I'm in Coyhaique now. It feels _SO_ good to be here after spending six weeks traveling south to get here, and who knows how many years of my life dreaming about going to Patagonia.
After all the time I spent telling people, "I'm traveling south to Coyhaique," or, "I have three weeks left to get to Coyhaique," it began to take on mythical significance. Arriving felt like finding a little piece of the holy grail.
I ended up taking a plane down from Puerto Montt to here. It was a little weird to get in a plane after covering something like 4500km on the ground, but the flight was one of the most beautiful flights I've ever taken. Really spectacular views of the mountains here, with lots of snow, lakes, and glaciers. The mountains here seem closest to the rockies, if I had to pick a chain in the US that they're similar to, which is really nice for me. It feels a little bit like being home in the mountains that I really love.
I met a few people from the NOLS course yesterday, and we spent the day wandering around. We tried to thumb a ride to the NOLS compound, but ended up going about 6km too far, and then decided to explore the road we ended up on. We hitched another ride down the road a ways, and then walked through gorgeous country for a while. After a small bridge, we found a nice little place with a sign saying that they sold cheese. We went in, and they did indeed have cheese for sale. We couldn't see them make it, as they were still out collecting milk, but they gave us samples of the cheese, which was very good, and we bought a couple kilos. We then thumbed a ride back to the NOLS compound and then back to Coyhaique.
The NOLS course begins soon, so I don't know if there will be another update before I leave for the course. If not, I should be back here around the 17th of February, with a new appreciation for hot showers, and a lot of great memories.
Another description of the past -- this was my trip to Villarica, around new years:
After leaving Valparaiso, I took a night bus to Villarica. Villarica is a smaller city, about 30 minutes away from Pucón. It's right on the shore of Lake Villarica, with amazing views of snow-covered Volcan Villarica across the lake. I'd been wanting to get out of cities a bit more, and Villarica was a good place to go to do that. Pucón, next door, is a major tourist destination for hiking, rafting, climbing, and so on, and Villarica has all of the same options without as much of the tourist scene.
I arrived fairly early on the bus, and most everything was closed, so I walked down to the lake with my backpack, and just sat and watched the water for a while. Beautiful, and relaxing.
I spent a while trying to find the hostel that someone I bumped into had recommended, but it wasn't were the guide book said it would be, and I didn't manage to find it anywhere else. I ended up staying that night in a well-known hostel run by a swiss woman. It was full of Europeans -- I was, I think, the only one there who didn't speak some form of german. I didn't really like the place; I didn't feel comfortable with the people, and it was expensive for what was there. I mention this only because it's probably the first time on the trip when I've been uncomfortable around other travelers or people in this way. I don't know if it was just because it was a small island of a different culture, or if it was because I was American, or what, but something didn't click.
The next day, I took my stuff with me and left early to climb Volcan Villarica. I went with one of the local tour agencies to climb the mountain, as I didn't know what to expect and wasn't sure if it would be wise to do it alone. As it turns out the climb was technically very easy -- the snow was all soft, so we had no use for crampons, and the ice axe was just a walking stick. However, in different weather the climb could have been much more difficult.
The climb was absolutely beautiful. The views of the Pucón area were great, and the day was perfectly clear. From the top you could see several other volcanos, three or four different lakes, small, green mountains, large blue and white mountains... just beautiful. Villarica is anactive volcano, and many days you can see lava boiling inside the crater. Unfortunately, today was not one of those days, but there was still no doubt that we were on top of an active volcano. There was a lot of volcanic gas pouring out of the crater (which I'm sure was just wonderful for my lungs), scattered fumeroles, and piles of volcanic pumice and ropey lava. Looking down from the top you could see old lava flows extending out into the forest in all directions.
I didn't have any plans for New Year's eve that morning, and I was hoping to meet some people on the hike to spend it with. As it turns out, that didn't happen. When I got back to Villarica, though, I found a new hostel and ended up going out to the disco with one of the people in the family that ran the hostel, and several of his friends. They were a group of four guys, probably 19 to 21 years old. I must be getting old, because it felt like they were quite young.
