Once again, I can’t quite believe I’ve let quite so much time go past without updating here! It was something I always somehow meant to do, but never got around to…and then, well, let’s just say I fell down one of those holes of mine for a while, but I’ve been given a couple of ladders recently, and I think I’m on my way back up.
So, what have I been up to? Briefly:
got a contract for my job here at Huilo Huilo (in the Santiago commerical office, lest you think I actually get to spend time down in the south)
applied for permanent residency (and now I spend up to a year without any official ID, yay!)
moved into a bigger room in my shared flat
continued to make new friends and new connections
decided to look for a new job because this one will destroy my soul eventually (I always come back to teaching…)
enjoyed a spring carnival in Santiago
baked and decorated cakes for friends
wilted in the summer heat of Santiago
wished I could get out of the summer heat of Santiago
started to plan holidays/small trips away with friends
got a vague date for a visit back to the UK (March 2019!)
Really, in a way, exploring and discovering new things sort of fell by the wayside last year, for a variety of different reasons, and this year I’m determined to hold onto that, and to get out there and explore! And to be braver about doing so. To that end, this weekend, I went out to La Vega market with my friend, Anna, to get some street photography shots. She had just bought a snazy new lens for her camera, and although my camera is starting to get tired, I am always up for photo opportunities!
Thing is though, I generally avoid shots of people. I think I am self conscious and worried about their reactions if they notice that I am taking a candid shot of them. I shouldn’t have worried though, the majority of people were not bothered or were perfectly happy to have their photo taken! So, a note to me – be brave and do the thing that makes you uncomfortable sometimes. It might just surprise you.
We also had lunch at a nice little Thai picada called Luck Thai in Tirso de Molina. Fight your way past all the other restaurant vendors trying to get you to eat their menus in their picadas, and it’s a calm little place on on of the short sides of the second floor. They offer the more traditional pad thai, through to the chilean favourite of fried rice in a pineapple. We both went for pad thai, and although asking for it to be “medium thai spicy” (are you sure? said the waiter) it really wasn’t spicy at all, so maybe “actual thai spicy” next time will ensure a bit of a kick! They do provide chilli powder at the table though, so you can add some heat to the dish. The pad thai, along with a soft drink, came to CLP$7800 each, which was pretty reasonable.
We also took the time to potter around Patronato and some of the Korean stores, getting coffee at Habia Una Vez, a lovely little Korean bakery on Lopez de Bello. I love going into the Korean supermarkets and seeing all the fantastic ingredients, dreaming up dishes I could make…and laughing at all the “English” slogans on products. If I had more money, I’d buy them all. And then I’d have a lot of clutter.
I’ll leave it there for now, but I’ve got some good ideas coming up for future posts here – and I’m going to be aiming to post at least twice a month during 2018! Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to know about Chile or Santiago from my perspective!
I’ve now reached the milestone of having lived abroad for over a year, making this the longest I have been away from the UK and my family, like. Ever.
I feel I maybe should have inaugurated the occasion of my arrival in Chile (July 30th, 2016) with a cake or something. In reality, I was on the point of starting a new job, and so I cooked some lunches. I am nothing if not practical.
I’ve been thinking though, as I tend to do, rather a lot, and reflecting, both on my year (and a bit) here this time round, and the similarities and differences from my first year in Chile back in 2005/6.
Chileans are (generally) lovely
This isn’t a new or surprising observation. I’ve been lucky enough to stay with two different Chilean families during my time in the country, one in Santiago (my Santiago family, as I call them) and the other in Talca (my Talca family). These families welcomed me in –in the first case as a young, Spanishless girl of 18 years old — and included me in activities and daily family life; something I am still welcome in to this day. I’m still in regular contact with my Santiago family; I teach two of the kids English, and I am invited to some family events. I’m still welcome to stay and visit my Talca family whenever I want. When travelling in the south last November, I met other families who were hosting volunteers, who also welcomed me into their homes and said return visits were welcome. Further in the south, I met countless lovely friendly people when travelling who helped me and chatted to this somewhat intrepid solo traveller. I’ve always been struck by that here in Chile. Maybe it’s just that people, in general, are good, but Chileans are definitely Good Eggs.
(I need more recent photos with my Santiago family, it seems…)
You are still you
The same things you found difficult the first time you lived here, are still the things you find difficult. The same things you found difficult back in the UK, are still the things you find difficult. Anxiety is still anxiety. Moving halfway across the world doesn’t change who you are, but you can keep striving to improve.
