Toward the Ends of the Earth

And then, just like that, we hopped on a bus for Puerto Montt, the hub for getting to the far South of the country. Travelers better-endowed than ourselves like to take the Navimag boat through the channels all the way down to Puerto Natales, an adventure I wouldn't mind having but am glad I didn't go for on this trip. That's really the only way to go, besides flying, since the 60-hour bus ride you can also take from Puerto Montt goes through Argentina. Yikes, if we had to do that, we wouldn't have made it.

So how weird was it go get into the airport at Punta Arenas, so so so far south (click here for a map of Chile: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mapshells/south_america/chile_and_easter_island/chile_and_easter_island.htm), around 11:30pm, and there's still some light in the sky? I have never been to Alaska (which might acutally be farther north than Punta Arenas is south), so this was amazing to me.

Penguins!!

Our main task for the next day was to get to the park. We also wanted to see the penguins around here and weren't sure if we would have to do that on the way back through town. Ahhh, if we had only known better, we could have planned it all in a way more conducive to seeing all we wanted to see in our short time--our flight was out late on Wed. the 15th.

We arranged a trip between Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales, which is the gateway to Torres del Paine, through the bus company across from our hospedaje, which allowed us to make a stop at the pinguinera on the way. Yay!

Alexana also had to finish up one last school obligation, and I was on a search for a book in English, which I never found, and some internet. I think I wrote something in here for you that day, actually. Oh, and we picked up some over-priced gas tanks for our little camp stove, since we couldn't take the one we bought in Santiago on the plane

So we got to see the town a little bit, but the Plaza de Armas was fenced off, so we had to sneak in for the obligatory kissing of the Indian foot on the statue at the center. Bad-ass. There was something pretty amazing about being in that town though. It's so flat and you can look into the Straight of Magellan and feel like you're capable of walking into the ends of the earth. I had lunch at a little cafe, where an older dude gave me a cartography lesson and tried to hit on me. Ahhh, how I miss Chile when I think of all the hot old guys that thought they could get somewhere with me.

The long van ride full of ripe Europeans and (clean but greasy) us took us to the coast far away from town to this penguin preserve. You have to walk in on these platform walkways as the suspension builds and builds, and then...you see these funny-looking birds waddling around in the prarie. First one, and then as you get closer to the beach, they proliferate on the landscape, and you can't help but laugh and laugh at their adorableness. They won't let you get that close, you know you have to respect their space, but you really want to get up in there and be as care-free and silly as them.

After that, the bus dropped us off at this police check-point, where Alexana and I hung out with these cool British backpackers as we thought the bus going to Puerto Natales forgot about us. No such luck. We got into Puerto Natales, about an hour or so north of Punta Arenas, that night and went to the same hostel as the other kids, and failed completely to prepare for the backpacking extravaganza ahead of us.

Fortified with the best breakfast ever offered in a hostel, we caught the bus into the park the next morning hella early and landed in a sunny and clear famous Chilean national park by 10:30am, when we realized...

SHIT! We're not ready for this!

And that was when we lost valuable Patagonia Time (but not sunlight, since there's plenty to spare on a spring/summer day) rifling through our backpacks trying to fit all the crap we brought for our adventure, with the famous Torres (towers) behind us and all around us the kind of landscape city folks tend to romanticize (ourselves not excluded). Yeah, though I had to hold onto the little pinguino I bought for Andrew, I did sacrifice my Converse to the cause of fresh fruit and yummy pre-packaged MSG-free rice that were our staple (and plus, the beat-up shoes went toe Juan de la Patagonia!). I don't know what Alexana dropped, but she sure kept hella weight (see photos of us as we take off on our trek, on Ofoto).

And then a "3-hour-hike" became 6 hours, as we got kind lost heading for our first campsite and then stopped with quite the regularity to catch our breaths (can't even blame that on altitude) and munch on various yummy goodies. Hey, you may as well savour it, why bust your ass when you're somewhere so beautiful?

Did I really explain what the park is or why we had to go? It's "the one place you should go in the Patagonia, if you have to choose," according to, well, everybody. You can read about it here: http://www.gochile.cl/html/Paine/TorresDelPaine.asp. The hike we did is called the "W": it really looks like a W on a map. So picture this: we started at the bottom of the "U" on the right, and some folks go up (to the site called Los Chilnos) that and then back down before heading into the center (where the two "U"s meet), but we skipped that and went straight for the middle, since we didn't have much time. I don't think we missed that much.

