Bump in the Night

It was just eight months ago that I was sitting up and felt the little rental cabin jump. Chocking it up to an earthquake, I paid no attention. Then it happened again a couple hours later. The next day I raced outside in my pajamas thinking that it had snowed, when it was...of all unbelievable things...the results of a volcanic explosion.

Today, out at our unfinished house, we felt it shake and sway around noontime. Now, tonight, as I am glued to all the hoopla over tomorrows historical events in the US, at 12:45 am on January 20th, the cabin jumped again. It is a quiet night. No traffic, no music pounding as is typical during this week of festivities and tourists. Perfect silence. The sky is clear with brilliant stars and there is absolute silence.

I sincerely hope that I am simply being paranoid, and this is simply normal earthquake activity. But, as I felt back on May 2nd, this just did not feel like a normal tremor. I hope I am wrong.

Here is a short excerpt from my original keyboard poundings on the events of May 2, 2008:

"One-One Thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand," no, that's not right,. That's for lightening. Try again. "Put masking tape on the windows, or board them up, move patio furnature inside," no, that's night right either, that would be a hurricane. Let's see, "Move to an interior room of the house, a bathroom perhaps, best a cellar or basement though." No, that is for a tornado. Alright, how about, "Seek high ground!" Sunami. Nothing seemed just right. No matter where I searched my middle-aged, girl scout brain, I could not for the life of me, find a file labled, "What to do in case of a volcanic erruption!" And so it goes...

May 1st, 2008. Futaleu, Region X, Chile......


I am ashamed to say that my first thoughts were about beer, just in case things got jiggy, but then my head cleared and I filled bottles of water before the water got cut off. I'm actually ashamed of alot of my initial reactions...excitement, wonder, disbelief, and yes, excitement! We've been through hurricanes, step-children and several earthquakes of significance, but a volcano was something that would take some time to wrap my reality around. I did not have the presence of mind to consider just what this event might entail for everyone. For the people, the animals, the country. And I am ashamed now at my initial reaction. By the way, here is how we first met Futa...


For a long, rambling read about the event, and things up to then, here is the link to my work in progress: http://volcanoblows.blogspot.com/

This post is perhaps my favorite. Mostly because I've written the beginning and the end, but it's all the things in between that sustain me. Or at the least, keep me entertained. There are all the stories, and incidents in between...the funny ones, and the ones where I want to make Greg stop the truck and let me walk out my frustrations and anger. The days and nights when I cannot tell the difference between sleeping inside, or out, unless it's raining or snowing. At the end of the day (most days) though, I have a deep feeling of happiness, and I am grateful for this adventure. And, I still fully intend to act out the last part of the screenplay outline for my movie...found here:

http://futalandia.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-movie-futalandia.html

I am considering renaming this movie screenplay outline "Slap the Old Man".

A Update on Summer ( January) in Futa

Ongoing efforts to clear ash from streets and common areas may be making a small difference, however, rain the past few days helps tremendously. And then, much as I often forget, strange, inexplicable weather hits. For two days now, the temperatures have dropped below 40F at nights, creeping into the mid-to-high 50's during the day, cloudy, windy, spritzes of rain here and there. Stove pipes are puffing across town again, when just a week ago children were splashing in blue plastic pools in front yards and the favorite watering hole, is just that...a small cool cove on the river just north of the bridge over Rio Espolon.

This is all strange, and I will be interested to see if the Futa website (www.futaleufu.cl) begins to post it's own weather information gathered from the brand-new weather station constructed on the front lawn of the town hospital.

The backpackers have invaded and the rafting companies are out early, fitting them with flotation devices and ominously dinged-up helmets. Backpacks are stored behind counters in the tiendas and internet cafes. There is no granola cereal to be found...I should have remembered that from last year. Also, bananas fly off the shelves and extra blocks of cheese await mounds of fresh pancito. Nuts, and raisins, and truckloads of beer arrive, batteries for cameras and flashlights, extra bottled water, bandaids, and single packets of cheap shampoo. Lines at the ATM machine, globs of happy kids stretched out under trees in the little city square park, airing out stinky wet clothes, comparing bruises and hostel recommendations.

It's been a busy holiday season with all the new permanent residents from Chaiten settling in. Shortages of propane, varnish, paint, window and door hardware as new houses go up, or old houses are refitted for new occupants. No gasoline or diesel in Futa now, not even for the outrageous 1,000 pesos a liter we were used to. You must make the couple-hour drive to La Junta, or Palena now, and even there it is still over 600 pesos a liter.

