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Published: February 4th 2011
Hi all
Apologies again for denying you all of the elegant, flowing prose that characterises my blog posts for so long…
It’s been quite an eventful few weeks since I last wrote. I left El Calafate (the place with the glacier) behind me as I crossed the border back into Chile to start the 5 day trek in Torres del Paine National Park that I had travelled south to accomplish. I arrived in the small, incredibly windy town of Puerto Natales after another 3-hour stint at customs (love those guys) in time to buy enough powdered milk, powdered mashed potatoes, peanut butter and chocolate to last me the 5 days in the park (weight becomes way more important than flavour when you’re carrying all your own food!). I was staying in a hostel which rented gear and so managed to collect everything I needed to be ready to leave early on the bus the next day. Perfect, I thought, as it’s not often in South America that trip planning goes without a hitch. I should have known better…
That evening at about 7pm a stream of cars and trucks started crawling around the main plaza, on which my
hostel was conveniently located, blaring their horns continuously. I asked a local guy what was going on and he explained that there was a huge, state-wide protest starting that evening as the Chilean government was planning to cut subsidies on gas which would effectively raise the price by 17% overnight. The ‘Magallanes’, as the people in the far south of Chile are known (because of the Straits), depend entirely on gas all year round for electricity and consume a large amount due to the cold, windy climate and old, poorly insulated buildings. They were obviously unhappy with the price hike and so were going to block all the roads in and out of the town, which included the roads to the National Park. Being a Briton, I didn’t think much of this as our strikes nowadays are usually pretty feeble and short-lived. Again, I was wrong.
The next morning we were informed that all the shops and businesses in the town would be closed for an indefinite period of time as everyone was going to the blockades and government offices to protest. We were also told that there had never been such a wide-spread strike as this in the
area before so it was impossible to know when it would be lifted. I decided, therefore, to get to know the place a bit, seeing as I was going to be stuck there for at least another day. Walking around it was evident that absolutely everyone was protesting. Every building had a black flag flying outside and there were signs in car and shop windows slating Piñera, the Chilean President who, in his election campaign last year, had promised never to raise prices of gas in the area. The place was essentially a ghost town populated only by baffled, frustrated-looking tourists, wondering around aimlessly in our outdoor gear, waiting for the word that we could continue on our way. I managed to find one bakery open and so feasted on stale bread and peanut butter for lunch and dinner. I didn’t want to start eating my carefully-planned-out rations in case the protest suddenly ended and we could get to the park, especially as the supermarket showed no signs of life when I walked past.
This waiting game continued for two more days before we got any real information. The governor of the town called a meeting for all the
tourists outside of his office and when we arrived, he was standing in the back of a clapped-out pick-up truck with a megaphone. He told us that there had sadly been two deaths in a near by town due to some arse trying to break through the blockades in a truck, which had cause two women to fall onto a pile of burning tyres. He said, also, that the government couldn’t represent the tourists in the negotiations with the protestors as this would make it appear as if they were taking sides, and would be dangerous for us. I learnt that day that you should never tell a Brasilian to do something against their will. Out of all the tourists (if 35 different nationalities, apparently) who were in the crowd, the Brasilians were by far the most angry with the situation. Every time the governor tried to explain the official position the Brasilians would howl like wolves, literally, wave white flags and shout things like ‘We are not prisoners, you can’t keep us here!’. Meanwhile the Europeans stood at the back and discussed the general reasonableness of the situation; sure, it was annoying, but the people had their rights and
they were exercising them peacefully. At one point some plonker in the crowd shouted ‘This would never happen if Pinochet was here!’. Of course it wouldn’t you tit, I thought, because Pinochet would employ the full force of the army to remove the protesters and probably whisk them off to the nearest football stadium to torture them mercilessly!!
I did feel sorry for the people who had flown in for their few precious weeks of holiday and had a strict schedule for catching a flight home, but it was hard to argue that their problems were greater than those of the locals!