The reason being, primarily, the Quality Chileans we met at the first campsite, at Los Cuernos (the horns). That's right, we met Pato (short for Patricio, but means Duck) and his quiet sidekick and the crowd of "flaite" (ghetto) folks working as porters and guides. They invited us to camp in their special "ordinario" (also means ghetto, yay for class society) campsite--hey, fool even set up our tent for us.

BOOM!

And so it was that I set up to cook the crowd some dinner and EXPLODED the gas tank and ruined my little camp stove. Damn. I guess I'll never build a wind-screen out of aluminum foil again. Good thing there was *cold* water on the stove, that flew around. I was picking little pieces of aluminum foil out of my hair for days! Hot. Wow, I can still feel the headache that resulted from that disaster. Good thing I almost killed Pato in the fiasco though. Or, good thing he saved me! And good thing we had other means to prepare our food in the park...

So we hung out with those guys all night and savored the attentions of guys that never see women and only ever talk about the mountains. They scraped their cash together and got some quality Chilean boxed wine from the refugio/lodge for the crowd, and we chilled in the dark and cloudy evening before the requisite evening rain came down. Oh, and I was admired by old Mauro and El Muerto (the Dead--not like Deadhead, but like Dead--guy) and the cheesy short guy whose name I forget. Charming. We also ran into some Californians from the program and hung out for a bit in the lodge with them, with lovely background music (guitar and voice) from Erik, a super-cute Chilean trekking guide.

And if we thought that night was fun, it was only to whet our appetites for the other adventures. The next morning we made plans to meet up with some of the guys when they had their day off on Wednesday, but they were going the opposite direction with their rich backpacking clients.

Our hike that day (Monday) was pretty tight. It was a short trek from Los Cuernos to El Italiano, with lots of little water-crossings (yay for Gore-Tex boots!) from which we could fill up our water-bottles without filtration!!!! That's where we left our big backpacks for the day, while we took the trail along the Valle del Frances (the French River Valley) up to the Campamento Britanico lookout point. That's were we met a journalist from Atlanta who hiked up with us, and also where we crossed paths with Erik, who was going to be staying at Italiano that night with his clients. Were were ambitious: we thought we wouldn't see him again because we'd make it all the way back down through that camp again and then onto the next camp at Paine Grande another solid 2 hours away.

But we were wiped out! The view was pretty great from this giant rock the US guy helped us get onto: we could see all of Lago Nordenskjold and the mountains around it. It drizzled a little bit and was super muddy on our way back, but mostly, it was a pleasant day.

And that night was one of the best nights in my memory of all my time in Chile.

We got back to Italiano (at the bottom of the middle where the two "U"s meet) and were about to set up camp next to that same British couple from earlier, when the park rangers invited us into their little cabin for coffee. We agreed, especially since they were letting us use their wood-burning stove to prepare our humble dinner (just guess...yes, it was rice). They were two super nice and respectful guys...shoot, what were their names? Juan? and something. Damn. And so we had our dinner, and they made us some tea, and we just hung out and talked...they were hungry for conversation, since they only get out of the park every six days and they rotate between three guys all the time. There's no electricity, so we sat in the candle-light. Also, water only runs in their tiny home when it rains--otherwise they had water from the river in a big jug.

And then it started to rain pretty hard-core, and there was a knock at the door, and Erik popped his head in, wanting to stay the night there since he didn't have his tent with him. I love it. There's a whole network of folks that work in the park, and they're the only Chileans--possibly the only Latin Americans--there. So they busted out the Gato Negro bottle, and we continued to talk, and Alexana convinced the one ranger (married dude) to massage her feet, and I got buff trekking dude to do mine. Heaven.

We ended up staying in the tent the married ranger had set up behind the cabin, and we slept so late because the rain conspired against us! We said goodbye to our friends very reluctantly and somewhat defeatedly made out for our last hike in the park. We weren't going to make it to see the Grey glacier, which I am still bummed about. We had to catch the catamaran across the lake to get out of the park that day...leaving so soon...

I haven't even really described the landscapes we saw in the park...I can see them now, as though I were still there, which is a good thing, since I didn't take enought pictures (sorry!!!), but you can easily see what it looks like, on the web. It's one of those amazing things where as you hike, the flora and fauna keep changing around every bend. I would like to really learn more about who and what lives in the park--I saw flamingos! though and guanaco! But no pumas, unfortunately.