I found this in a blog post this morning, and it seemed relevant. “So, in my despair I thought: “This demon that I’ve created is part of myself that I should forgive.” I felt compassion. I tried embracing the demon, and to my surprise, that made it smaller”
The world is made of sushi
And that sushi is full of cream cheese and deep fried. Or covered in avocado. It’s all good. Well, some of it is better than others. I swear that back in 2005 sushi didn’t exist here in such quantities, where as now you find it on every street, practically. I have an affection for Chilean sushi; it was here, after all, that I tried sushi for the first time, my good friend Maca taking Leo and I to a sushi restaurant in the centre where I tentatively tried the raw fish and rice. The first time, I wasn’t convinced. The second time she took us, I thought it was okay. After the third time, I wanted more. Now, I have access to all the sushi I could possibly want.
Tramites. TRAMITES
Tramites. My life is tramites. Back in January I had to go through the joyous process of extending my temporary visa, which meant immigration queues and translations and apostilled documents and notarised photocopies and more queues…and then an awful lot of waiting. In June, I paid for and received my visa — cue more queues, and waiting, and in July I finally got my new carné – my ID card, which is essentially for much of bureaucratic life here. It’s valid until the end of January. Yep. I’m gonna have to go through this all again come January, except the paperwork will be more complicated and the waiting will be even longer, because I’ll be trying to get a visa definitiva – a permanent residency visa. (My worries about that are for another post…)
Banks. Omg Banks.
Why don’t the banks open past 2pm? Why don’t the banks open for customers on Saturday mornings at least? Why do they make it next to impossible to do your banking? There’s also the small detail that if your bank card is blocked or lost, or something happens to your account, you need your ID card to deal with it (or the patience and the Spanish to argue an awful lot with the bank teller). If you don’t have an ID card, because your visa is en tramite…good luck with that! I had 5 months of being very careful with my bank card because I had no easy way of getting a new one…and then 2 weeks before I was due to get my new ID, the bank blocked my card.
Oh, and why is there not an option to remember a lost internet banking password? Mess that up? Yeah, you have to go to the bank and get a new one.
Oh, and you’ll need your ID.
There are fewer street dogs
Back in 2005, there were dogs seemingly everywhere. I even was required to get the rabies jab before coming out here. Now, there’s no rabies and definitely fewer street dogs. That’s not to say the problem is solved; there are still far too many around, but even if areas where I’d expect to see more dogs there are fewer. There’s been new law to do with pet ownership and care that passed recently as well, so we’ll see if that makes even more of a difference.
Street dogs are smart though! Not only do some of them know how to cross the road safely and use buses, but this one is currently enjoying his moment of fame:
I also enjoy the little pack of 2 or 3 dogs outside Baquedano station who exclusively bark at and chase taxis and motorbikes. No other cars. Just taxis.
Cafe culture exists now
Chile, can, at times, seem to be a country that’s slow to come round to coffee. In 2005, pretty much all that was available was Nescafe, powered, to boot (not even granulated!) and cafe culture wasn’t really a thing. Well, there was (and is) a certain type of cafe that wasn’t really the sort of place I was going to be going. There were 2 (that I knew of) Starbucks in Santiago, both up in the distant lands of Las Condes. Now, there’s a Starbucks practically everywhere, and a number of decent little cafes all over the place too, some of which also have pretty decent coffee (Roasters & Co, I’m looking at you)
Homesickness does exist!
I’ve never really been one to get homesick. I don’t remember feeling it during my first year away. I’ve missed home and my parents and friends and things, obviously, but I’ve never been homesick. Until May this year, when the overwhelming desire to just be at home, to be back in the UK was so strong I almost packed it all in and booked a flight. I looked at the costs of flights a couple of times. But, it passed, with the feelings that were surrounding it too, and I haven’t had that strong overwhelming need to be back on UK soil since.
I miss food
Food obviously exists here. There’s good food here, too, in places, and I can cook, so I can make many things that I like. But gosh. I miss things like
— bacon (the only easily available bacon here is streaky bacon, which, while good, is not true bacon. There is a source of back bacon, but I am currently poor, and so back bacon is off my menu)
— curry (again, the number of Indian restaurants has risen sharply since the last time I was here, but reasons of cost mean I have not yet tried any of them out)
–chinese food (see above, regarding cost. Also I am dubious as to the nature of Chilean Chinese food. I mean, British Chinese food is…interesting enough, I’m not sure how they’ll have interpretted it for the Chilean palette!)