In the end we were told that the Red Cross were going to mediate for us in the negotiations and that they were going to set up a camp in a local school where we could sleep and get free, hot meals. By this point I had gotten to know a few people from my hostel including a Swiss computer programmer, a French lawyer and two students, one from Holland and another from Austria. It’s a cliché but it was true that being stuck together in such a small place meant we got to know each
other quickly. We all decided to stay in the hostel one more night before moving to the Red Cross Camp. The next day, out of a mixture of boredom and curiosity, we decided to rent some bikes and cycle out to the nearest blockade to see what all the fuss was about. We’d been told that the locals, despite using the tourists as leverage in their negotiations with the government and stoning any buses that tried to run the blockade, had a generally friendly attitude towards us still. When we got to the blockade we were greeted with a bizarre scene as the protestors were holding an open-air church service in front of the trucks that they were using to obstruct the road. They were all friendly and smiling and actually apologetic towards us. We cycled a few kms out on the deserted road in the direction of Torres del Paine (not that we were going to get there, it was two and a half hours away in a bus) and met a group of tourists who had become fed-up with the situation and have decided to walk. On our way back we saw them again. They had given up
and were heading back to town. This was the problem for all of us; we were allowed to walk or cycle out past the blockades but the Argentine border was 35km away and we didn’t know if we’d be allowed through once we got there.
Over the next couple of days we stayed in the school, hunkering down on gym mats in the corridors and classrooms and just waited around for more information. At one point some military buses were allowed in to take the old and very young out to Argentina. We decided that we’d be the last to be allowed to leave and so Lorenz, the Austrian and I, decided to look for a football in some of the shops that were beginning to open again. We eventually found one and it was amazing how many people, also bored waiting, wanted to play. We got a small tournament going on the school playground, which helped pass the time.
On day 4 (or 5, don’t quite remember) we were told that at 6pm the blockade would be lifted, but only for four hours and only for private vehicles, no tour buses. We were urged to try to
get out as it was a Friday and, of course this being Chile, they wouldn’t be negotiating on the weekend. We ended up walking into a church service with an old priest singing funky Christian rock to see if anyone might be willing to take us to the border (we had given up trying to get to the Park by this point and, anyway, I’d finished all my peanut butter). By fluke one guy said he had his car outside and was willing to take us, for a fee of course. We jumped in and made for the boarder, just in front of which was a huge blockade of about 200 people. They were scrutinising each car to see who was driving and how many tourists they had inside. Our driver was visibly shaking and sweating as we approached, out of fear that they would stone the car. Luckily he was recognised by a friend in the crowd and we were allowed through, although it was made crystal clear that this was a one off and he wouldn’t be allowed to do it again.
We finally got to the Chilean customs and were allowed through. It was a one
hour walk through ‘no-man’s-land’ to the Argentine customs, but we felt good to finally be out of the town. The joy of finally getting back to Argentina was somewhat dissipated by the large sign at the customs office saying ‘Las Malvinas Son Argentinas’ (The Falklands are Argentine) – can’t say it made me feel that welcome but I put on my best Scottish accent and approached the desk with a smile!
We got to the nearest town to the Argentine boarder at about 10pm and there were no buses running back to El Calafate but we eventually found someone who would take us (for $50 each!). We finally reached the town at 3pm but there were no hostel beds available due to all of the tourists who were waiting there to get the word that they could get through to Torres del Paine. I ended up borrowing a mate’s roll mat and crashing on the floor of the bus terminal for a few hours. I was rudely awoken by a police dog licking my face and a stern looking little bastard telling me I couldn’t sleep there after 6am. Luckily I had a bus reserved for 8 so I
didn’t have to wait long and was finally, after a week of entrapment, on my way back north towards Buenos Aires.
It was incredibly frustrating not to get into the park but I made some good friends and feel like I got to see something more of Chile than just the tourist attractions. Also, I now have a reason to go back to that amazing part of the world in the future. The protest ended three days later when the government agreed to only a 3% rise in gas prices and help for those most in need of the subsidies.
I will write about the journey up to Buenos Aires and my first couple of weeks here in my next blog as I am fully aware that this one’s a monster! If you’ve read this far, you’re a soldier and I salute you!
Until next time,
Tom
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Jenny Kinahan
non-member comment
Hi Tom, My goodness you really know how to have a good time! Quite an experience but glad all worked out OK in the end and you are safe and FREE! Pity about the nat. park trek but, as you say, it will be a reason to return. What with you getting caught up in a demo in Chile and Anna in a revolution in Egypt you are both living life to the full. All the best and hope the next bit goes well.