ranger informs me that my Rapa Nui National Park ticket is valid only for one visit to each attraction, but he relents and waves me through. I think it’s a silly rule. For starters, since most people visit Easter Island once in their lives, I doubt they have many visitors who visit any attraction more than once, and they should commend repeat visitors rather than discourage them.
I take the left branch of the path, which climbs up into the massive Rano Raraku crater itself. In the middle is an overgrown lake, and a footpath runs up to the crater rim, winding between moai heads. Last time, Christina, Simon and went all the way up for a great view of Ahu Tongariki in the distance; now there’s a sign by the path, saying that visitors must not proceed unless accompanied by a guide or a CONAF ranger. I decide to disregard that on the grounds that I’m a responsible visitor who won’t stray from the path, won’t climb on the moai or vandalise them. In 2008, a jackass Finnish tourist was caught trying to break of an ear of a small moai to take home as a souvenir, so CONAF is getting stricter. I’m nothing like the Finnish guy. Halfway up, a foreign archaeologist is engaged in some excavation work. Two moai are being dug up so that they can be documented and so that the petroglyphs on their backs can be photographed.
The trail divides. I take the branch leading up, ignoring the crossed-out arrow and briefly enjoy the expansive view over the coastline before I become aware of a figure standing by the entrance to the crater, looking suspiciously like a CONAF ranger. I’m sure I’m going to get bollocked, so to delay the inevitable, I take the other trail that goes all the way around the lake. The young grass growing on the trail suggests that no one’s been this way for a while. I slip on a steep, muddy downhill bit. Half of me is completely covered in mud. It’s probably karmic comeuppance for my acts of disobedience. There’s no ranger waiting for me at the other end, but I decide not to revisit the main quarry bit.
Lunch at Anakena Beach. My meat on a stick helps me make new feline and canine friends. The nice thing about Chile is that none of the leftovers are ever wasted; there are always hungry creatures waiting to hoover up the remains. Chile has lots of stray dogs because they think it's immoral to chop the balls off any animal and also because people tend to set their pets loose after they get fed up with them. As a result, most dogs are friendly, placid and well -looked after, unlike the snarling or cowering beasts in the Caribbean or poorer Latin American countries.
Enjoy the drive back towards Hanga Roa; it’s the only road on the island that’s in good enough condition to really speed up, and Lawnmower II flies through sunlit pastures and eucalyptus groves at over 30mph. In hindsight, a quad bike is the best possible vehicle on which to explore the island, since its suspension handles rough terrain better than a 4WD and driving on most of the island’s roads certainly counts as off-road driving due to the bad conditions.
I pay a second visit to Orongo because on my first day, I forgot to take the iconic Birdman-petroglyph-and-islands-beyond photo and this afternoon the weather’s perfect. Looking out at the tiny islets, I still don't understand how the islanders could've waited there for days/weeks for the first Manutara egg of the season: there is no shelter or shade and where on earth would they get drinking water?
If anyone were watching, they would've seen a small, helmeted figure, cackling with glee while bouncing down the volcano road at reckless speed. I come away very satisfied, even more so because I manage to make it to the sunset viewing straight after that. I sprint all the way up the coastal road as the sun sinks below the horizon. It’s even more beautiful than on my first day and there’s an even bigger crowd. This is a much better last day on the island than yesterday.
If I don’t put my dinner choice of Te Moana in the guidebook, it’s only because it’s not a budget place; the fish in a Dijon mustard sauce with figs was very satisfying. You gotta love Rapa Nui menus: the local names for sea creatures are most entertaining. ‘Mahi mahi’ is dorado, one of my favourite fish, while ‘rape rape’ is not, in fact, a double sexual violation: it’s lobster.
Try to call ‘George Edmunds’ again. Phone switched off. I will now wonder what adventure I would have had, had I taken him up on his offer, until the next time I return to the island...
Go to pay my landlady. Happen to glance at my plane ticket and discover that I’ve been booked for tomorrow’s flight rather than today’s. At a bit of a loss because once I’ve packed, I mentally moved on to my next task, my next location.
Decide to rent Lawnmower again and see if I can visit the remote peninsula Poike at the other end of the island - there’s a volcano to be climbed and a cave where they allegedly used to imprison virgins to keep their skin milky white. As I’m walking down Atamu Tekena, I see a severe-looking man. His face breaks into a smile when he sees me and he greets me in English. I realise that it’s ‘George Edmunds’ and he no longer looks unshaven or snaggle-toothed. I’m embarrassed because I haven’t called him, so I make my excuses and scarper. I think I’ve made a mistake by not taking him up on his offer of a tour of the island, for two reasons: my second impression of him is far more favourable than the first, and also, I’ve seen some graffiti mentioning Pedro Pablo Edmunds, the governor of Rapa Nui (I’m pretty sure he told me that his Spanish name is Pedro Pablo). It seems that I may have read negative connotations into a genuine offer of friendship from a reputable citizen. What happened to my spirit of adventure? What happened to talking to complete strangers on the road? When did I become so jaded and guarded? I feel a monumental tit.