My motto now is "Get it While they Got it!" and I mean that. Get it, store it, freeze it, dry it, buy it. When I see the red flag up at the meat market, I go buy meat, even if I don't need meat at the moment, because it might be a week, or two before more meat comes in. Milk? Buy it by the case. Freeze butter. Dry some soup vegetables. Stock up on cans of cholgas and chorritos. With 500 new people in town, combined with tourists, there is some readjusting to ordering goods now, and shopkeepers are just now realizing it.

The new Post Mistress is handling things best she can. The old Post Master had only to check his bread (he ran a small bakery), watch TV and collect mail incoming and outgoing, which was all he did...collect. Nothing went out, nothing came in. The Post Mistress, has a store in which she sells used clothing, handles selling bus tickets and flights. Now we add the voluminous amount of packages being sent into and out of Futa by displaced Chaiten residents and relatives, not to mention the sorting and distribution of found mail into alphabetical cubby holes, tourist inquiries, and her normal female duties which I suspect include cooking, cleaning and shooing children off to school on time, and...... she's frazzled. I also suspect she bakes bread when she has nothing else to do. I forgive her for thinking my last name is 7ansen, and yesterday when she asked if I could come back the next day to check for a package, I agreed. Absolutely.

So, Futa is finding it's footing, strange as it may be...a forceful, determined path to normalcy, despite the fact that the charm about Futa is that it is FAR from normal. I fear I have been vilified for two reasons here. First is my ongoing dispute with the builder, wherein I have withheld the final payment due to the fact that he abandoned us with an unfinished house. Now, he has creditors he has not paid AT ALL and they question me...."H says you haven't paid him for building your house, so he can't pay us. Is that so?" Shit. The fact is that he was paid, and paid and paid. And the last small payment is so insignificant that he hasn't bother to request it...because he knows he did a shitty job and didn't even bother to finish his shitty work. The other vilification I think, and maybe I am paranoid, is because I have often posted on some forums, and responded to inquiries, saying that the situation with ash in Futa is NOT resolved. And that in the dry, windy days of January, February and March, it would be intolerable. I stand by that. And that until the situation with the Chaiten Volcano is understood, and a pattern has emerged, I personally would not want to have spent several thousand dollars on a dream trip to this area of Patagonia to raft, or fly fish, or bike, or hike, only to find myself hunkered down in a mask and eye-protection. So, I think it is possible that it may be construed that I attempted to circumvent a tourist season in Futa. Some funny looks, a few snubs, a comment or two lead me to ponder the possibility that I have pissed some people off. That one sole commentator might steer away an entire tourist invasion in contravention of well-established, well-funded tour companies is silly.

So, onward, even if it is a weaving, disjointed onward...as long as - at the least - it's three steps forward, only one back. That's progress.

It's a Small World, Afterall....

Yes, my world is small. About 1600 people small, take away the 1598 people who do not converse with me in English and you might be able to grasp the gush of garbled words that come out of me when I meet someone who says, "Hello! Do you speak English?" At first there is the brain synapse that happens...someone spoke words in English....stay where you are...no need to translate...proceed.., then I imagine my face breaks out into that look you see on someones face when they have been rescued after floating on the ocean for months in a rubber dingy. Then, it happens. The floodgate opens and ashamedly I cannot shut my mouth.

".......Yes I speak English where are you from me I originally moved from Florida well not really I moved here from Panama and before that Costa Rica but well actually from Florida I have lived here in Futa for a year now well not just in Futa I have a house out in the country but it's not finished I am waiting for electric but you know the volcano blew up and everyone left and I am still waiting but I rent a house in town not really a house just a little cabin to stay in while the house is finished we are finishing it ourselves my husband and I but it's so difficult to get materials now that so many people from Chaiten moved here it's beautiful here isn't it but different a small town like this is amazing but sometimes isolating and we should be out cutting wood and doing varnish work I have to check on the electric situation there are no phone lines cellphone or internet access out there so we come and stay in town to use the internet and wash clothes and catch up on the news yes we have three kids, all grown they live in the US the weather is odd right now when the dry wind blows the ash is unbearable isn't it you should have seen it last month we had to wear masks again...."

