Por La Razón o La Fuerza

´Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a . . .

Well, actually, there were guanacos, condors, horses, flies, horses, gauchos, twins toddlers on a new pair of bikes...

In other words... my mom finally arrived in Chile last Sunday the 23rd and we left AL TIRO for Punta Arenas, one of the southernmost cities in Chile and in the world. Poor Mama had to spent almost 24 hours in transit on 3 flights and then a 3 hour bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales. The Patagonian landscape stretches for infinity in all directions it seems, with a huge open sky with clouds built up in layers.

After a night there, we went to the much loved Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, with its trademark 3 torres (towers) the shoot up out of the rugged Patagonian landscape. We managed to do a grueling 5ish hour hike towards the towers from out the very nice Hostería Las Torres, and on the return Mom said she was "one tick" above her max abilities.

In any case, we spent 3 nights there, managing to get some film footage of mom walking to the horses´corral to observe them. (She likes observing animals.) Later we got to talk to some of the horsemen, called "gauchos." It was a little sad for me to see SO few Chileans in a place that is one of the most well known in their country. Basically the only Chileans were the very friendly staff members, and few guests knew Spanish.

TWICE I was asked if I was a guide in the park! I should mention that BOTH times were AFTER I had started talking Spanish! I mean, is my Spanish really that good? Do I really look that Chilean? Do I really look like I have any idea what I´m doing, let alone guiding someone else??

Of course, I took it as a compliment.

One of the gauchos asked where I was from, and I said, "Chicago," and he misheard and said, "Santiago??"

More mistaken identity moments coming up.

Today we came back from Torres del Paine to spend one intermediate night in Puerto Natales. Tomorrow early we leave for El Calafate, where we will go to the Los Glaciares park and to the famous Perito Moreno glacier. After a few nights there we head to Ushuaia for our ice adventure!!

I have just arrived in Pucón, which will be the last stop of my trip! I got here today, Wednesday, and will leave Saturday morning, hopefully via the train from Chillán - Santiago (except that you have to reserve 4 days in advance and pay in person, and the only stations nearby to pay are in Temuco and Chillán... so we´ll see).

EN TODO CASO, I have just come from several days in and around the lovely Valdivia. I spent two nights at the hostel Ana María, where I discovered 100% Chilean guests! That is truly a first! I don´t think I´ve ever even stayed at a hostel with other Chileans before! One of them was a travelling salesman from La Ligua (and he was happy to hear that I loved the pastelería La Masa de Carlos when Caitlin and I visited!), and another was an overnight-bus ticket collector man. I mean, hey, I guess they have to sleep somewhere on their nights off.

It has actually, aside from a few moments at the internet and a few phone calls, been an entire 7 days entirely immersed in Spanish! This is truly incredible. I did not, sadly, ever achieve this during the academic semester. I love my gringo friends, but we can´t manage to carry on in Spanish for too long (though Jeff and I did a pretty good job in BsAs, I have to say).

Valdivia is the largest city in its region, with a diverse history including both German immigrants and the indigenous Mapuche people. It is a city spread out over 3 pieces of land separated by rivers, just about 30 minutes from the ocean. One of the best parts of the city is what is outside of it... hills that are SO lush with green... think pine tree carpeting. It also has a bunch of islands, including Isla Mancera and Isla del Rey, though I didn´t make it to either.

My first morning waking up in Valdivia, I headed to the Parque Saval, nearby the campus of the Universidad Austral de Chile, which I have to say is the most beautiful campus I have seen here. It even had DORMS!! Apparently it also has an Instituto de le Tecnología de la Leche (Milk Technology Institute), but I was there on a Sunday and ´twas closed.

The Parque Saval has a cool sculpture garden and a huge lotus lagoon... fotos coming soon. Furthermore, it felt really Chilean, since there seemed to be some Chilean elementary school field trip that day or something. And as I was walking I ran into a Mapuche art exhibition. There were woolen goods, herbal medicines, and of course the famous "platería mapuche" (Mapuche silver).

Back in the day, as the Spanish were attempting to conquer the area but the Mapuche kept defeating them, the Mapuches would take the Spaniards´silver coins, melt them, and make jewelry. From the pictures I´ve seen, Mapuche women would wear KILOS of the stuff draped all over themselves. So a lot of the jewelry is really big and laden with Mapuche motifs. A little too big for my tastes, but interesting. I ended up FINALLY buying something of Lapiz Lazuli from a young Mapuche jeweler, though. It is a stone only found in Chile and Afghanistan, and I decided it was a recuerdo I wanted to have.

