Advertisement
Published: January 17th 2010
If Chile is well off the edge of most people’s map of the world, Patagonia rests somewhere around or beyond the edges of geographical imagination. For most, it is more of an idea than a location. That said, it is located at the far back end of the nowhere. Luckily, nowhere is only a two hour flight from Santiago. Consequently, the arrival of Esther from the horrific world of American economic collapse and lawyering grind meant New Years on the beach and a plane trip south.
The beaches in central Chile are either cloudy or painfully bright with hole-in-the-ozone-layer strength sun. The water is cold as hell and they are almost constantly lashed by gale force winds that sculpt the sand into dunes. Nevertheless, the entire population of Santiago must go to the coast for New Year’s Eve. Chileans, like monarch butterflies, are genetically programmed to annual return. The butterflies go to Morelia, the Chileans to the beach of their father´s father´s childhood. Regardless of changes in beach visitor density due to population growth, under no circumstances can they go to any of the hundreds of other beaches. Luckily, we gringos have no fond childhood memories of the howling wind
and freezing waters of a particular beach, so we were free to choose one that has more or less escaped detection. Matanzas, a jumble of beach shacks in a bay, was sunny, windy and tranquil. Wine was drunk, meat barbecued, and another New Year’s eve came and went. Having fulfilled the cultural beach imperative, we headed back to Santiago with everyone else. A few days later we will catch the flight to nowhere.
In Santiago, it is 90. Two hours and some 1700 km south in Balmaceda, it is 50, blustery, overcast, and threatening rain. Purple, cream and pink lupines undulate along the sides of the highway as it snakes through fenced green pastures of sheep and cows towards the region’s capital, Coyhaique. The solitary squat shacks hunkering at the edges of the pastures are well weathered wooden gray and have an air of stubborn perseverance. Steep hills and sheer rock faces hem in the pastures and beyond, seen through shifting clouds, ominous craggy snow swept mountains. The human element here is insignificant and paltry. Coyahique’s 50,000 makes a stab at imposing civilization on the not-very-cuddly naturalistic majesty, but it seems like a small island in the ocean. The
next morning, we look about this frontier town then head south on Route 7, the Carretera Austral.
The Carretera Austral is a bit of engineering madness, a Herculean undertaking perhaps comparable to the laying of the transcontinental railway in the States. (Or that might be hyperbole. Not sure but it sounds good). It is usually untoward to say favorable things about dictators, but Pinochet succeeded where others had failed. The Carretera Austral runs 1240 kilometers through the vastness of northern Patagonia and finally peters out in Villa O’Higgins (the very Irish sounding named village honors the illegitimate son of an Irish born Spanish officer who became the liberator of Chile and whose nicely sideburned bust can be admired in every central plaza of every city in the country). In reality, it connects nothing to nothing, but there a lot of energy companies interested in changing that. Before the carretera, the Aysen region´s connection to Chile was tenuous. Commerce and culture flowed east and west with Argentina, the Great Satan next door. Since Independence, border disputes in Patagonia have repeatedly erupted. Pinochet, a careful student of Dictators for Idiots, frothed with nationalistic fervor and believed (correctly apparently) the carretera would
break the economic and cultural assimilation with Argentina and bring the wayward region back to the flock of the motherland. Begun in 1976, the carretera opened in 1988 and continues to be upgraded and expanded today. Being North Americans weaned on the car and by extension, the road trip, as the archetype of true freedom, we clearly had to drive at least part of it.
Between Coyhaique and the first town, Villa Cerro Castillo, you glide up and down the road through a Disney animation landscape: each turn cartoonishly stunning with requisite sparkly waterfall, snowy mountain, verdant valley, blue ribbony river, tranquil turquoise lake, and rustic farm. Beyond Villa Cerro Castillo, a huddle of wind-scoured, corrugated-aluminum-roofed ugliness, the pavement and any semblance of smoothness abruptly ends. The next 400 kilometers south are a spine jarring, potholed, twisting bumpiness of blind curves and terrifying gradients. All vehicles travel in both directions down the single worn track in the middle of the road. This knowledge is very reassuring on blind curves and cliff edges. Just for fun, the road is often populated by herds of cows, sheep, goats, huasos (cowboys) on horseback with their packs of dogs, chickens, the occasional duck,
and raptors picking dead things off the road. This inside a popcorn popper driving experience traverses a landscape that is mind numbingly stunning, prompting drivers and passengers to focus on everything but the road.
Out of Villa Cerro Castillo, the road twists southwest through valleys, around lakes, past waterfalls small and large, over mountain passes and thundering rivers before arriving on the banks of Lago General Carrera, the second largest lake in South America. More impressive than size though is the indescribable turquoise blue of the water. The carretera eventually drops down to the village of Rio Tranquillo (pop. 500 give or take a few) on the the western shore. Among its many attractions, Rio Tranquilo is also noteworthy because both gas and Coca Cola are available. When asked about life since the opening of the carretera , the slightly wind ravaged old guy pumping the gas reckoned that life is better now because “ahora hay muchas mas barbies” (which I think would translate as now there are many more ‘barbies’).