It's a shameful display of verbal desperation. And finally I stop. I see the look of "Uh oh, crazy woman" on the victims' face, and say, "Well, listen, nice talking to you...have a wonderful trip!" and take myself out of the conversation space to avoid further self humiliation and think, "I wouldn't want to talk to me if I met me," or something ridiculously similar. However, I feel lighter, a little tingly and elevated in spirit! A release of pent-up English all sploshed out making room for more, building up for the next unsuspecting English speaker.

I will admit that learning Spanish, especially Chilean (Castellano) is not the wonderfully exciting challenge so many young visitors to Chile find it be be. No. Not at all. In Costa Rica and Panama, there was an ongoing battle between the countries as to who spoke the better Spanish. Panama claimed the honor saying Tico's (as Costa Rican's cutely and lovingly refer to themselves as) ruin the language with their "itos" and "ititos" at the ends of words. Chileans, however strangely enough, proudly will tell you they speak the worst Spanish of all Latin countries.

Once we made the decision to move to Chile, I thought to myself, "At least this time I will not have the added task of learning a new language". We arrived for our first exploratory visit in September 2007, stumbling sleepily off the plane in Santiago at 5:30 am and were greeted by immigration and customs officers.

"gbllano shagu nabadando llegrillorillo," say the handsome Chileno man in uniform.

"What did he say?" Greg asks.

"I have no freakin clue. Are we in the right country?"

"gbllano shagu nabadando llegrillorillo," the handsome Chileno man in uniform says again.

I just hand him the sweaty clutch of passport, ticket and immigration forms and tell Greg to do the same.


Let's put aside that things are called by different names here than in any other Spanish-speaking country. Let's put aside the fact that they speak very fast. They also drop the ends of words, as if it isn't hard enough to distinguish between llanta, lleno, and llave in the best of circumstances. Then we add the slang words, and little cutsyisms (I made that word up for fun). By the time I can look up and find some root of a word in my Spanish dictionary which looks remotely like one of the 30 words I've just heard, we find ourselves shoved through customs and immigration out into the main lobby of the airport with forty or so taxi drivers all speaking at the same time, quickly and badly, vying for our business.

Thankfully there is a nice cafe just to the left of where you exit the customs area with baggage. We escaped to a table and had several cups of coffee while we attempted to get our wits untangled. Then, a deep breath, snatch up the backpacks, and off into a bright-blue Chilean adventure....

Ugly Girl Invited to Prom

When I was in high school, it was just after the "hippie" era. We were on the screaming, beginning edge of the no-return ride of the neo-conservative movement. Hippies were has-beens, by-gone's, old stoners, destined to spend the rest of their lives in jail, or on the public dole. For someone with a hippie heart, peace, love, and social consciousness, this was a time where one was seen as, and what in high school was referred to as, a "freak". I was a freak.

While classmates screamed in orgasmic ecstasy over Bob Seger and Kiss, I sat in my little bedroom fondling my Janis Joplin LP, or flipping through my collection of CSNY (if you need me to spell that out, you are far too young to appreciate this walk down memory lane). I wore overalls to school, with a tube top in the summer, and a flannel shirt in the winter...all long after if was popular to be "rebellious". I've been a non-conformer, and a quasi-socialist/bleeding-heart liberal since I was six, when I defended Freddy Freymeyer from our tormenting classmates because he was 1.) fat, 2.) he smelled, and 3.) he was ADOPTED!

When I was 13 I was asked to leave the Methodist Youth Group because I questioned how the pastor could support a government that advocated war. I commandeered my mother's old roller skates, and along with a sole friend, we made African caftan dresses which we wore (naked underneath) while roller skating up to Broadway in Greenville, Ohio to buy Swisher Sweets. We would later smoke them secretly in the city park down by the swinging bridge. I cared deeply about the kids starving in Haiti, who had worms in their bellies, and not about the Bibles people wanted to send, and wondered why they didn't spend money for wells, and medicine and schools.

I was a dork, a strange one. But I always thought that there was hope for the dire circumstances people found themselves in, whether in the US, or the rest of the world. People laughed at me. She's too serious, they said. I always felt that if we all believed in something different, it could happen. Gog (or God, as I meant to type) helps them that help themselves they said. But, I was a dork. I was the strange, goofy, silly girl. And people laughed and the only dates I had were ones with boys who didn't care about what their parents thought. No boy who wore a lettered jacket, or whose parents belonged to a country club ever wanted to date me.

