Gary writes this one:
Arica is a very beautiful small port city in northern Chile. The weather was perfect. It was sunny every day and about 85 degrees. The breeze every afternoon at about 4 o´clock helped cool the city and beaches. Arica has many beaches near town. We stayed in a hostel about 3 minutes from the beach. The local people clean and groom the beach every morning.
Kimi and I were very tired from traveling and spent the first few days in Arica reading and relaxing. We meet many backpackers while eating breakfast and dinner together. We meet former Taoseño Franklin Bright one evening and went to the beach to enjoy the ocean and some of Chile´s famous ice cream. It was nice walking the beach together and watching the sunset from the roof top of our hostal.
We had a German Christmas with new friends from the hostel, celebrating and opening presents Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas day on the beach, swimming in the ocean and enjoying the sun. From Arica we traveled by bus to La Paz, Bolivia. The old bus took us east, up out of Arica. The weather was sunny and cool in the desert. Our bus broke down while driving through Lauca National Park. We were able to spend some time enjoying the snow covered volcanos and watching the vicuñas graze below in the valley. We switched buses and continued to Bolivia. Some cliffs and red rock outcroppings reminded me of places in Utah. We arrived two hours late after boarding another bus in Alto, just above the city of La Paz. We were very glad to see our friends Bertha and Harold at last.
Kimi writes:
We really enjoyed the several months we spent in Chile, and now I have a real appreciation for how long and diverse this country is, and how nice the people are! My new favorite word in Spanish is cabalgata. It has nothing to do with female cats, but is actually a horseback trail ride. Another Chilean word is bacán, which means cool. Kids use this word a lot. I also learned (with a tip from my aunt Irene which kept me from making a big mistake) that dishes in Chile are lozas, not trastes as in Mexico. Don't offer to wash anyone's trastes in Chile, as it means butts!
At the hostel in Arica, we spent Christmas Eve with several German travelers. Carola and Christian are traveling with their 10-month old son, Leonard. In Germany, both parents get a year of paid parenting leave, and they decided to spend six months of it traveling in South America with Leonard!
On Christmas day, Gary and I invited five new friends from the hostel to dinner, and Gary made shark steaks! It was fun to spend the holiday at the hostel with other travelers, and we made new friends from Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, New Zealand and Brazil.
Now, we are in La Paz Bolivia with friends Bertha and Harald from the United World College. We are having such a wonderful time, and it's so great to spend time with Bertha and Harald! We will spend New Years at Island of the Sun, on Lake Titicaca.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
Patagonia
We spent several beautiful days in Patagonia, with the family of a Chilean friend. First we went to the city of Coyhaique. Coyhaique is the only commercial center in isolated Patagonia, but it´s not very big and it´s surrounded by beautiful mountains.
We visited our friend´s sister Coti and her family in Coyhaique. The kids, Gaby and Felipe, were super cute. Felipe learned to say "Are you happy?" in English, and amused us with all the funny things he said. Gaby is super helpful and plays the viola beautifully. After so much traveling, it is really nice to spend some time with a family.
From Coyhaique we took a bus 4 hours south along the gravel Carretera Austral, to Cruce Bahía Murta, or the intersection with the gravel road that goes 7 km to Bahía Murta. Our friend´s sister Olga met us at the intersection. Bahía Murta is a tiny, tiny town on the shore of Lake General Carrera, a huge lake that stretches into Argentina where it has another name.
Our friend´s mom, Chila, served us fresh baked bread that she had made, and hierba maté. Maté is a tea that is popular in Argentina. It seems that everyone drinks maté in Chilean Patagonia, too. Several people in Chilean Patagonia told us that they consider themselves separate from Chile, and that they identify more with Argentina. Although they are in Chile, they refer to the land north of Pto Montt as Chile, as if it is a separate country. Patagonia is separated from Pto Montt and the rest of the country in that there is no road, and to get here you either have to take a boat, a plane or a road through Argentina. This country is like Alaska in that it is so rough that there are very few roads, and there are many places that you cannot reach by land.