That last hike was melancholy then. I left Alexana and did it on my own, though with dozens of people passing me along the way, as I stopped to snack a bit and look around. By the time I got to the lodge where the catamaran leaves from, it was raining, and Alexana didn't have any rain gear, and I felt guilty until she appeared on the horizon. I had vague notions of trying to change my flight to stay longer in the park, but there was no phone there, imagine that! I would have had to leave the park and go back, but I decided to settle for seeing the park in more depth another time.

Hah! Just remembered the crazy, I mean crazy, German guy I had met in Cuzco, Peru, and we saw on the boat and bus that day and then later in town when we got back to Natales. Crazy.

We spent the night in the small town of Natales that night and did meet up with Pato for "dinner" at a ridiculous bar. That was when I fell asleep with fantasies about seeing the glacier and falling in love wih the Patagonia, all confused about being so far away from civilization and loving it.

My Travels with Andres

So I just went back and read some of what I had written while I was still travelling...I guess I did an adequate job of recording the rest of my adventures in the South of Chile, and now all that remains is the trip I did with my brother Andrew the last week of December and first week and a half of the new year.

Now I'm starting to get cynical about blogging. God, everyone travels and sees the same stuff, yet my adventures were special, dammit! And you care because you love me! Ok, I guess that takes care of it, and I can proceed from here to tell you about how it was for us.

Reunion

I spent my first Christmas away from family, and though I was melancholy at moments, Marcelo's family was lovely. It was just us and his parents and his niece, in a humble home in a small town not far from Valparaiso, a couple of hours north of Santiago. They fixed up the little TV room/study for me to sleep in, and I celebrated the holiday in a much more low-key way than ever: the gifts were simple, and the emphasis was more on being together than on extravagance. They were so kind to include me in their family, I really enjoyed it. We went for a walk after dinner on Christmas Eve to see the neighborhood and all the crazy light decorarations that were all the rage. It was cute: Marcelo's niece still believes in Santa Claus, so it was all about giving Father Christmas time to drop off the gifts, while we were out.

I guess I'm lucky, because Andrew had to spend the day on various airplanes to come down to South America, so he got in hella early on the day after Christmas, and I met him at the airport all giddy and excited to see someone I love and who speaks English!

I was a bit apprehensive because this is the first time I would have hung out with Andrew like this...we've been close since we haven't lived together, but you know...he's got all kinds of Special Needs, and I can be emotionally difficult sometimes, and I speak the language and he doesn't, and this was my turf and I needed to include him...

But he did his best. We both got settled into Santiago and tried to figure out our plans. I had tried to include him in the planning beforehand, but it was hard for him, like he didn't have the guidebooks or the background knowledge on why we should go one place or another, so I basically planned the itinerary.

This seemed good to me: cross the mountains into Argentina to Mendoza, a small college city in the wine region, someplace I had heard lots of good things about, lots of punk culture, etc. From there we would head to Buenos Aires, where I had been in November with our parents and where I wanted to return for more cultural excitement, including good times for the end of the year celebrations. Then the key thing would be the trip up to the famous waterfalls at the border of Argentina and Brasil, Iguazu. After that we could cut through Paraguay and go camping at a national park there famous for waterfalls and butterflies, better to reach Cordoba, in the northern-central park of Argentina. We would close the circuit by going back through Mendoza and be back in Santiago by Thursday January 13.

Ha! Acually, we didn't go too far off that route, and this turned out to be one of the trips I've had that more faithfully followed my plans. Imagine that.

Prelude to the Patagonia

Since we figured out that we could make it down to see Torres del Paine in the South of Chile, our trip turned out to really center around that voyage to the sandy point of the continent. We would only have time for two stops before our flight out of Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas: first, we spent a few days in the Temuco area, and then we had a harried visit in Valdivia.

Wind-up Birds and Monkey-Puzzle Trees

We left Santiago on Saturday, December 4. We meant to leave earlier, but finishing up school stuff got in the way. I set out with Alexana, but a few days before we left, we made plans to travel with Camille, too. It was Alexana’s idea to go all the way south, to the Chilean Patagonia. It hadn’t occurred to me really, since it’s so far: it would have been about 80 hours in bus, and we’d have to pass through Argentina. I hadn’t read anything about Chile that far south: it seemed out of the question. And it was for Camille, so sadly, she ended up traveling alone, only as far as the 10th region.