And I've not changed much. Except now...I have a date for the prom! And I may be wrong, but I think he is principled, and wildly intelligent, and witty, and I'm hugely honored that he asked me out for a date. He believes in the things I do. Hope. Responsibility. Sharing. Laugh all you want! You might be saying, "SUCKER! He's just taking you for a ride, he has ulterior motives." But you know what, I don't care. Because...

On January 20th, I have a date with someone who at least acts like he cares. Someone who will not embarrass me. Someone who has already said that although we might not agree on where we will have dinner, or what music we will listen to, he cares about, and will consider my opinions. Someone who will consider my thoughts and opinions. Imagine that. And I suspect that he will not order FILL- IT- MIG -NON at dinner and pass out halfway through the night so I have to drive him home. And my date...who knows if it will turn out to be a wonderful relationship or not...is the first guy to never, ever, ever laugh at me for hoping that this one day, in this time of my life, will be a day that I can be proud of who I am walking into the dance hall with.

Barak Obama 44th President of the United States of America (my date for the next 4 or maybe 8 years....wish me luck)

Math between Neighbors

Nono's Kitchen.


Bosque paid our electric bill while we were on the trip south. (11,000 pesos) We bought four liters of gas for him to bring back. (2,000 pesos) I only had a 10,000 peso bill on me, and he had no change. So...he made us a huge loaf of fresh bread and brought it over, and we called it even. However, the bread was SO good, I did up some home-made lemon basil fettuccine with my new hand-crank pasta machine and took it over to him. Now I was a little up, so he gave me a jar of gooseberry jam, and we called it even again.

Actual money matters aside, gifts and treats and trades between neighbors is a common act. Some fresh cherries, dried plums, bread, snippets of a favorite rose bush, a portion of a prolific vegetable from the garden. There is always a cup of mate beside a blazing wood stove, and in the country, a chipped jelly jar of chicha. A summertime visit often ends with the duena de la casa poking through a green garden with a kitchen knife to cut off a leafy bouquet of lettuce as a parting gift, along with some tomatoes or aji peppers.

My reciprocal gifts are usually some yogurt grains (not found easily in these parts) or some of my bread, and now that I have the pasta machine, some home-made pasta. And while not original on my part, Nono and Ismael like the idea of my little pot of honey butter I brought once.

I cannot match the resourcefulness of my neighbors - both in town - and in the country, so it is difficult for me to keep up. However, gift giving here doesn't seem to be a score-card keeping event. Nothing is expected from me in return, because they realize as a severely limited resourceful person, I am just hanging on a thread and will be lucky to get through a winter without starving or freezing to death. (Yes, she sets a pretty table, but what will she put on it in the winter if she doesn't get a vegetable garden set in?! Poor, silly, hapless gringa!)

But I thought I fixed Nono this time...when I bought my very inexpensive, hand-crank pasta machine, I bought her one too. And when we visited yesterday, we were talking about making pasta (I brought it up, of course). Yes! We made pasta the same way! Rolling out the stiff, reluctant dough on a wood table top, rolling, flouring, rolling. Then folding and cutting, and shaking out the strands, flopping them on another part of the table to dry a little. AH HA! No more, I said, and went to the truck to get her gift. It was the best! Wonderment, awe, then ten minutes of trying to figure out how the pieces went together, and then finally, a sigh of appreciation for what the machine would accomplish. And it was then that I realized I had robbed myself. Of the opportunity to make and present perfect little mounds of perfect little pastas as a neighborly gift. Shot myself in the foot.

Last night as I made a third batch of linguine, Nono was making her spaghetti. I can see flour sack towels spread around her kitchen with mounds of drying pasta...and maybe next time, some day in the dead of winter when the roads are too deep with snow and ice, she will gift me some fresh eggs, and I will have thought up something else to gift her.

New Year Reflections

The past year was a good one, a difficult one, and a sad one.

Good because we are in Chile.

Difficult because we are in Chile.

Sad, for a multitude of reasons. Our treasured, dear, dear friend, Joe, died...only in his mid-40's, after a long battle with his soul. Another friend, a swarthy, mean, foul-mouthed and wonderfully lovely Canadian, Larry passed away. A former neighbor and beloved family friend, a young man of 17, drowned at a beach in Panama on Christmas. We put our dog, Max, to sleep at the young age of just four.