The Carretera Austral, the only highway that goes through this area (and is interrupted south of Pto Montt where you must take a long distance ferry) is an unpaved, narrow road through beautiful country. It was built in 1981 or 1982. Before that, there were just wagon tracks and boat travel was more important. In Bahía Murta there are the remains of an old dock where the ferry used to stop before the highway was built. In those days, it would take Chila two days to travel to Coyhaique. She would have to get on the ferry early in the morning and travel all day on the lake, stopping in all the villages until, at night, she got to a town that was next to a track, the precursor of a road. I get the impression that this looked like a wagon track, huellas in Spanish, with tracks from the two sets of wheels. But a bus traveled over it, and the next morning the bus would take Chila slowly to Coyhaique, taking another whole day. Now that the Carretera Austral has connected Bahía Murta to the rest of Patagonia, the trip can be made in 4 hours by bus. The bus runs several days a week. Few people here have cars or know how to drive cars, and so people depend on the bus.
Because Bahía Murta is so isolated, people make almost everything that they need. All of the furniture is hand made, of wood. Chila´s spinning wheel, that she uses to spin yarn for making socks, was made by her husband, of wood. Everything is made with only very basic tools. If you want to buy a piece of factory-made furniture that is too big to strap onto the top of a bus, you would have to buy it in Coyhaique and pay a freight service to take it all the way to Bahía Murta.
In Bahía Murta, we met Chila´s children and grandchildren, who served us home canned cherries, lamb from their farm, fresh bread, salmon empanadas, beef empanadas, sopaipillas, a lamb asado and more. There is a boarding school in Bahía Murta, and Chila´s children attended it up through eighth grade. Chila has been living in town lately because she has had an illness, but for most of her life she lived in her house in the campo, which is accessible only by horseback or a long walk. So her children stayed at the boarding school and came home to the campo once a month. Many of the children in Patagonia do that, as distances are great and transportation poor. The government pays for the boarding schools, as it´s the only way to provide education in the rural areas.
There is not much in the way of jobs here. It seems like most people have their own small farm with sheep, maybe cows, chickens and a vegetable garden. Many people have greenhouses so that they can get an early start on their garden. That would be the only way to get fresh produce around here. Many people leave Bahía Murta to work elsewhere. Jorge, married to Olga´s daughter Sole, works as a diver for a salmon fish farm west of Pto. Aysen. He works for a 20 day shift, living in floating housing on the open ocean. Then he comes home for 10 days with his family. Other people go to Coyhaique to work, or work in the fish factory in Pto. Chacabuco. Many of the men come to the U.S. to work as sheepherders.
Chila, Sole, Jorge and Gary and I went by foot to the house in the campo. We got a ride the first half of the way, from someone who owns a pickup. He took us as far as the road goes. Then we hiked by foot, about another hour and a half. Part of the hike was through a swamp, and we jumped from hummock to hummock to keep our feet dry. (Is hummock a real word, or just what I call those dry grassy lumps in swamps?) Chila loves her home in the campo, and she was beaming the whole way.
We ate a berry that allegedly if eaten will ensure that you come back to this place. And we saw huge orange bumble bees! Snowcapped peaks surround this valley. Chila´s house is below a snowcapped peak, overlooking the valley. There are chickens, a pig with six piglets and a cat. We didn´t see the livestock, but they were out there somewhere being cared for by one of Chila´s sons.
The house in the campo has no electricity, but there is a gas lamp and a big wood burning cook stove, brought in by cattle-drawn cart many years ago. We lunched on lamb from the previous day´s asado, and fresh sopaipillas that Sole made. Then Sole made fresh pan de casa, or home baked bread. After eating, drinking maté and resting a bit, we made the same hike back to Bahía Murta, arriving just after dark and in time for dinner.
Here in Patagonia in the summer, it gets dark well after 9 p.m. And everywhere in Chile, people eat dinner very late. With Chilean friends, we have eaten dinner as late as midnight. But there are plenty of meals and onces (snacks, like tea in Europe) in between meals so that you don´t go hungry in the evening.