In addition to modern amenities, Rio Tranquillo is a nexus for more direct tourists interaction with nature. A short boat ride out of town is the Capilla
de Marmol (marble chapel), eroded undercut swirls, columns, and arches of polished stone that are clustered just off the shore of the lake. To the east, a road heads toward the Pacific. River, mountain, lake, sweet Jesus big pothole, glacier, waterfall, waterfall, wow, waterfall, mountain, whoa, glacier. . . etc. After 50 km, we reach the trail-head to the Exploradores Glacier. Having somehow appeased the weather gods, we walk through the woods and up a short jumble of rocks into a blue break in the sky. The glacier spills off Mt St. Valentin (the highest peak in Patagonia at 3910m) like layers of running wax. Far up, it is undifferentiated smooth white and disappears into the clouds crowning Valentin. In the foreground, the snout is dirty brown from the accumulated rocks and debris plowed up and pulverized as it has descended. Like a drunk slumped in a doorway or a Rubenesque model spilling over her divan, the glacier flows deep into the valley. Astounded by our weather luck, we spend half an hour giddily awed by the glacier's fabu-massiveness. Soon the clouds cinch shut and an impenetrable soupy white closes in. Reaching the truck, the rain begins to fall torrentially
and cold.
After Rio Tranquilo, the carretera follows the lake’s edge before moving south toward Lago Bertrand, the source of the Rio Baker. The Rio Baker bears the name of someone who doesn’t sound very Chilean or Spanish but apparently did something noteworthy sometime in the past. Incredibly, it is even more turquoise that any of the lakes. It is also immense. This immensity, however, has a pretty significant downside; the multinational ‘hydroelectric dams are good for Chile’ companies have been singing the Siren song of non fossil fuel energy independence in the ears of the people in power. Aside from the environmental impact inherent in curtain damming a river, the project would necessitate erecting thousands of kilometers of transmission lines to get the electricity to the central region. Probably not surprisingly, the multi-million dollar HidroAysen Project has turned into an international fight between various multinational corporations, NGOs, politicians, landowners, local communities, and both national and international environmentalists. The dispute hits all the angles: development, progress, energy independence, environmental devastation, and pits rural against urban, rich against poor, conservationists against capitalists. Probably lost in the cacophony are those most likely to be affected but not wealthy enough to be
heard. Then again, people want and need energy, so what do you do? Most rational discussion has long ago been discarded in favor of the kind of truth paid for by special interests. (My friend ben has written extensively about this if anyone is interested http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/latin-america/patagonia/encounter-chiles-powerful-pascua, http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2877.cfm).
Outside of Puerto Bertrand, the hills turn dramatically Seussish, lumps of grey rock covered with a fine fuzz of yellow and dotted with warty mounds of mint and tea leaf green. Amongst this colorful patchwork are herds of guanaco (cousins to llama), huemuel, a nearly extinct miniature deer, and wild horses. In the valley, the Rio Baker and the Rio Chacabuco converge in an orgy of turquoise and whitecaps. Quite lovely, but probably doomed to damming. Descending from the hills, the carretera rolls into the megalopolis of Cochrane (pop 3000), which boasts two fuel stations and a grocery store. Hours later, the road splits. The left branch goes south to Puerto Yungay, where there is a ferry crossing the fjord and then another 100km until the end of the road. We take the right branch leading west toward Caleta Tortel, a small village situated at the mouth of the Rio Baker between
the Northern and Southern Patagonian Ice Fields. West of Tortel, the jigsaw puzzle archipelago of islands and fjords stretches south to Cape Horn in the Drake Passage at the end of the world. The village is scattered along steep cliffs and connected by a labyrinth of cypress footbridges and stairs rather than roads. Unfortunately, rain, the constant companion of Patagonia, finally catches us so Tortel is clouded with words like gray, impenetrable, chill, damp, drippy and the like. In the evening, dry and fed, we huddle cozily about the wood stove chatting with the owners of the surprisingly plush bed and breakfast (Entre Hielos if you are in the neighborhood) listening to the rat-a-tat-tat of rain dancing on the roof.
The next morning the rain falls intermittently but thankfully clears long enough for us to address the distressing issue of a dead truck battery. Someone (ok it was me) had left the lights on. Based on local (particularly the carabineros -i.e. cops- who shrug and drive away) reaction, this has never happened in the 55 years of the village´s existence. Luckily, a local decides to help, returning with a car battery and a horseshoe. Using the horseshoe and my
leatherman, he connects the batteries and the truck starts. No one electrocuted. Truck running. General euphoria. As the focal point of touron dysfunction, we inherit three of the observers, 2 Chileans and an Argentine, as hitchhikers. Recharged, we begin the long road back to Coyhaique.
Perhaps it is integral to the functioning of the mind to try and find analogous reference points, say Yosemitie or Tahoe or Alaska, but Patagonia isn’t really like anything I´ve seen. It is vast, wild, and primordial. The tiny towns and serpentine unpaved road seem like temporary affronts rather than real taming threats. But anywhere there are roads, the threats are real. It seems unlikely that any longing for preserving the wild will ultimately detour the dams, the clear cuts, the pavement, the vast scars of erecting transmission lines or the people and developers that will follow in ever growing numbers. Where economic opportuniuty is perceived, the overglorified notion of ‘progress’ will march forward. It has happened before and will happen again. And the wild will continue receding to the spaces beyond where the pavement ends.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.204s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 20; qc: 84; dbt: 0.0941s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Jane Frick
non-member comment
Coyhaique
Wish you'd posted this BEFORE we spent several hours in Coyhaique! Loved your descriptions of Patagonia and the fear of development, Pinochet, etc. Thanks!