But there has also been joy, and fun, and hope. Our incredibly handsome grandson, Robbie,
entertained us for weeks in Florida...and we can't begin to say how that energized and filled
us with joy, hope and fun. Dessa is engaged to an incredible young man, Vaughn, who has two
lovely children, Blake and Katie. Chris is serious with Melissa, who is an absolute fit with
the family, almost like she was born to us, but that wouldn't be right...right? Our parents are
doing well, and are happy and secure.

We didn't really spend much time reflecting, as we had done on previous holiday seasons. We
spent one memorable Christmas day hanging on the edge of a pool in Costa Rica, too sweaty and
tired to do anything but spoon ceviche into our mouths. Another Christmas was spent in the
Western Highlands of Panama, rocking on the front porch of our little cabin, itching our coffee gnat bites after a day of harvesting coffee, listening to a Miles Davis CD, Kinda Blue. This past Christmas, we spent here in Futa, holed up in our rental cabin in town; Max, the psycho dog having just killed the neighbors cat, we were forced to keep all the windows and doors shut
in the stifling heat while neighbors cooked young lambs outside, the music blared and people danced and drank all night. This year, aside from our desire to be with family, was the best.

To sleep under the Patagonian stars on a bluff overlooking Lago General Carrera, watching
mysterious lights, a late-night asado with Pedro, a little wine, some Pisco (not a good combination in retrospect) and a sunny Christmas day floating in a dazzling marble cave in the
middle of the lake.

We did reflect a little. Mostly we were amazed we survived the temptation to just give up and
pack up. It was a very real, and very joint hitting the wall moment, so close we even started
looking for rentals back in Panama. I think the problem for me was I looked in the mirror
sometime around December 4th and almost passed out. Who the HELL IS THAT?!?! Greg, ever unobservant only noticed that I was no longer my peppy, go get 'em self, and finally when after two days of solemn behavior on my part, asked me if I was happy, and I burst into tears. Then of course, I wrote my earlier letter posted here to a friend back home. Then ensured the
almost disastrous decision to give up.

Life is difficult, and interesting, happy, sad, but for us, the last seven years have not been dull. I don't even know how to behave when we go back to the US and we are in a restaurant, or
in a checkout line, or especially at a Super Market. Holy crap! In a restaurant in the US in
September I ordered a salad. The waitress asked what dressing I wanted.

"What do you have?"

"Blue cheese, Italian, Russian, Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar and oil, Lemon Honey Mustard, BBQ

Buffalo Spice, Sweet Valdalia Onion...."

I sit there, mouth open, mind spinning in a gastronomic dream world, then Greg nudges me.

"Vick?"

"Oh, I'll just have vinegar and oil, do you have that?"

She looks at me like I'm some fucking retard from the planet Volcan (which I am) and scribbles
with her pen.

I bought BOOKS! And soft cotton underwear that don't cut off my circulation. I bought good
pens and paper, and don't even let me loose in a hardware or craft store. I bought a bolt of
cloth and pillows and sheets that don't feel like burlap, I bought tubes of antibiotic cream
that I could pick up and handle and READ. I stood grinning in checkout lines, happy to have
been able to browse and look and handle the things I had piled in my cart. No stumbling over
words and descriptions. No drawing pictures of super glue or headphones to show to a clerk
behind a counter who would then look at me with a dull expression. One of my favorite
check-out experiences was at a discount store in North Carolina (Murphy...great small
town...stop if you are in the area) where I had found a nice bolt of flannel material.

"Look like yer fixin to make sumpin," she said.

"Actually, yes! I think I'm going to make a duvet cover for a feather comforter."

"Fethers! I looooovvvvveee fethers! I got me a cuple a fether pillers last year. I jus

looove my fether pillers! Well, gud fer ya, hope ya like the m'tarial!"

AND ANOTHER THING that just came to mind! You people in the US are SPOILED by customer service. Whine, whine, whine about waiting for Cable TV guys, or a call back for a complaint. I could kick your ass! Try waiting 9 months to get electric hooked up to your house! Imagine trying to buy varnish, only to have someone tell you that even if you pay up front when
ordering, "Nope." Imagine a store clerk just shrugging his shoulders when yo ask why there
hasn't been any fresh vegetables for the past week. And the post office. Oh...don't even
start with that one! It cost me a dollar a Christmas card, and I'll bet ya the recipients get
them by March. The old postal clerk was fired for doing god knows what with the mail and no one received anything for three months. The new postal clerk can't tell the difference between the number 7 and the letter L, so thinks my last name is 7ansen, and never thinks to look in the little "L" cubby hole. EL-AY, I tell her, EL-AY! AH EN-AY...and so on.