Before we left Bahía Murta the next day, the family gave us gifts and lots of goodies for the road. I am touched by how warmly we were welcomed by this family, who gave us the best of what they have. We would have liked to spend more time in this area, but we underestimated how long it takes to travel in Patagonia, where the roads are gravel and sparse and the buses do not run every day.
We took the Navimag ferry from Puerto Chacabuco to Puerto Montt, north out of Patagonia. The trip takes 20 hours, but passengers must board the night before and can sleep until the morning rather then getting off at 2 a.m. when we arrive, so in total we spent two nights and one full day on the ferry. We traveled economy, in a cabin with 14 other people. You can pay more and have your own cabin or just share with two others, if you want to, but sharing turned out to be fine.
From the ferry, we saw penguins swimming! The ferry travels through a passage between the mainland and a series of islands, so for the most part we were not on the open ocean and we did not have to worry about sea sickness. In addition to people, the Navimag ferry hauls a lot of cattle trucks. We stood on the top deck and looked down at them. You can see that in some trucks the cattle are crowded together so tightly that they can barely move, and they must climb up on top of each other. In others, they huddle together to try to get some warmth. One had a bloody head.
Riding the ferry was a nice time to meet people; Chilean travelers and also other foreigners. We met several Europeans, a Brazilian, and a young woman named Brooke who took dance lessons from my aunt Kat in Colorado Springs years ago. She is now working for NOLS in Patagonia.
Check out our corresponding pictures on Flickr in the sets called Coyhaique, Bahia Murta and Navimag.
We visited our friend´s sister Coti and her family in Coyhaique. The kids, Gaby and Felipe, were super cute. Felipe learned to say "Are you happy?" in English, and amused us with all the funny things he said. Gaby is super helpful and plays the viola beautifully. After so much traveling, it is really nice to spend some time with a family.
From Coyhaique we took a bus 4 hours south along the gravel Carretera Austral, to Cruce Bahía Murta, or the intersection with the gravel road that goes 7 km to Bahía Murta. Our friend´s sister Olga met us at the intersection. Bahía Murta is a tiny, tiny town on the shore of Lake General Carrera, a huge lake that stretches into Argentina where it has another name.
Our friend´s mom, Chila, served us fresh baked bread that she had made, and hierba maté. Maté is a tea that is popular in Argentina. It seems that everyone drinks maté in Chilean Patagonia, too. Several people in Chilean Patagonia told us that they consider themselves separate from Chile, and that they identify more with Argentina. Although they are in Chile, they refer to the land north of Pto Montt as Chile, as if it is a separate country. Patagonia is separated from Pto Montt and the rest of the country in that there is no road, and to get here you either have to take a boat, a plane or a road through Argentina. This country is like Alaska in that it is so rough that there are very few roads, and there are many places that you cannot reach by land.
The Carretera Austral, the only highway that goes through this area (and is interrupted south of Pto Montt where you must take a long distance ferry) is an unpaved, narrow road through beautiful country. It was built in 1981 or 1982. Before that, there were just wagon tracks and boat travel was more important. In Bahía Murta there are the remains of an old dock where the ferry used to stop before the highway was built. In those days, it would take Chila two days to travel to Coyhaique. She would have to get on the ferry early in the morning and travel all day on the lake, stopping in all the villages until, at night, she got to a town that was next to a track, the precursor of a road. I get the impression that this looked like a wagon track, huellas in Spanish, with tracks from the two sets of wheels. But a bus traveled over it, and the next morning the bus would take Chila slowly to Coyhaique, taking another whole day. Now that the Carretera Austral has connected Bahía Murta to the rest of Patagonia, the trip can be made in 4 hours by bus. The bus runs several days a week. Few people here have cars or know how to drive cars, and so people depend on the bus.