This was an interesting evening. Villarica is a small town, and the bar/disco that we went to was not a particularly good one, but it was safer than the other ones in Villarica (one guy mentioned having a knife pulled up him last time he was at the other bar they were thinking about going to), and the people I was with didn't have a car to get anywhere else. The bar didn't even open 'till one, and things didn't get started until 2 or 3.
Unlike in the states, the dance floor was filled only with couples. Before getting up to dance, you had to ask someone to dance with you. I'm naturally pretty shy, and not speaking the language makes this much worse, so I wasn't really excited about that idea. However, before I really knew what was happening, the guy that I showed up with asked someone he knew to dance, and asked her friend to dance with me.
She was quite friendly and willing to tolerate my broken Spanish, which was especially difficult over the noise in the disco. She was older, blonde, and fairly tall, and did some sort of work in the public heath sector, though I didn't quite understand what. We spent a while talking about all manner of different things, including differences in relationships between the states and Chile.
Although on first impression Chile seems very similar to the states in terms of standards of living and infrastructure, the culture underneath has a different origin. Chile is still a Catholic country, and as such, has a population that does not use condoms, etc.. It definitely shows -- there are a large number of very young mothers everywhere. As I understand it, AIDS has not exploded in Chile yet, at least not like it has in many other South American countries, but health officials are clearly worried. (I think part of the reason why AIDS has not been a major problem is that Chile, historically, has been a fairly insular country, especially under Pinochet.)
I asked later about how the gender roles work out in marriage here, typically. I got the answer I was expecting -- "Very unequal. There's lots of violence."
After talking to her for a while, she asked me how old I was. When I told her she looked a little bit surprised, then told me she was forty. My turn to be a little bit surprised. She was also married, which shouldn't really have been surprising, especially given the ring on her finger, but wasn't something that has crossed my mind. At this point, I was really rather confused. We'd been talking for a while, and flirting a bit, so this threw me for a loop.
After a little while, I went back to the table and talked to the people from the hostel that I came with. They assured me that this was totally normal for Chielean culture. "She may be married, but she's not dead." Or, "She may be 40, but she's not dead." And, my favorite, "In Chile, everybody is single after midnight." I suppose this is to be expected in a country with no divorce law and a high teenage pregnancy rate, but it all seemed very strange. I went back and danced more, and continued talking and having a good time. After an hour or two, she said she was feeling tired and wanted to go home, but asked if I wanted to dance to one more song first. "Sure," I said, "I'd love to." We danced for a while, and after some amount of time I noticed her friends all giggling and laughing. At this point, I knew that I had missed more than one signal to make a move, but I didn't know what they were. Furthermore, I was feeling quite timid. After all, she's married, and 16 years older than me! She left, giving me the usual kiss on the cheek on her way out.
I went back to my table, where I took a lot of flack for not making a move. So it goes. Not long after, we left the bar and wandered down to the beach to watch the sun rise over the lake and the volcano. It was an absolutely beautiful morning.
Wandering around the beach, we ran into several different groups of people in their late teens and early-20s sitting in circles, drinking wine, playing guitar, and singing songs. I could follow along well enough, and it made for a perfect morning and a great start to the new year.
The rest of the first was uneventful. I slept a lot, and went to the beach with the rest of the town. Nice. Relaxed. The day after I took a day hike in Parque Nacional Huequeue, which was absolutely beautiful. That's a story better told by pictures, though...
It's been a while since I've posted a real update, and I'm sorry about that. I've been trying to get caught up on all the stuff that's happened in the past, and get my photos ready, and actually travel.. and I haven't had time for all of it. :)
So, first the physical stuff. I'm still in Puerto Montt. I've spent the past few days exploring both Alerce Andino and Petrohue national parks near here -- what a tremendous difference from the north of Chile.