So, why, or why, didn't we pack it up...just say forget it and leave? I don't know. It's one
of those sick relationships I suppose. She's bitch but she so pretty! He's a selfish asshole, but god do we have a fun time!

Well, maybe, kind of. But I think through all the frustrations it comes down to four reasons we haven't given up...

1. It is the most stunningly beautiful place we have ever seen.
2. It is safe, secure and stable.
3. The people are wonderful.
4. We spent all our money so we have to make it work.

Mostly it is the people, the real, country people. Like Nono, who will make fun of me mercilessly, yet hug me tight and fend of the vultures. Ismael who kindly, and patiently will show Greg how to sharpen his chain-saw blade, or drag him off fishing for a half day (thank you Ismael!). Or Francisca, who always has a hot cup of coffee ready, and some kuchen with gooseberries on a plate when we stop by. Or Bosque, in his high, sing-song voice, dancing in his little living room next door to our rental house, a pan of fry bread cooling on the counter. Bosque, who shuts the drive gate when we forget, or shows me how to dry plums.

No matter. We stay. And I wonder what I will think and write next year? Will I look back and think what a whining ninny? I hope so. Because if next year I still don't have electric and can't buy a gallon of varnish without a Presidential Order, I think I just might start auditioning for survival reality TV shows and make it worth my while.

Night, Ladies and Gentlemen!

Lago General Carrera and Cavernas Marmol

Brief stay in Coyhaique for some car maintenance and new tires. Restful outside of town in the hostel, but a freaking nightmare to drive in town.

South from Coyhaique a side jog and down to a little place called Rio Tranquilo, we found a little sign that read "Camping Natural". After viewing small, box like rooms in hostels charging 30,000 pesos a night, we chose the "flop out the mattress and tarp" option, but thought we would check out a campsite or two, depending on what they charged. A long, switch-back infested road led down to Lago Carrera General with it's mineral turquoise waters and a little clearing on a ledge. Just 50 feet further, a little brightly painted log home sat, and down below that, a sand beach with a dock, wooden boats and a couple of overly friendly campo dogs. No one was home, so we decided to set up, and ask later. The lake is so beautiful it's painful to look at...the color of one of my crayons long ago, one that you knew didn't exist except as a little wax pencil encases in a piece of paper for coloring a make-believe lake.





Pedro rolled down the hill a few hours later. Camping was free. We started a fire, unrolled the mattress in the back of the truck and snapped up the tarp in case of bad weather. All we needed to do if it started to rain was open the front car doors and pull the tarp backwards over the bed of the truck and tuck it under the mattress. But the weather held, and after a walk on the beach, we kept on our coats in the hard wind, and crawled under the feather comforter and watched the stars, and a very strange, large zig-zagging light across the summer Patagonian sky. It never really got dark, and at 5:30 am, it got light again.

Christmas Eve day, we fished, and hung out...I washed some dishes and roamed the beach filling up my pockets with rocks I don't have a use for. Pedro and his friend Tito invited us to a three-course lunch of sopa de marisco, smoked and roasted chicken and lavish salad. Later, I went to town with Pedro, who was waiting for a part for the brakes on his truck (nice to know after we navigated the treacherous road of switchbacks) and bought some food and beer. Pedro stopped at a little house and bought some beef and a lamb shank, which we had later at an asado down by the beach with some wine and Pisco Sour. We crawled into our little truck bed around midnight and by 8 am, we woke to a fabulous Christmas Day.

For Christmas, Pedro took us on his boat to the Cavernas (or Capillas) de Marmol, an unearthly place just off the western shore of Lago General Carerra close to Rio Tranquilo. Marble. Marble islands 150 feet high, carved by water over these past 300,000 years. Turquoise blue water washing white, smooth rocks carved into hobbit-like caves...the water and marble making light and shadow meld into amazing scenes. We spent an hour on the cavern tour, then packed up the truck and headed out to the Ventisqueo Expediciones. This turned out to be one of those "had I known" situations. After an alleged 10-minute walk turned into a half an hour, and entailed a vertical goat path up a rock wall, we reached the look-out platform and viewed an amazing, but receding ice field and glaciers. An iridescent chalk-blue ice field lay 800 feet below, with a surprising covering of rock and sand. The view from the platform would have been wonderful but for the realization that I had to go ... back... down. Which I did, on my ass, for one-third of the trek. Although we still had long light, we were beat, and decided to head back to Rio Tranquilo and find a hostel for a bed and shower. We found a cheap, warm little hostel in town, already filled with Israeli backpackers and crashed for the night.