Because Bahía Murta is so isolated, people make almost everything that they need. All of the furniture is hand made, of wood. Chila´s spinning wheel, that she uses to spin yarn for making socks, was made by her husband, of wood. Everything is made with only very basic tools. If you want to buy a piece of factory-made furniture that is too big to strap onto the top of a bus, you would have to buy it in Coyhaique and pay a freight service to take it all the way to Bahía Murta.
In Bahía Murta, we met Chila´s children and grandchildren, who served us home canned cherries, lamb from their farm, fresh bread, salmon empanadas, beef empanadas, sopaipillas, a lamb asado and more. There is a boarding school in Bahía Murta, and Chila´s children attended it up through eighth grade. Chila has been living in town lately because she has had an illness, but for most of her life she lived in her house in the campo, which is accessible only by horseback or a long walk. So her children stayed at the boarding school and came home to the campo once a month. Many of the children in Patagonia do that, as distances are great and transportation poor. The government pays for the boarding schools, as it´s the only way to provide education in the rural areas.
There is not much in the way of jobs here. It seems like most people have their own small farm with sheep, maybe cows, chickens and a vegetable garden. Many people have greenhouses so that they can get an early start on their garden. That would be the only way to get fresh produce around here. Many people leave Bahía Murta to work elsewhere. Jorge, married to Olga´s daughter Sole, works as a diver for a salmon fish farm west of Pto. Aysen. He works for a 20 day shift, living in floating housing on the open ocean. Then he comes home for 10 days with his family. Other people go to Coyhaique to work, or work in the fish factory in Pto. Chacabuco. Many of the men come to the U.S. to work as sheepherders.
Chila, Sole, Jorge and Gary and I went by foot to the house in the campo. We got a ride the first half of the way, from someone who owns a pickup. He took us as far as the road goes. Then we hiked by foot, about another hour and a half. Part of the hike was through a swamp, and we jumped from hummock to hummock to keep our feet dry. (Is hummock a real word, or just what I call those dry grassy lumps in swamps?) Chila loves her home in the campo, and she was beaming the whole way.
We ate a berry that allegedly if eaten will ensure that you come back to this place. And we saw huge orange bumble bees! Snowcapped peaks surround this valley. Chila´s house is below a snowcapped peak, overlooking the valley. There are chickens, a pig with six piglets and a cat. We didn´t see the livestock, but they were out there somewhere being cared for by one of Chila´s sons.
The house in the campo has no electricity, but there is a gas lamp and a big wood burning cook stove, brought in by cattle-drawn cart many years ago. We lunched on lamb from the previous day´s asado, and fresh sopaipillas that Sole made. Then Sole made fresh pan de casa, or home baked bread. After eating, drinking maté and resting a bit, we made the same hike back to Bahía Murta, arriving just after dark and in time for dinner.
Here in Patagonia in the summer, it gets dark well after 9 p.m. And everywhere in Chile, people eat dinner very late. With Chilean friends, we have eaten dinner as late as midnight. But there are plenty of meals and onces (snacks, like tea in Europe) in between meals so that you don´t go hungry in the evening.
Before we left Bahía Murta the next day, the family gave us gifts and lots of goodies for the road. I am touched by how warmly we were welcomed by this family, who gave us the best of what they have. We would have liked to spend more time in this area, but we underestimated how long it takes to travel in Patagonia, where the roads are gravel and sparse and the buses do not run every day.
We took the Navimag ferry from Puerto Chacabuco to Puerto Montt, north out of Patagonia. The trip takes 20 hours, but passengers must board the night before and can sleep until the morning rather then getting off at 2 a.m. when we arrive, so in total we spent two nights and one full day on the ferry. We traveled economy, in a cabin with 14 other people. You can pay more and have your own cabin or just share with two others, if you want to, but sharing turned out to be fine.
From the ferry, we saw penguins swimming! The ferry travels through a passage between the mainland and a series of islands, so for the most part we were not on the open ocean and we did not have to worry about sea sickness. In addition to people, the Navimag ferry hauls a lot of cattle trucks. We stood on the top deck and looked down at them. You can see that in some trucks the cattle are crowded together so tightly that they can barely move, and they must climb up on top of each other. In others, they huddle together to try to get some warmth. One had a bloody head.