I later went to Entrelagos, the mmmmmm well-known café-chocolatería. I got like a dozen pieces of chocolate, which I struggled to make last 2 days. They were RICO! I still have 2 alfajores waiting... but maybe not for long. And they also have crepes, sandwiches (RICO!), kuchen/küchen (I had to), ice cream, cakes... mmmmm...

Later I took the jeweler´s suggestion to take a micro to Niebla, a small beach town like 20 minutes away. The micro was ABSOLUTELY packed, and I had to stand scrunched up against another women on the stairs, and move out of the way when the driver oponed the door. Unfortunately, I managed to drop my trusty Turistel Sur guide... so I´m hoping/sure to find another in Pucón.

Niebla has a really nice beach just down a cliff and its historical fort a few blocks away, which I visited. It had probably the most professional looking museum I´ve seen in Chile. More kids on field trips.

It is quite disorienting in a good way that the sun doesn´t set until like 9 or 9:30 pm. It´s good, I think, since I´m always somewhere new and trying to explore something. Also, it´s helpful when my bus only arrives at like 8:30 pm and I need to walk to the hostel, as it did in Valdivia. Minus side is that it gets kind of sunny. And hot.

The next morning BRIGHT and early, I made my way Valdivia-Niebla-BOAT-Corral-Los Liles, a tiny community on the other side of the river, where I was staying with Ubaldo Triviños and Margarita Maricoy. It was totally foggy as we were crossing the river and on the micro from Corral. We couldn´t even see 20 feet in front, not to mention off the cliff to the side, where I assumed the ocean was located.

I was told that I could tell the micro driver the name of Mr. Triviños and he would know where to drop me off. But unfortunately he didn´t really understand my pronunciation of the name “Aldo” (which I thought Mr. Triviños had told me on the phone), so I was dropped at his brother Patricio Triviños´s house just down the road. All good and well, because it turns out Patricio was walking up to the road at just that moment, and apparently I look like a more “gorda” version of his niece, so he approached me. He ended up escorting me to my destination, mentioning that this place just 10 years ago was a very “humble” agricultural community that has seen many changes. With the introduction of “light” (i.e. electricity) about 9 years ago and a gravel road (along which the micro goes) about 8 back, nowadays few people subsist on agriculture. Turismo Rural has brought prosperity to the community, and apparently the UN has even gotten involved, trying to find ways for the local residents to protect the native forest in the area. That said, don´t have the image of Pucón in your heads: it´s really just a gravel road along the side of a cliff with a few houses. When I asked Ubaldo the population of the “town” of Los Liles, he counted it in number of families: 16. (Luis did the same in Purranque/Los Angeles).

Later that day, the fog lifted, and I was able to see the ocean just a few hundred meters from the house, with sheep grazing nearby. I went on a walk with Margarita, and we saw all the different kinds of seaweed that grow on the rocks along the shore. The next day, I went down with a neighbor to “observe” her job, but I actually ended up working too. She and two other women daily collect LUGA, a kind of seaweed used in cosmetics, from the rocks. We had to climb on the rocks and wade in the water and rip the plants off the rocks... the bigger the leaf the better. They are really slippery, almost like thick pieces of brown Saran wrap like a shaggy rug on top of the boulders.

After about an hour, I had filled up one large bag and the neighbor two. Then we took the bags and dumped them on a net higher up so that the luga would dry. Later, she sells the dry luga to a man that comes by in a truck for $100-150 PESOS per kilo. I asked her how many kilos were in my bag, and she said about 5. That means that for my hour of back breaking manual labor, nearly falling off rocks, and with my pants wet, I had earned a full $1 American dollar. I sat on a rock contemplating that.

In any case, it was a lot of fun and interesting. All of my 3 farm homestays were really unique: (1) cheese-making, (2) hanging with calves and hanging sheep, (3) harvesting seaweed.

And now for something completely different...

Just to let you know, this update is costing $500 Chilean pesos per hour to write. That’s about $1 USD… And the “s” on this keyboard doesn’t really work, so my apologies in advance. Also, I’m in a bus station.

Update: it took less than an hour to write.

