Patagonia

Rumor has it Magellan named Patagonia for the relatively tall natives inhabiting the land, after the giant Patagons of myths and stories.  Even if the original occupants of the region have been killed off by Europeans and sundry, the geography of the place is enough to inspire the awe one might have in the presence of a colossus.

That is to say, the mountains are huge and scary.

Honestly, it's the holidays, school is over, and I think I've just about had it with all the rhapsodical rhetoric.  I'll probably want to get mushy wrapping this whole experience up later, so I'm going to keep it pretty bare-bones here.

Guy, Jon, Murph and I flew to Punta Arenas on the Straits of Magellan.  We met up with Gina and her brother Matt and took a bus north to Puerto Natales.  There were lots of sheep.  From Puerto Natales we took a day-long car tour into Parque Nacional Torres del Paine, the main tourist attraction of Patagonia, where hiking trails encircle a series of jagged peaks and glaciers.  We came back to our hostel and shared an asado set up by the owners, a pair of rambunctious brothers who then stayed up all night with Guy and Murph.  The next day, Gina, Matt, Murph and I went fishing.  Murph caught a trout and fried it for lunch.  We rented camping equipment.  The next day we took a bus back into the park and began a three-day hike.

By the time the hike was finished, I was almost out of money.  I spent the next four days laying low in Punta Arenas, walking around town taking in the sights and museums.  I met an Australian, an Englishwoman and a Swiss fellow and we shared a hostel and had dinner together.

I flew home to Santiago, bought some last-minute gifts, met up with Guy, Jon and Murph at Basic Bar for a few farewell beers, then went back to Ñuñoa and stayed up all night with my host family drinking more beer and frying empanadas.

I went to bed at two and woke up at four to catch my cab to the airport.  My final goodbyes to the Arevalos were a night of greasy fried food and tipsy cheerfulness, which I think is the best possible way to do it.

After 36 hours on five planes in five countries, I got to Milwaukee International at two in the afternoon, caught up with my mom, and we drove home.  We met up with friends and drank cider with brandy and played liar's dice.

Christmas morning, I woke up early to wrap gifts which were quickly unwrapped.  I shaved my beard and my mom cut my hair.  The family came over and we exchanged yet more gifts, and stayed up late singing and drinking.

Behold:

Wreckage on the Straits of Magellan in Punta Arenas

The asado at the hostel in Puerto Natales

Peaks in the Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

Glacier Grey in Torres del Paine

Parque Nacional Torres del Paine

52 Pick-up

USAC was good enough to take us out for a cena de despartido last night. I suggested we make it a semi-formal affair (why not?), and the results were mixed. It was a hell of a time.

Take a look for yourself if you don't believe me.

There are worse things in life than living in a bustling foreign capital with fifty-ish like-minded, adventurous, and friendly kids.

The truth of it is, I'm starting to wonder if there's anything better.

Today I'm finally taking the bus west to Casablanca to visit Orlando, a friend of my father's from his California days. After that, a long weekend of worrying about finals, followed by finals, followed by Patagonia. On Tuesday the 23rd I'll board a flight from Santiago to Milwaukee by way of Peru, Ecuador, Miami, and Charlotte, awkwardly and hesitantly closing the Chile chapter of my life.

I guess readers can expect posts to be infrequent from here on out, if present at all. I hope this has been as enjoyable to read as it was to write, but fat chance enjoying it as much as actually being here. I am a little curious who's been following, so if you feel like it, post your name in a comment. I think my first-grade teacher might have gotten ahold of the URL, so, if you're out there Mrs. Chrisman, hello.

I'm sure I'll post some phenomenal, stunningly enlightened finale, probably on Christmas day.

Chiloé

Time is getting a little tighter with final exams looming in the coming week, so the entry on Chile's southern island of Chiloé will be a direct transcription from my notebook.  A few things to know: Chiloé is at the top of Patagonia.  The largest island in Chile, it struck me as almost the polar opposite of San Pedro de Atacama- small, perpetually cloudy, drizzly, misty, with rolling hills and colorful houses.  The island is reached by ferry from mainland Chile.  One guidebook remarks that the currents in the surrounding waters are too strong to submerge electric lines in, so they're suspended from towers across the channel.  The isolation of the island is said to have fostered the strong mythologies present there.  A brotherhood of male witches, a ghost ship, goddesses and other creatures are omni-present in restaurant names and street kitsch stands.  Curanto, a hodge-podge of seafood, is the signature dish of the island.

