Team Chile - Post 7

---

Hola Amigos!

Since our last posting we have passed the "Gateway" to the south, Temuco. We made a detour over the Andes to the small town of Lonquimay, which is apparently also the only place where you can cross the cordillera from Chile to Argentina. It was a rather long trip and at first I think we all wondered what we were doing here, but we quickly came to love the sleepy little town of 6000, nestled in a valley.

We met with Dr. Angela Muñoz, who is a recent graduate of UNICIT and is posted in Lonquimay to work with small-holder goat and sheep farmers to increase productivity and promote sustainability. It´s a quiet time of year for sheep and goat farmers since most of the females are pregnant throughout the winter but we got to visit some farms to see how people lived and worked, as well as seeing Dr. Angela´s influential role in the community. The goats that the farmers raise are ancestors of the animals brought over by the Spaniards during the initial colonization of South America. They are mostly raised for meat or milk, although most farmers also raise a few other species of animals as well. The goats are particularly well-suited to this area since there is little pasture, yet they seem to forage on anything that they can find on the mountain-side. The biggest problems that these farmers encounter are surprisingly similar to what Canadian farmers experience: parasite management and mastitis in milking herds. It was funny to see that the California Mastitis Test was frequently used in these old, wooden barns where milking is mostly done by hand. One problem that Canadians don´t encounter is the threat of feral dogs stalking their herds. One suggestion that Dr. Angela made to the farmers is to use a llama to protect the herd. Who knew that llamas could be so vicious??

The town slowly grew on us as we learned about the rich native culture. The area itself is mostly inhabited by the Pawenche, who continue to live off the land very much like they used to historically. It was quite the surprise for us (having just left Santiago) to see chickens, turkeys and horses wandering the streets and firewood being delivered to the front door by steers hauling carts. A lot of people in the area rely on their animals and remain an important part of the culture. We also learned about the Araucaria tree and its seeds that have been an important source of sustenance to the Pawenche for hundreds of years. The trees themselves look like Charlie Brown Christmas trees but they live up to 2000 years and their wood is heavy and durable. One of the highlights of the trip was meeting the mayor of Lonquimay who was more than happy to welcome us into his community and was very interested in hearing about our project as well as thoughts on his town.

Although we were warned about the crazy winter weather in the mountains, we didn´t quite expect 25cm of snow to fall over the 3 days that we were there. We did get to see some sun though, as well as rain and hail and sleet.... the weather changed hourly! We weren´t actually sure whether we'd be able to leave, especially since the only road out was through an abandoned railway track that only allowed one way of traffic to travel through at a time.

We are now safely out of the snow in Valdivia and we'll keep you updated in the next few days on the rest of our plans... all we know for now is that we have to be in Puerto Montt to fly to Punta Arenas on August 1st!

Ciao!

Dominique, Rob and Emma

---