Riding the ferry was a nice time to meet people; Chilean travelers and also other foreigners. We met several Europeans, a Brazilian, and a young woman named Brooke who took dance lessons from my aunt Kat in Colorado Springs years ago. She is now working for NOLS in Patagonia.
Check out our corresponding pictures on Flickr in the sets called Coyhaique, Bahia Murta and Navimag.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Chaiten to Coyhaique
Near Chaiten, we visited Parque Pumalin with a guide named Nicolas, who is originally from Canada. The morning started out in a New Mexico sort of way. We showed up at Nicolas' office at 8:30, as instructed. Nicolas showed up 15 minutes later, with a van full of travelers he had just picked up from the ferry. He told us he was having a paperwork problem with one of his vans, and a mechanical problem with the other van, and there would be a little delay. He said his secretary didn't show up, and he asked me if I would run his office for a few minutes while he worked on the paperworkm problem.
So Gary and I, and Grayson from Utah sat in the office. I took a phone message and sold a couple of bus tickets, and we got to know other travelers from Germany and the U.S. who came by to wait for Nicolas and the tour. By NOON, Nicolas had resolved the van problem and we boarded the van, a total of 9 passengers. Nicolas apologized by giving us each a piece of chocolate and playing a lively tune on a traditional stringed instrument.
But the day in Parque Pumalin was well worth the delay. We hiked in an alerce forest among alerce trees, some up to 3,000 years old. We ate nalca, the giant rhubarb plant. Every square inch of space in this rain forest is covered with plant species, moss, ferns, etc. Many of the species here, like the monkey trees, are very very old and existed during the jurassic period. I can imagine the dinosaurs eating nalca and walking among these trees and ferns!
We hiked along a rushing river to several beautiful waterfalls, and we enjoyed getting to know the other travelers in our group. We did not see the pudu, or tiny deer that is a foot and a half tall, but on the way back we watched the sun set over the pacific ocean behind islands.
Parque Pumalin is a nearly 3,000 square km privately owned park in the Patagonian rainforest. It's owned by an American named Douglas Thompkins, who established the park to preserve the environment. From what I heard, Thompkins and his wife started North Face, Patagonia and Esprit companies.
The rainforest in the park is so dense that you could never hike through it without a trail. The trails are really well kept and with wooden steps in many places where it is steep, and wooden suspension bridges over the rivers. But the vast majority of the park is trail free and road free, and I am reminded of how important it is to preserve this space, not only so that people like us can hike the trails but also just so that this place, teeming with life, can exist.
We wouldn't have needed a guide to hike in the park, but the problem is getting there. It's safe and easy to hitchhike in Chile, and we have done it, but on the road to the park you could wait half a day before seeing a vehicle.
The next day we took a 12-hour bus ride to Coyhaique. The driver, Juan Carlos, is a friend of Nicolas. And since Chaiten is such a tiny town, we had already met 7 of the 10 other passengers on the bus. Five were on our tour to the park, and two men from France are the ones I sold bus tickets to.
Many of our fellow travelers are college aged, but we also meet quite a few people in their 30s. We see people in their 40s and 50s too, but often we don't meet them. I think they tend to take package tours and stay at more expensive hotels, while we always travel independently and budget-style. There is a 'bus aleman' or German Bus that is a big red vehicle for 16 people with seats and beds and cooking facilities. It rode the ferry with us to Chaiten. The German Bus makes trips through this area every two weeks, full of German travelers. We have seen few American travelers until now, when there are more US college students on winter break. Some who have been studying abroad in Chile are now on break and traveling.
Our driver stopped every now and then so that we could take pictures of a fjord or glacier or river or mountains. All but one of us are foreign travelers, mostly from Germany, the U.S. or France. One passenger is from Chile. She is going to Puyuhapi, a tiny village, to join her boyfriend who has found a job there driving a backhoe. Puyuhapi is in a gorgeous location on a fjord surrounded by mountains, but there is absolutely nothing there but the hot springs and a road construction project. As it came into view the young woman began to cry.