Mirador del Rio

Knowing poor little La Junta as we do, we weren't anxious to stay there, nor were we anxious to drive all the way in the increasingly bad weather with only an hour or so of light, all the way to Puyiuiapi. After a small argument about passing a fallen tree...between gouging the truck on one side...or sliding into a ditch on the other...and after a nice truckload of men pulled us out of the ditch, we saw a sign for a hospadaje called Mirador del Rio. It is six kilometers from la cruce de La Juntal. Fearing a Bed and Breakfast price tag, we stopped anyway to ask. The Mirador del Rio is one of several rural turismo businesses in the area where local families host travelers in their homes. Here, we stayed in a cozy house with the family on their farm bordering the Rio Palena. This was one of the best stays of all our travels. We were settled in and having coffee in the kitchen with Francisca and her husband, chatting for an hour before we realized they had no electricity. Gooseberry jam cooled in jars on the kitchen counter and the old wood stove blazed. They fired up a generator for a couple of hours so we read in our room and listened to music. The winds were incredibly fierce all night long.

In the morning, after they came in from milking the cows, Fransisca put a large pot of fresh milk on the wood stove to pasteurize and prepared a nice, typical breakfast with homemade bread, homemade jam, homemade butter. The grandchildren, Barbara, seven, and Luca, four, gave us a tour of the farm. We collected eggs, took a walk down by the river, Luca chased sheep while Barbara pointed out and named different plants and flowers. I sat out on the porch having coffee and a cigarette watching the weather clear and saw a matte cup sitting on the ledge. It had some kind of skin covering and I asked Barbara what the covering was. "Juevo de Baca," she said. Ah, skin from the nuts of a cow. Oh lordy. We hung around talking with Fransisca and her husband, asking about the small town of Raul Marin Balmaceda, where we had been headed until the number of downed trees and hideous winds had turned us back. They said it is not possible to get there right now because of the road, and the bridge is out. There is a hot springs you can visit close by, another 15 kilometers down the road, for 1,500 pesos, rustic, but nice. Their eldest son is a certified fishing guide in the area. Mirador del Rio was by far one of the most pleasant places we have ever stayed, so much we hated to leave. But the South of Chile was calling and by 1:30 pm, we were headed towards Puyuhaipi and onward.

December 20, 08..Starting South...

We took of for our Holiday trip south on a windy, rainy Saturday (December 20?) towards La Junta, at the last minute planning a side trip to a little know town on the coast called Raul Marin Balmaceda. Even in the blustery weather, with the clouds and rain squalls, the road just past the bridge into La Junta held great promise. As the clouds and rain passed in waves, we could see high, snow-covered mountain peaks along the road. Rio Palena here...approached the halfway mark to La Junta and the weather worsened. The two stops we made prior to reaching the bridge at La Junta might have been a premonition of things to come, had we been paying attention. Both stops were massive old trees splintered and thrown by the uncharacteristic winds just moments before we came upon them. At the second stop, two men on foot helped drag off the shattered trunks, along with Greg and two wet. freezing, unfortunate bicyclists from New Zealand. At one point, both men turned and ran up the road, looking back. I was watching Greg from the truck (someone had to take pictures) when just to his right a massive limb fell from 40 feet up a tree, crashing on the berm of the road. I could see the look on his face, "Oh! So that's why they were running." Anyway, back to the turn off to Raul Marin Balmaceda. From the intersection, it is 72 kilometers of some of the most impressive, true Patagonia land. Some hard, well-kept farms, forests, rivers, waterfalls and a surprisingly decent road. Except for the damned fallen trees. After tree number two, the winds picking up and the rains becoming colder, we came upon a crew working to clear the biggest tree so far. Chainsaws, chains, a whole crew. A worker came back and said there is no way to get to Raul Marin today...this (the fallen trees) is all the way there, trees down for the next 45 kilometers.