Puerto Montt is a funny place to be. By rights, I don't really think I should like the city, but I really do. It's a port city -- lots of ferries, lots of cruise ships, and so on. It's really the transit hub of the south of Chile. It´s nice, but not exceptionally pretty. Not too dirty, but not particularly clean either. Downtown´s prominent features are the plaza de armas and two shopping malls. The night life here doesn't look too enticing; I haven't actually gone out late so I can't really say. So, I don't know why I like the city, but I do. Maybe it's because it´s simple, and it's easy to find what you want here.
I got into Puerto Montt on the 4th, in the evening, and didn't do a whole lot other than find a hostel. I didn't really like the place, but it was a warm bed and a roof over my head, so I wasn't going to complain too much. The first night here was the first real rain I've gotten on this trip -- the sky opened up for most of the evening and on into the night. It was actually nice to wander around the city in the rain for a little while, then head home and crawl into bed. I spent the next day wandering around the city, trying to get a feel for it and trying to find information about Alerce Andino national park.
Alerce Andino is a park that's about 45km from Puerto Montt, though it doesn't seem to get a lot of visitors. There was, at one point, about 30-45km of trail forming a loop around the park, which looked like an attractive camping/hiking option. My first stop on the information quest was the CONAF office (roughly, the equivalent of the forest service in the states.) The people in the CONAF office really didn't have a whole lot of information, and they told me that I should skip Alerce Andino and go to a different park instead. So, I did with that advice what generally seems to be the best thing to do with CONAF advise -- ignored it.
I took the bus as close to the park as it would take me. It dropped me and a Chilean couple off at an intersection of two dirt roads at the end of the small town of Correntoso. There were no signs here, and I had no idea in which direction the park even was. The two from Chile had only a slightly better idea than I did, so we all took our best guess and started to walk. Half an hour later, we came to the park border.
The road to the park was spectacular -- green all around, and lots of small, very cute houses with just enough land to raise a few animals and grow a bit of food. Ahead of us was the northern part of the park -- a tree-covered hill rising about 1000m from the ground we were standing on. Just before the entrance of the park, the road crosses a canyon that a small creek has carved out of stone, which makes for a beautiful welcome mat.
There was no one in the first ranger hut, and the first sections of trail were closed, so I took leave of the Chilean couple (who were going to wait for the ranger) and started walking down the road paralleling the park to the next ranger hut 10-12km away. After a little bit, I ran into the CONAF ranger on his bike heading back from lunch. He confirmed that the first sections of trail were closed, as well as a mid-section of the loop, so that the only option was an out-and-back hike of around 8km in the park. Short, but sufficient.
When I got to the second park entrance, and started on the actual trail the 4km that I had left to a decent camping spot started to seem like a longer distance than they looked. The park is a rain forest, and that implies large quantities of mud, and dense but stunning vegetation. The trail delivered on both counts. It was steep, and rough going, but well worth it.
It was easy to imagine that I was in a Tolken world -- the overwhelming lushness of the forest recalled the Elven world. And, and times, the thick, overgrown vegetation, copious spiderwebs, and muddy trail brought to mind the dark forest that Bilbo had to brave on his journey toward Smog.
The park was quite lonely -- I saw only one other couple on the trail, and that was in the middle of my second day. I was wonderful to be out there, and to have some time to myself to reflect on the trip and just to get away from the city. At the same time, I really did start to feel a bit lonely by the end of the third day. Camping alone like that is quite a different experience than traveling alone.
I made it back into Puerto Montt on Thursday evening, after thumbing a ride from a dutch family. They said they were staying in a hostel that was nice, so I joined them there.
I spent Friday in the city, doing errands and finishing up all needed to finish for my Berkeley application. It's done now -- YAY!
Today, I went to a park that the Chilean couple in Alerce Andino recommended to me -- Petrohue. It's a park at the base of Volcan Osorno, another snow-covered, beautiful volcano. The park itself was really pretty -- a river flowing through narrow basalt channels created during one of the eruptions of the volcano. It's also quite accessible, and therefore, quite crowded. The typical rules still applied, though -- go a little ways off, and hide from the trail, and you're all alone.
Probably the highlight of today, though, was walking away from the crowded area, up the road a ways. After a little bit, I found a gate -- went through it and followed tire tracks through the woods. They ended at a wash that had carved out a channel several feet deep in volcanic ash. It was interesting and beautiful just to walk up the channel, looking at all the goop that pours out of the volcano.