In other news, last Wednesday I left my hostel in Chonchi, Chiloé and spent most of the day taking micros, boats, large busses, colectivos, and finally a truck to reach my next destination: Purranque, Chile. There, in the house of the Gangas-Coronados, I spent a few days SANS INTERNET on their farm. Purranque is soooo off the beaten tourist path that it’s actually right on it: just off the Panamerican Highway 5, except that no tourists take the turn.

In any case, it was an experience, I think, of living like the majority of Chileans in this country live, or have historically lived. Luis and Cristina, the parents of 9 year old Paulina and 5 year old Aracely, included me in on all the things they do on their very active farm. At this time of year, one of the biggest tasks is helping the “terneros” (calves) twice a day from the field into a barn to milk from their moms. The calves are only 2 months old but are gradually being weaned from their mothers´ milk so that soon they will subsist solely on grass and water. (Is it not then amazing that cows can produce milk on that diet???) So the “vacas” (mama cows) are kept in certain fields, away from the terneros or ternerITOs, if you’re feeling Chilean.

That day was actually time for the calves to get their monthly injection of antiparasite treatment, so we herded them (they actually herded themselves into an obscenely tight cluster) to receive the injection. Luis did all but one and then passed me the syringe. He was like, all you have to do is pinch the shoulder skin up and then put the needle in so that it goes in one side and not out the other.

Hmm, I though. Simple enough. So I grabbed this sweet calf’s shoulder and tried jabbing the needle in and figured it must have punctured the skin, so I ejected the liquid. Unfortunately, the needle wasn’t in and the magic juice squirted on its fur. I told them I had missed, so they refilled the syringe and let me try again. I’m actually not sure if I made it the second time either, but I didn’t want to tell them that I missed again.

Long story short, if one brown and white calf dies of worms in the next month… it was probably my fault.

Moving on, we also got to herd cattle on horseback. WHOOAAAA NELLY.

Also, I helped bake pan (bread), Pan de Pascua (Christmas bread… though Aracely pronounced it Pan de Kwakwa), and kuchen (sometimes spelled küchen, though according to the German girl in my Chonchi hostel, that is incorrect and not in line with how the Chileans pronounce it).

Today, on my last day, the family, who actually live in the community of Los Angeles (not that big city… NO not THAT one either… there’s another Los Angeles in Chile, silly) outside of the town of Purranque, hosted Paulina´s class for a day in the country. This day included a big parrillada (BBQ). And unlike lame suburbanites who just mosey over to the store to buy whatever cuts of whatever kind of meat they desire, these hearty country folk actually walk over to their herd of sheep/pigs/cows whatev--- kill it--- and like 3 hours later eat it. It’s a novel idea.

Anyway, I witnessed the slaughtering of not one but TWO corderos (young sheep). We were going to have one, but then all the dads were hankering for another and put in money (amounting to $60 USD) to kill another. I helped prepare vegetables. And play with the children.

[ cherries we picked from the back yard ]

I finally left later this afternoon. Cristina dropped me off next to the highway. That’s actually the best thing to do… since not all busses pass through all towns´ bus stations, but they all take the Panamerican Highway. It turned out that there was a Pullman Sur bus direct to Valdivia just WAITING for me.

I split in half my last remaining alfajor from Castro, Chiloé with the nice, quiet old man sitting next to me.

So now I’m in Valdivia the next few days. It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful towns in Chile, not to mention have an interesting German-tinted history. So I’m staying in the Hostelería Ana María for 2 nights to explore the town tomorrow. Then I’m off for another rural homestay in Los Liles, a bit south of here near Corral, for another 2 nights, hoping we’ll be able to go on a boat ride at some point.

After that, I decided to give in to the mysterious allure of this place called Pucón and have reserved a bed at the well known hostel ¡école! (Apparently that’s some Chilean expression, though I never heard it. Qué fome.) Hoping to see the Ojos de Caburga recommended to me by John M., probably not even come close to Volcán Villarrica, nor its bubbling summit, and maybe row a boat. I’ve been into boat recently. “Into” while never getting “into” one. ¿Cachái?

An update from Kam´s Southern adventures!

