Greetings from Puerto Varas, a small town on a lake, Lake Llanquihue. It is most quaint. currently it is infused with some unusual cultural fesitivies, the Prostfest is here for all Aleman, that is the spanish word for German residents and descendents here this weekend. I use Spanish frequently and keep the dictionary on me so that I may improve my vocabulary. The accent is not hard to understand generally, Santiagans speak fast however.
When i first arrived I was most miserable with a case of tonsilitis. After a trip to the doctors and a week of phlegm filled frustration , I improved and had no problems since. The trip to here was long, I lost a full day in transit and woke up in summertime with no concept of actual time. It was a blurry beginning to a new chapter which is so far, amazing.
Favorite food item thus far: mariscos (seafood, shellfish) and empanadas... the empandas are baked pastries that come filled with apple or cheese or meat. a filling treat indeed!
We have just returned from our first group foray into the field. And briefly the group is 15 other kids and two wonderful instructors, Esther and Dan. It is a Wildlands Studies program where we have three separate field courses that require a significant amount of work from identifying birds (on field quizzes that are actually somewhat stress... as in, oh no, I only saw that plant when it was flowering, what the heck is it without those orange, bottle like flowers! I also can´t seem to find the question mark on this key board some ! will suffice. We also do field surveys and study land conservation practices of the places we go. I will later write a 2500 word research paper by hand and turn in 30 field journals written during my time here. Its a lot of work, but its great and there are other suffering and experiencing and loving and hating it all with me.
But the first trip to the field was an 11 day stay on Chiloe Island. It is Chile´s largest island and one of the rainiest places in the world. We first stayed at a biological station, Senda Darwin where alot of plant and bird research takes place. it has fragmented north patagonian forests that are convinient to study. it was also a place charles darwin went and hated (he called it a 'miserable hole' and said that 'only amphibians could like it' mostly due to the year round rainfall).
highlights were sunbathing at 730 pm, followed by a 10pm sunset... so incredible!! group cooking and dinners, story time at night, learning to bird watch and swimming in a swimming hole that was more of small, slow flowing creek littered with cow pies. hopefully better places to swim in the future.
Following the Senda we left for Chiloe national park. the park, set on another lake quite near the coast (at this point it is the west coast of the island, so when facing west we had a spectactular view of ocean, big, uninterrupted and fraught with tempests). after one night in the front country we set off for a remote beach called Cole Cole. The hike was long, over 10 miles of mostly beach hiking followed by a steep incline and descent over a large hill with a severely muddied trail. My blisters were large, my pack sandy, and my boots wet by the end of it. we forded a flooded area too.
Cole Cole itself was beautiful. the campground was recessed from the beach in small clearings in the thick, Valdivian forest. treeless circles with picnic tables connected to each other through muddy forest trails no larger than deer trails. we filtered water that was amber colored due to the high amount of naturally occuring tanins. the waves broke in a heavy barrel on shore usually between one and one and a half meters. birds and seas cuold be seen out to see as well as several washed up penguins that were distinguishable only by their remaning feet or feathers.
Cole Cole was wet. rain pants and jacket were on all the time and when it was dry, the sun wasn´t out for long. i was cold to the core mostly. energy was zapped from me by the time it was 10, and just barely dark. it was extremely rewarding to cook our own meals, having brought all our own food in and be a self containted, self sufficient unit more or less. one treat was Calafate berries that populate the edge of the forest. they grow on thick, thory bushes but are similar to blue berries in size and stature. pretty good to add to one´s oats in the morning.
I snapped some beautiful sunset pictures and ones of me poking out from Nalca, giant ferms that look so prehistoric. they are the size of couch cushions or larger, incredible.
Now that we are back in town there is a lot to be done before our next trip. we must buy groceries for 10 days in our cook groups and pack the food. i must also buy new foot inserts to try and decrease the rubbing in my boots. i also want to do research for my research project on the South American volcano, Chaiten (if you have any great sources, send them my way!).
So far Chile is magnificent, the people are kind and interesting, they are helpful and I find their culture to be comforting, its value of hospitality, genorosity and a notion of stewardship for the environment in most cases. the landscape is ranges wildly, i saw volcanoes flying in, many lakes, the beach.
the next trip about 21 days long is a trip to an organic farm in Parque Pumalin, a privately owned (American owned) reserve in region ten of Chile. we will be working on an organic farm which I am most looking forward to. following that a backpacking trip to the Chochamo Valley follows.
All my love to you. Best, Christina Australis.
please feel free to post a comment or email me at christinatabacco@gmail.com
Excellent reporting from the Southern Hemisphere. I think I share Mr. Darwin's appraisal of Cole Cole. Apparently the Chilotes' "rapid and closed speech, local slang, mythical folklore, and style of food, tools, and architecture were and still are uniquely different from their counterparts on the mainland. (Frommers) IT is a place with limited contact with the outside world, and many of the island's residents live in dire poverty. Chiloe's 70 churches are built entirely of wood (no nails). It is a rare form of architecture created by the fusion of cultural traditions of the indigenous people and the Jesuit missionaries.
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