I start my mountaineering course in just a few days now. I'm taking a flight to Coyhaique tomorrow. I'll have two days there, give or take, and then I'll be off to the ice for a month. I'm getting really psyched for it -- the trips that I've done out to the wilderness here have been incredible, and I'm sure that this trip will be no different.
I need to end this now, as the net cafe that I'm in is about to close, but I have other updates from Villirica mostly written, so expect more soon.
I just finished uploading the last of the La Serena photos, so they're online now.
I'll get more than that on to radix before my bus leaves today, but I'm not going to have time to do anything with them today, I don't think. I'll aim to have more up before my NOLS course. :)
It's been a while since I've written an update here. I've covered around 1500km of ground since then, visiting Valparaiso, Villarica, Valdivia, and Puerto Montt (I feel like I should have stopped a little north of there at Vares, Puerto to continue the trend). This time saw the transition from the north to the south -- and it's a different world here. I guess Chile is sort of like California in that aspect.
I spent a couple days in Valparaiso (hereafter, Valpo), but left before the big New Years festivities. I was feeling tired of cities, and burnt out on dealing with lots of people, so I just wanted to get south. That said, the time that I did spend in Valpo was nice, and there was a lot going on.
Valpo and San Francisco have a lot a in common, and from what I'm told, they had a lot more in common 50 years ago. Valpo is port town, built against steep hills. There are a number of steep, windy roads that bring to mind the neighborhoods of SF or Lombard street. The architecture is different, though -- each city has its own distinct feel and look. The biggest difference is that Valpo is still a port town, whereas SF is not.
I arrived to Valpo after taking an overnight bus from La Serena. I generally don't like to travel that way, but it seems to be the way things run in the north. I was tired when I got in, and went straight to the Hostel that Mary, from the place in La Serena, recommended. It was clean, and friendly, but didn't have the same common space and open atmosphere of La Serena. After sleeping for a while, I spent a the afternoon wandering through the city. My first reaction was quite negative. I was feeling sick of cities, and people, and cars, etc., and Valpo is not a good city to visit when you're feeling like that. It's streets are a crazy, confusing jumble, and especially this close to New Years they were crowded. At one point, my eyes were focuses on a sign or something else going on near the bus station, as I kept walking forward. I felt something soft under my foot as I started to put it down, and sort of stumbled forward. Looking down, I realized that I just walked into the middle of a bunch of cigarettes that someone was selling on the sidewalk.
As much as my Spanish has been improving, I wasn't able to understand a word of the chewing out I got by the woman selling cigarettes. However, her pointing to her eyes and then to the sidewalk was clear enough. And she was right. I paid her something for the packs of cigarettes that I damaged, though I suspect she'll sell them for full price anyway, and walked back to my hostel. "I need to be more awake than that," I thought. "I'm going to get mugged if I'm not careful."
I rested for a while more, then went back out to the city. This time, though, I enjoyed it a lot more.
I caught the beginning of the New Years festivities, with a big city-wide fair celebrating the different cultures of South America. There were three different stages set up through town at the different parks, each with a different type of music playing. I stopped for a while at each, but spent most of the time watching a "battle of the bands" contest (and, no, the amateur bands in Valpo aren't any better than those in the states. A good song or player now and then, but on the whole the atmosphere was better than the music). While the bands were playing, people walked around selling different things, including bags of confetti. When people threw it, it had an effect sort of like snow, that was quite pretty. Probably my favorite part of the evening was watching two young families have a big confetti fight through most of the evening. Latin American cultures, in general, seem to be more family oriented than ours.
The next day I spent walking around Valpo, riding the ascensores, and visiting one or two of the museums there. I then caught a bus to Villarica.
The first day visiting any new city, I'm finding, is hard. The second day is always better. At least, that was the case for every city I've been to since La Serena. I think the moral of the story is to take it easy on the first day, and not try to do to much. Also, of course, make sure that you're doing more than just a long string of first days.