(Note: good old (not) dictator Pinochet is responsible for hacking this beautiful nation into 12 geographical regions, the 1st being at Arica—near the border with Perú—and the 12th at Tierra del Fuego. Santiago lies in the 5th region. I’m not sure what they do with the Chilean territory in Antarctica.)

Everything seemed thrown together at the last minute. Alexana had no real experience hiking or camping. My backpack holds only 40 liters and could barely store my belongings. We found a flight at the last minute to get us all the way to Punta Arenas, but Alexana had to be back in Santiago by Friday the 17th to meet her parents, so our time at Torres del Paine would be limited.

Discombobulated as always: a good beginning. We took a bus that night to Temuco, which is in the 9th region: the “Mapuche trading city” which would serve as our gateway to the Parque Nacional Conguillío in a couple of days. The main motive for starting there was, for Alexana, shopping for Mapuche crafts.

Have I told you about the bad-ass Mapuche? They are the most significant indigenous group in Chile, though they are also in Argentina. They managed to fight the Spanish at pretty much every step of the way during the colonization of Chile, and though the struggle’s not over, they are famous for keeping their land autonomous for about 300 years, from 1598 to 1884.

Anyway, they also are famous for their silver crafts, which Alexana was determined to buy, and I regret not picking up.

We spent a few days there. It’s a nice small city and though I had a hard time orienting myself there (it really shouldn’t be that difficult: in every Chilean town, there's a big Plaza de Armas, around which the rest of the city is built), I enjoyed it. Lots of gypsies in the Plaza, good shopping (this is where Alexana’s naughty influence begins), a fabulous museum we never visited, and a great big park on a hill just outside the city, where a “peace treaty” between the Mapuches and Spanish was famously signed. We also met some wonderful and some strange Chileans there. Oh, and how could I forget to mention the hours and hours of bad TV we indulged in at the hostel? Funny enough, that will be one of my fonder memories, zoning out watching TV with Alexana.

Then we decided to inaugurate our camping supplies and head out of town to a national park that was founded to protect the “monkey-puzzle tree.” At the time, I was merely charmed by the name of the tree, which I had read about in Sarah Wheeler’s travel narrative about Chile, Travels in a Thin Country, but didn’t have much else to expect from the park.

There is no public transit into the park, which seemed funny to my gringa mind until we were actually in route. We took a bus down what was a pretty normal country road (paved, that is), and then suddenly it seemed the shocks went out because it was all bumpy and crazy-like. We got to Melipeuco, the town at the southern entrance to the park around 9pm and found that the taxis our beloved Lonely Planet promised us were merely a figment of gringo fantasy.

And so it was that our bus driver took notice of our situation and hollered over at an older local guy who was dedicating his pick-up to a taxi-like service, to see if he could take us into the park. ¿Ahora? ¿A esta hora? he asked us a bit incredulously. It was getting dark. And rain seemed inevitable. But how bad could it be?

As we bumped along the crazy windy road (if you could call it that) leading into the park that night, I realized we were making our way onto the moon. It actually took a good two hours to navigate the path to the part of the park we hoped to find campsites, and we began to really appreciate the old man and the woman he took with him as a traveling companion. He deserved no less than the fat stack of bills we would hand over.

It was pitch black and rainy by the time he pulled up to what would be our home for the next couple of nights, so we set up the tent (borrowed from Camille) and feasted on some fruits on veggies and tried to stay dry and cheerful.

Not a problem, since, though we didn’t have the best rest of our lives that night, we did get to wake up to paradise the next morning: we had an amazing view of the mountains and a lake and clear blue skies. Perfect to begin getting in shape for the big hike in the south: we explored the park that day and then hung out with Carlos, the friendly (if you have a Chilean perspective) and maybe slightly creepy (if you are sensitive to sexual harassment) guy who works at the concession at the beach next to the camp-ground. He made us free strawberry borgonia (white wine with fresh fruit) to enjoy in the sunset while he told us stories about gringos traveling before us. We wondered what stories he would tell about us one day, as we savored the fun of being two young women traveling “alone” (unaccompanied by males).