In our bus, we passed two bicyclists who we had met on the ferry a few days ago. We waved at them, and they waved back, recognizing us too. By bicycle, it takes about 6days to get from Chaiten to Coyhaique on this gravel Carretera Austral. Buses travel the route several times per week, and now are filled mostly with travelers. Juan Carlos said that in the past more Chileans used the route, but now that Asian cars are cheap to buy here, mostly people drive cars rather than taking the bus on this route.
Juan Carlos has to plan his bus route around the schedule of the only gas station, located mid-route in La Junta. We are on the Carretera Austral, the main and only road going south through Chilean Patagonia. This major highway is gravel and 1 1/2 lanes wide. It has washboards like the gravel road I grew up on. Passing cars have to pull to the side of the road. But Chile is in the process of paving this highway. Juan Carlos opposes the paving, as it will change the nature of tourism in this area. This 12 hour trip will become 5 1/2 hours, and people will breeze through the area without stopping. Before the Carretera Austral was built in the early 1980s, this road was a wagon track for horses and carts, and it took a four wheel drive vehicle all day to go 200 kilometers.
Photos are at flickr.com/photos/kimigary under Chaiten to Coyhaique.
So Gary and I, and Grayson from Utah sat in the office. I took a phone message and sold a couple of bus tickets, and we got to know other travelers from Germany and the U.S. who came by to wait for Nicolas and the tour. By NOON, Nicolas had resolved the van problem and we boarded the van, a total of 9 passengers. Nicolas apologized by giving us each a piece of chocolate and playing a lively tune on a traditional stringed instrument.
But the day in Parque Pumalin was well worth the delay. We hiked in an alerce forest among alerce trees, some up to 3,000 years old. We ate nalca, the giant rhubarb plant. Every square inch of space in this rain forest is covered with plant species, moss, ferns, etc. Many of the species here, like the monkey trees, are very very old and existed during the jurassic period. I can imagine the dinosaurs eating nalca and walking among these trees and ferns!
We hiked along a rushing river to several beautiful waterfalls, and we enjoyed getting to know the other travelers in our group. We did not see the pudu, or tiny deer that is a foot and a half tall, but on the way back we watched the sun set over the pacific ocean behind islands.
Parque Pumalin is a nearly 3,000 square km privately owned park in the Patagonian rainforest. It's owned by an American named Douglas Thompkins, who established the park to preserve the environment. From what I heard, Thompkins and his wife started North Face, Patagonia and Esprit companies.
The rainforest in the park is so dense that you could never hike through it without a trail. The trails are really well kept and with wooden steps in many places where it is steep, and wooden suspension bridges over the rivers. But the vast majority of the park is trail free and road free, and I am reminded of how important it is to preserve this space, not only so that people like us can hike the trails but also just so that this place, teeming with life, can exist.
We wouldn't have needed a guide to hike in the park, but the problem is getting there. It's safe and easy to hitchhike in Chile, and we have done it, but on the road to the park you could wait half a day before seeing a vehicle.
The next day we took a 12-hour bus ride to Coyhaique. The driver, Juan Carlos, is a friend of Nicolas. And since Chaiten is such a tiny town, we had already met 7 of the 10 other passengers on the bus. Five were on our tour to the park, and two men from France are the ones I sold bus tickets to.
Many of our fellow travelers are college aged, but we also meet quite a few people in their 30s. We see people in their 40s and 50s too, but often we don't meet them. I think they tend to take package tours and stay at more expensive hotels, while we always travel independently and budget-style. There is a 'bus aleman' or German Bus that is a big red vehicle for 16 people with seats and beds and cooking facilities. It rode the ferry with us to Chaiten. The German Bus makes trips through this area every two weeks, full of German travelers. We have seen few American travelers until now, when there are more US college students on winter break. Some who have been studying abroad in Chile are now on break and traveling.