I left my beloved Viña del Mar last Monday night on a "semi-cama" cush bus bound for the South. I somehow managed to pack 20 days of life into the backpacking backpack I got just for the occasion... and was pretty proud of myself. Cash, clothing, chocolate, conditioner... that pretty much defines the contents of the bag. Multiplied by like eight hundred thousand and you can imagine the weight I´ve been carrying around on my shoulders, all in the name of not having to repeat the same shirt too many times in my photos!

I arrived in Puerto Montt on the overnight bus about 12 hours later and took the first bus-ferry combo I could find to the Isla Grande de Chiloé and its entrance city of Ancud. This part of the country is known for its clouds and rain most of the year, but these upcoming months (summer...!!) are supposed to be a respite.

Well, as the bus pulled into the station, the drizzle was starting to pound a little harder, and a few minutes later I decided to wait in the bus station myself for the pouring rain the let up a bit. Apparently I had to walk about 7 blocks to catch the bus that would take me to Chepu, a rural community where I would be living on a cheese farm (!!!) for a few days with a Chilean family.

So I waited in the station, waited waited waited. I´m not really in a hurry these days, so I didn´t mind. Then I see out of my peripheral vision 2 people that just HAD to be gringos... so I first don´t even pay them any attention, but upon closer inspection realize that they were Andrew R. and Rachel! So I jump over to them, and they were totally surprised to see me, just having returned north from Torres del Paine themselves. They were at the bus stop waiting for John and Semira.

Long story short, I find out that the bus to Chepu only runs 4 times a week and not on Tuesdays, so it ended up being good fortune running into that bunch because I stayed with them in Ancud overnight. We went out for some excellent group meals, including for the famed curanto, a seafood, potato, bread, hot mess cooked in the ground (and tasty!). John and Andrew were so intrigued by the Agroturismo program in Chepu that they decided to ditch their travel buddies and come with me! So the next day we squeezed onto the heaviest seeming micro I´ve ever ridden on from Ancud to Chepu (which is actually a sector, not a pueblo). Passengers had stowed huge bags of flour and what not up on the roof, up with our huge travelling backpacks.

Everyone on the bus seemed to be looking at us... and one woman was nice enough to give up some space on a seat for me to sit down. I asked, "¿Todos ya se conocen aquí?" and she said yes, they all already know each other, and I said, "Ah, entonces nos destacamos muchísimo..." We end up making it to our stop, Cruce de las Huachas, where Armando Pérez, the owner of the farm, came to pick us up and taking us to the beautiful, huge farmhouse of him and his wife, Sonia.

John and Andrew ended up staying just a few nights on the farm as they had to get back to Viña, but together we milked cows (and got splattered with green cow poop), made cheese, ate enough food so that even Andrew and John said they were full (!!!), learned how to play with a deck of 40 cards (a game called "Escoba" (Broom)), saw a play, and climbed up a jungle-ish nearly 80° (according to my estimates...) hill along an absolutely beautiful Pacific Ocean beach.

Once they had left, I got to know the family even more, probably more so than I got to know my family in Viña (John concurred). I visited Sonia´s (the other owner) father´s grave in the countryside cemetery, played with the grandkids, walked to neighbors´houses, made bread and empanadas, and just generally had an excellent time next to the wood-burning stove.

[ left, me trying my hand at milking . . . right, Javier the 11 year-old expert ]

[ J-Bird . . . K-Bird . . . J-Bird ]

I finally left Chepu this morning and made my way south on the island through Castro all the way to Chonchi, where I had been excited to stay in the hostel called Esmeralda by the Sea. When I arrived, it turned out there was plenty of space for me and, BONUS, SWEDISH PEOPLE TO TALK WITH ME ABOUT NORWAY!! We just took a daytrip to Isla Lemuy just off the coast here, and it was quite beautiful.

SO... now the plan is forego the Chaiten/Parque Pumalín circuit and instead stay in Chonchi maybe 2 nights and head north again through Puerto Montt and stay near Frutillar/Puerto Octay and then near Valdivia and then near Pucón (though I´m generally anti- such touristy destinations...). And I´m looking to stay in more rural homestays. I barely practice any Español in these hostels what with all Europeans and Canadians and Aussies and what not...

Pésimo, Kam, pésimo...

PD No need to worry: I have taken many many photos but as I am using a hostel computer it may be awhile before they get up. Just close your eyes, squat down towards the ground, reach out and imagine grabbing some warm cow teats, and inhale that rich aroma of hay, milk vapor, and cow poop splattering in the background.