The monkey-puzzle trees are more properly called araucania pines, and you will have to see them yourself, but they are quite charming little trees, I’d say. They call them that because the funny shape “vexes the monkeys” (in Sarah Wheeler’s words): they’re hard to climb. There are sadly no monkeys in Chile, so that doesn’t really make sense, but there is a small marsupial endemic to the region, but they’re very shy and we didn’t see any trying to climb the darn trees. Native to Chile, and I’m not sure where else you see them. They’re also called “paraguas,” or umbrella trees because of the funny shape. The park also seemed to be home to what I can only call wind-up birds—reminding me of a wonderful novel by Murakami, and lots of lizards and tame foxes that just walk by.

The next day we took a very challenging boat trip around the little lake, taking turns at the oars and playing butch while trying to avoid the evil rays of the delicious sun and enjoying the cascades that flow down from the mountains to the lake.

We caught a ride out of the park that evening with one of the camp-site administrators, who had taken his wife to see the park for a few days and was heading back to Temuco. That’s the closest we ever came to hitch-hiking, and it was quite fun.

Das Goot Bier

We got into Valdivia late, maybe around 11 on Dec. 8. As was usually the case, there was a crowd of humble folks waiting to greet arrivals, to offer them rooms in their hospedajes, so we found one we liked, where we would stay for only a couple of nights.

There were two key points to our time in Valdivia. First, both Alexana and I still had assignments due for school due while we were there, so unfortunately, we spent the better part of two days rushing to get our papers done, rather than seeing much of that beautiful city. Yay for cheap internet cafes! We also enjoyed a ritzy lunch at a nice spot overlooking the Plaza de Armas and did some shopping at the feria on the waterfront, but we didn't make it to the museum of do a boat tour on the river.

I loved Valdivia though! It's a university town, it's super-hilly, and smaller than Temuco, and it seemed to have some kind of underground culture we didn't really tap into, though overall the people were pretty nice.

Well, they were pretty nice, minus one shady colectivo driver. Which gets us to the second highlight of our trip: BEER!!! Yes, Validivia is home to the Kunzmann brewery, where the best Chilean/German beer comes from. So to celebrate finishing our papers after spending a few days inside, I dragged Alexana to the brewery. It's a little out of the way and not so easy to get to, and she doesn't like beer one bit, but fortunately, she was convinced this was a worthy way to celebrate.

Mmmmm, such good food--I think I had smoked salmon--washed down with some tasty dark beers--I was ecstatic! Got some good souvineers, too, which was as good as you can get, since you weren't there. Oh, and we watched such good bad TV back at the hospedaje that night. Love it.

Reconstruction

My dear faithful reader,

So it is already Spring Break this semester at Cal, and I can hardly contain the excitement of FREEDOM I feel from not having any major obligations this week. Actually, my number one goal has been to re-construct my travels for this blog--partly for you, but now, it's mostly for myself.

I described this a bit when I first got back to the States: the moments of clarity, in remembering the feeling of emerging from the Los Leones metro station in Providencia, or walking home at 6am after a carrete, or waking up to the onion cart in the morning, or going to the feria for the first time with Marcelo, and on and on and on. The moments are eternal, and I savor them as much as they make me melancholy.

And I wonder: what is this sentimentality? Weren't there moments of misery in all that? Wasn't I sad much of the time in Santiago, heavy with regrets and loneliness? Yes, I was, but I also savor those moments because they transport me to a time that was so magical for me, so special, and I just feel honored to have been there.

At any rate, there are still lots of stories that I want to convey, to bring me back to good times while traveling. You can look forward to those stories soon: I will be writing them as though it were not months, but maybe days, since I experienced them, with this serving as my only prologue.

Meanwhile, I am practically graduating this May, and my parents and younger brother and step-sister are all coming out to see me, which makes me really proud and happy. Of course, it's a fake graduation, since I still have to take one class, which I'll do in the fall. It looks like I'll be working at the new Cody's store in SF starting this summer, which puts me in a bit of a conundrum, as far as wanting to travel. I know I need a stable job to earn some money before I head south again, but it makes me sad to be already caught in that kind of cycle that doesn't allow for much freedom. We'll see how it goes. I would ideally be in South America by next winter (their summer), for a lengthy period of some kind. Ecuador tops my list, but I do want to see more of Chile and Uruguay, too. I don't think I can do it on my own, so I also need a companion...any takers?