Our driver stopped every now and then so that we could take pictures of a fjord or glacier or river or mountains. All but one of us are foreign travelers, mostly from Germany, the U.S. or France. One passenger is from Chile. She is going to Puyuhapi, a tiny village, to join her boyfriend who has found a job there driving a backhoe. Puyuhapi is in a gorgeous location on a fjord surrounded by mountains, but there is absolutely nothing there but the hot springs and a road construction project. As it came into view the young woman began to cry.
In our bus, we passed two bicyclists who we had met on the ferry a few days ago. We waved at them, and they waved back, recognizing us too. By bicycle, it takes about 6days to get from Chaiten to Coyhaique on this gravel Carretera Austral. Buses travel the route several times per week, and now are filled mostly with travelers. Juan Carlos said that in the past more Chileans used the route, but now that Asian cars are cheap to buy here, mostly people drive cars rather than taking the bus on this route.
Juan Carlos has to plan his bus route around the schedule of the only gas station, located mid-route in La Junta. We are on the Carretera Austral, the main and only road going south through Chilean Patagonia. This major highway is gravel and 1 1/2 lanes wide. It has washboards like the gravel road I grew up on. Passing cars have to pull to the side of the road. But Chile is in the process of paving this highway. Juan Carlos opposes the paving, as it will change the nature of tourism in this area. This 12 hour trip will become 5 1/2 hours, and people will breeze through the area without stopping. Before the Carretera Austral was built in the early 1980s, this road was a wagon track for horses and carts, and it took a four wheel drive vehicle all day to go 200 kilometers.
Photos are at flickr.com/photos/kimigary under Chaiten to Coyhaique.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Chaiten, Chile (revised!)
Apologies to those who read this blog before I edited it! The electricity in Chaiten went off as I was drafting. They announced the shutoff on the radio, and I had just enough time to publish as is. I{ve tried to fix the photos here, although I am creating more errors since I can{t make an apostrophe on this keyboard! -- K
Our friends from Colorado returned to the U.S. a couple of days ago, and now Gary and I are on our own again, heading farther south in Chile.
We went to a cultural encuentro in the village of Dalcahue, which reminded me of a county fair. There were lots of booths of traditional food. Behind each booth, there was an outdoor "kitchen" where the food was being prepared. I think this is what is known as an asado, or barbecue, but it is much more involved than any BBQ I´ve ever seen. People were roasting all kinds of meat on homemade spits with wooden poles that men turned by hand. Others made a kind of potato pancake that was made of dough wrapped around a giant rolling pin that someone turned over a fire. Others boiled empanadas or shellfish in a pot over an open fire.
But the most exciting part of the festival was the house moving. They attached cattle to yokes, and the cattle pulled a cross across a field and through a swamp as a couple hundred spectators ran along side it! This is an important tradition here, although I don{t exactly understand why!
We spent a night in Quellón, on the southern end of Isla Chiloé. Quellón also happens to be at the south end of the Pan American Highway, which stretches up through South America, through Mexico City and through Fairbanks, Alaska. We stayed in a hotel, a bit upscale compared to our usual hospedaje digs, with big windows overlooking the ocean. From our room, we watched the sun set over the water. This town is very pretty, but it´s ALWAYS RAINING! This is a lot like the trip we took a few years ago, up coastal British Columbia and Alaska.
Yesterday we took an all-day ferry ride back to the mainland of Chile, to the village of Chaitén. The only way to get to Chaitén from the north is by boat, but there is a highway heading south, which we will take. This highway is relatively new and has helped connect southern Chile to the rest of the country, although I´ve heard that the highway is unpaved for the most part, and we´ve noticed that bus tickets are more expensive down here. There is one ATM in town, which doesn´t accept my card, but luckily I got some extra cash before coming here.
Finding lodging can be interesting in Chile. What often happens is that we get off a ferry or bus and a woman approaches us offering a room. These are small time business people who rent out a few rooms in their house. They are often the cheapest places to stay, and nice because we get access to the kitchen and sometimes the clothes washing machine.