I turn around and try to find him, but to no avail. The old men sitting in Plazuela Policarpo Toro see that I’m walking back and forth and offer to help. They don’t know ‘George Edmunds’, though, so I try the number he gave me. It rings but he never picks up.
I drive though the light rain on Lawnmower II until I reach the far peninsula. The only way to go up the volcano seems to be via a farm at its foot; the rest of the land is fenced off with barbed wire. The weather’s getting worse. I can hear a dog barking and decide to do Peninsula Poike next time I’m on the island, partly because I lose my nerve, and partly because the peninsula’s main attractions are best seen with a guide. I head for nearby Rano Raraku instead. There’s no such thing as seeing the birthplace of the moai too many times.
The CONAF ranger informs me that my Rapa Nui National Park ticket is valid only for one visit to each attraction, but he relents and waves me through. I think it’s a silly rule. For starters, since most people visit Easter Island once in their lives, I doubt they have many visitors who visit any attraction more than once, and they should commend repeat visitors rather than discourage them.
I take the left branch of the path, which climbs up into the massive Rano Raraku crater itself. In the middle is an overgrown lake, and a footpath runs up to the crater rim, winding between moai heads. Last time, Christina, Simon and went all the way up for a great view of Ahu Tongariki in the distance; now there’s a sign by the path, saying that visitors must not proceed unless accompanied by a guide or a CONAF ranger. I decide to disregard that on the grounds that I’m a responsible visitor who won’t stray from the path, won’t climb on the moai or vandalise them. In 2008, a jackass Finnish tourist was caught trying to break of an ear of a small moai to take home as a souvenir, so CONAF is getting stricter. I’m nothing like the Finnish guy. Halfway up, a foreign archaeologist is engaged in some excavation work. Two moai are being dug up so that they can be documented and so that the petroglyphs on their backs can be photographed.
The trail divides. I take the branch leading up, ignoring the crossed-out arrow and briefly enjoy the expansive view over the coastline before I become aware of a figure standing by the entrance to the crater, looking suspiciously like a CONAF ranger. I’m sure I’m going to get bollocked, so to delay the inevitable, I take the other trail that goes all the way around the lake. The young grass growing on the trail suggests that no one’s been this way for a while. I slip on a steep, muddy downhill bit. Half of me is completely covered in mud. It’s probably karmic comeuppance for my acts of disobedience. There’s no ranger waiting for me at the other end, but I decide not to revisit the main quarry bit.
Lunch at Anakena Beach. My meat on a stick helps me make new feline and canine friends. The nice thing about Chile is that none of the leftovers are ever wasted; there are always hungry creatures waiting to hoover up the remains. Chile has lots of stray dogs because they think it's immoral to chop the balls off any animal and also because people tend to set their pets loose after they get fed up with them. As a result, most dogs are friendly, placid and well -looked after, unlike the snarling or cowering beasts in the Caribbean or poorer Latin American countries.
Enjoy the drive back towards Hanga Roa; it’s the only road on the island that’s in good enough condition to really speed up, and Lawnmower II flies through sunlit pastures and eucalyptus groves at over 30mph. In hindsight, a quad bike is the best possible vehicle on which to explore the island, since its suspension handles rough terrain better than a 4WD and driving on most of the island’s roads certainly counts as off-road driving due to the bad conditions.
I pay a second visit to Orongo because on my first day, I forgot to take the iconic Birdman-petroglyph-and-islands-beyond photo and this afternoon the weather’s perfect. Looking out at the tiny islets, I still don't understand how the islanders could've waited there for days/weeks for the first Manutara egg of the season: there is no shelter or shade and where on earth would they get drinking water?
If anyone were watching, they would've seen a small, helmeted figure, cackling with glee while bouncing down the volcano road at reckless speed. I come away very satisfied, even more so because I manage to make it to the sunset viewing straight after that. I sprint all the way up the coastal road as the sun sinks below the horizon. It’s even more beautiful than on my first day and there’s an even bigger crowd. This is a much better last day on the island than yesterday.
If I don’t put my dinner choice of Te Moana in the guidebook, it’s only because it’s not a budget place; the fish in a Dijon mustard sauce with figs was very satisfying. You gotta love Rapa Nui menus: the local names for sea creatures are most entertaining. ‘Mahi mahi’ is dorado, one of my favourite fish, while ‘rape rape’ is not, in fact, a double sexual violation: it’s lobster.
Try to call ‘George Edmunds’ again. Phone switched off. I will now wonder what adventure I would have had, had I taken him up on his offer, until the next time I return to the island...
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