11/22/08

9:00 a.m.

On the bus through Puerto Montt

5-year-old Amari asks the woman sitting next to me if I am her son, and she replies yes- my name is Filipe.  When the woman leaves, Amari's attention turns to me.  We don't get far before she realizes, with the help of her mother, that I speak "malo."  She gives me a kiss on the cheek, pulls off my glasses, hands them to me, then turns to her mother and says, "vamos!"  Gabriela may be right about Chilotes.  Gabriela's mantra for travel anywhere in Chile: "cuidado!"  She repeated it when I told her about my Chiloé trip plan, but then corrected herself.  "Actually," she added, "you don't have to worry too much in Chiloé.  The people there are very friendly."  We pass a storefront with a pile of anchor chain amassed in a corner.  The buildings are low, shallow-roofed, colorful.  The vegetation is dewy and lush, nurtured by the precipitous overcast.  Birds of prey cut wide aimless swaths from the sky.  Amari is back and tells me her (surprisingly anatomically correct) doll is named "Bebe."  79 kilometers to Ancud.

The coasts of Chiloé

10:30

Across the ferry, on the Island of Chiloé

Browns, greens, yellows meld together like a painters pallet, rich with the moist fog.  Dead trees bloom with moss and lichens.  The surf is a smokey dull green.

12:30

Ancud

Ancud smells like a spent shotgun shell.  This is the result of the widespread use of wood-burning stoves for heat.  A model with holes for cooking on top was for sale at the hardware store where I bought my poncho.  An unwelcoming, driving rain relented an hour after my arrival.  Misty's hostel recommendation and a very unfriendly tourist assistant have said there are no cars to be rented in the city, so I'm off to Castry where a brochure advertises a 2-door Chevrolet Corsa "Swing" for $20.000 a day.  If I can rent it with my debit card, I think I will.

Castro's "Palafitos", houses on stilts

3:10

Castro

The rental places are all closed today.  The tourist information kiosk in the plaza de armas is closed as well, despite their open sign.

3:45

Lunch at Mary's Restaurant.  No curanto, but the waitress suggests something which turns out to be a large wooden bowl of mussels and clams, with two baked potatoes and a longaniza and a bowl of cilantro soup.  Nothing remarkable.

5:15

Something about Castro's fiordo shores is beautifully depressing; enchanting and haunting.  The stasis of the anchored boats underneath the seemingly perpetual clouds is outdone only by the rotting hulls on the sand.  There is a glimmer of hope in the functional-looking boats dry-docked on stilts, but the purgatorial waiting emanates its own dismay.

The Karolina, in disuse

9:15

Ancud

Exchanged my Monday overnight ticket for Sunday.  If I'm lucky, I won't miss all of class.  The hostel has the same stove the one in Pucon had.

10:20

Restaurant Kuranton

I just spoke Spanish without needing to think about it.  Nothing impressive: "solo quiero curanto," I just want curanto.  I didn't need to work it out in my head before saying it to the waitress, who seemed a little put out that I was coming in so close to closing time.

10:55

Kuranton's curanto was outstanding.  Unlike Mary's, all of the mussels were open, but they also tasted much fresher.  I surprised myself by eating almost all of the food supplied: the imposingly large bowl of mussels and clams, the potato, the longaniza, the single beef rib, most of the chicken drumstick, all of the strange, boiled-dough seeming things, and the soup.  With the Royal Guard lager, it was the perfect end to a weary day.

11/23/08

11:30

Hostal Mundo Nuevo's breakfast of fresh baked wheat bred, apples, yogurt, fresh jam and a strange instant coffee-like beverage with a picture of stalks of wheat on the can was wonderful  Now tramping around Ancud in the sun and breeze.  Falcons hang on the ocean winds and swallows zip low to the ground.  The coast is high cliffs, and islands punctuate the horizon.

The cliffs of Ancud