In Chaitén, we were approached by a woman offering a room for 5,000 pesos per person (US $10), with free breakfast and internet access. A second woman ran up shouting that she had a room for 4,000 pesos per person (US $8). We chose the first place, based on gut instinct I think. As our new hosts drove us to the hospedaje, the woman we didn´t choose gave our new hosts the bird.
Like most hospedajes, our room is very basic, just a room with a bed, and a shared bathroom. Downstairs, there is a wood burning kitchen stove where if you´re lucky, the señora bakes bread. (Here, she makes toast on a Chilean toaster over a wood stove).
I was curious about the cheaper hospedaje, and so we checked it out today. Photo below. All I can say is that it looks like a farm labor camp to me. But this place is the exception, and most everywhere we have stayed has been decent, if very basic.
The rest of our pictures are on flickr, flickr.com/photos/kimigary. Look under Isla Chiloe and Chaiten for pictures corresponding to this blog entry.
Our friends from Colorado returned to the U.S. a couple of days ago, and now Gary and I are on our own again, heading farther south in Chile.
We went to a cultural encuentro in the village of Dalcahue, which reminded me of a county fair. There were lots of booths of traditional food. Behind each booth, there was an outdoor "kitchen" where the food was being prepared. I think this is what is known as an asado, or barbecue, but it is much more involved than any BBQ I´ve ever seen. People were roasting all kinds of meat on homemade spits with wooden poles that men turned by hand. Others made a kind of potato pancake that was made of dough wrapped around a giant rolling pin that someone turned over a fire. Others boiled empanadas or shellfish in a pot over an open fire.
But the most exciting part of the festival was the house moving. They attached cattle to yokes, and the cattle pulled a cross across a field and through a swamp as a couple hundred spectators ran along side it! This is an important tradition here, although I don{t exactly understand why!
We spent a night in Quellón, on the southern end of Isla Chiloé. Quellón also happens to be at the south end of the Pan American Highway, which stretches up through South America, through Mexico City and through Fairbanks, Alaska. We stayed in a hotel, a bit upscale compared to our usual hospedaje digs, with big windows overlooking the ocean. From our room, we watched the sun set over the water. This town is very pretty, but it´s ALWAYS RAINING! This is a lot like the trip we took a few years ago, up coastal British Columbia and Alaska.
Yesterday we took an all-day ferry ride back to the mainland of Chile, to the village of Chaitén. The only way to get to Chaitén from the north is by boat, but there is a highway heading south, which we will take. This highway is relatively new and has helped connect southern Chile to the rest of the country, although I´ve heard that the highway is unpaved for the most part, and we´ve noticed that bus tickets are more expensive down here. There is one ATM in town, which doesn´t accept my card, but luckily I got some extra cash before coming here.
Finding lodging can be interesting in Chile. What often happens is that we get off a ferry or bus and a woman approaches us offering a room. These are small time business people who rent out a few rooms in their house. They are often the cheapest places to stay, and nice because we get access to the kitchen and sometimes the clothes washing machine.
In Chaitén, we were approached by a woman offering a room for 5,000 pesos per person (US $10), with free breakfast and internet access. A second woman ran up shouting that she had a room for 4,000 pesos per person (US $8). We chose the first place, based on gut instinct I think. As our new hosts drove us to the hospedaje, the woman we didn´t choose gave our new hosts the bird.
Like most hospedajes, our room is very basic, just a room with a bed, and a shared bathroom. Downstairs, there is a wood burning kitchen stove where if you´re lucky, the señora bakes bread. (Here, she makes toast on a Chilean toaster over a wood stove).
I was curious about the cheaper hospedaje, and so we checked it out today. Photo below. All I can say is that it looks like a farm labor camp to me. But this place is the exception, and most everywhere we have stayed has been decent, if very basic.
The rest of our pictures are on flickr, flickr.com/photos/kimigary. Look under Isla Chiloe and Chaiten for pictures corresponding to this blog entry.
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