Greetings from the tiny town of Hornopiren! I am situated east and south of the bay of Ancud perched on the edge of a fjord. The water weaves around high mountain cliffs that are covered with thick foliage including prehistoric looking giant ferns.
The group is back after a 10 day stint in Vodudahue, an organic farm part of Pumalin Park, a private reserved owned by Douglas Tompkins an expatriot businessman spending his fortune preserving wilderness areas in Chile and Argentina. A very unique situation this farm.. I won´t go into the politics now, just a bit about the trip:
A particularly awesome moment was the boat ride to this farm... we had a surprise stop at hotspots or Thermas. the silky soft mud bottom was filled with hot water you could change the temperature of by diverting streams.
Additionally, a hike we took up a mountain through thick foliage, generally ferns and bamboo giving way to mosses and trees in riparian areas led us to an amazing waterfall. It was graced with two alerce trees...famed, now rare trees of chile and argentina that take a long time to grow and were almost cut down to extinction before being legally preserved. they are very old and tall, similar to redwoods of northern california. we took a brief dip in the freezing cold water, it was super refreshing and nice, because i hadn´t shower in quite some time!
As for laboring...Work started at 8am and we preformed tasks until lunch. farm tasks included weeding, sheep tackling (in order to trim their toe nails) pruning, road maintenence and seed collecting. Days were often wet with a few, glorious summer days thrown in. The temperate was moderate and would only really heat up if the sun out.
There is much much much to share and I will save it for Puerto Varas. Just a taste but think: sea lion colony, boat ride from hell, fresh baked bread, being close to your meat (slaughtering a sheep that we later ate at an asado de cordero) much ecology, and gorgeous southern stars.
apologies for the rapid and unedited nature of this post.
love from the south, Christina.
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