–sheer variety of fresh (prepared) foods to buy in the supermarket (fresh fruit and vegetables are readily available, subject to much greater seasonality than in the UK, but I do sometimes miss fresh things that are ready to cook — just for ease! I know ready spiralized courgette and chicken ready with a sauce to cook in the oven a luxuries that I don’t need, but man, it’s nice to have them and to be able to cook healthily quickly.)
I miss good cheese
This deserves a segment of its own, because, wow, do I miss good cheese. Cheese with flavour. Cheese with a deep sharpness to it. Cheese which smells. Cheese that’s mature. Cheese with mould on it. CHEESE. I resent having to pay extortionate amounts of money for a tiny amount of somewhat decent cheese, and so am reduced to “cheese that will do to melt on top of pasta.”
This would be heaven right now
And milk.
I’m not really a milk drinker, so this one surprised me. Fresh milk isn’t really a thing here, unless you live in the campo and have access to a cow. All the milk in the supermarket is UHT. I hate UHT milk. I have always hated UHT milk. It tastes weird. I can just about deal with it if it is ice cold. I dislike it in coffee because it makes my coffee taste weird, which means that I primarily drink black coffee now, unless I’m having some highly flavoured abomination from Starbucks or get lucky with some vegetable/nut milk somewhere. I’m looking forward to the day when I will have enough money to be able to afford nut milks.
Some dairy products though…
Who knew that cream cheese covered in soy sauce, sprinkled with sesame seeds and served with crackers was so damn delicious?
I think my Spanish has improved
It’s hard to tell — I could speak Spanish when I arrived this time, after all. It’s not like before where I was thrust into a world where I understood not a word of what was going on around me, where I had to try to construct sentences carefully in my head before talking, and where the conversations always seemed to rush off to another topic before I’d had a chance to say said carefully constructed sentence. Now I work in an almost fully Spanish language environment, my social life is pretty bilingual and I think — I hope — my Spanish has improved from when I arrived back here last year. I haven’t done much hard graft on my Spanish, and I fear I may need to to really seriously improve it, but for now, I think I’m doing pretty good.
I haven’t been fired yet, so I must be understanding everything in the workplace okay at least!
It still throws me off hearing English in the streets or the supermarket
I never used to hear English anywhere except in the English classroom, out with Maca or with a handful of other people I knew who spoke English. Now, I hear it everywhere — and it’s not just that there’s more foreign tourists and residents in Chile, but the Chileans are talking more English too.
Working here involves working long hours
I knew this, but add my commute as well, and I work a lot. I work 9am-6:30pm in an office job. So yeah, I’m not working hard some of the time, but that’s long working hours. I’m lucky enough to live close by; on a good day it takes me less than an hour to get home, but for people who live further out, contending with the Santiago rush hour traffic? No thank you. 44 hours is a long working week.
I prefer downtown to uptown
I recently moved to Las Condes to be closer to work and to cut down on my commute. It’s nice enough, I like the area. But I much prefer the life and vitality of downtown — even Providencia. I lived previously in Plaza Italia – where I lived in 2005/6 too – which is an area I love. It’s close to everything, it’s well connected. I’ve found myself missing just being able to walk into el centro recently, wandering down through Lastarria towards the Plaza de Armas. I miss downtown.
Joining an expat community is not a bad thing
I hadn’t resisted joining the expat community here at all, it just hadn’t really happened. I’ve got my English speaking knitting group, after all. But recently, I’ve been to a few events and things involving the expat community, and yeah, it’s been nice. It’s nice to be around people who “get you.” Even if they don’t really get you because British English is apparently not compatible with North American English.
But I’m glad I know Chileans too
That said, I’m glad my circle of friends includes Chileans too. I don’t want to live in an expat bubble. Now to work on expanding both circles!
Without the support of these guys, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did, in all honesty. They are amazing.
There’s probably many more things I could have said or added or thought about at anniversary of my arrival back in Chile. It’s been a tough year, but in all a good year. I never thought it would be easy – but I am perservering and getting stronger. Here’s to many years more.
I’ll probably go into more detail over some of the whys and wherefores and the whats over the next few months as I start posting more again, but for now I’ll just provide a Sparknotes summary, if you will, of where I’m at. (But to avoid repeating myself, this post might provide an insight)
My last post, in February, left us hanging on the final destination of my Carretera Austral trip over the beginning of the summer. I didn’t talk about summer camps (but oh, I will, because summer camp was and is one of the best things I have been involved in over the past year). I didn’t talk about moving into my new room, in a flat in Vaticano Chico, a little neighbourhood near Baquedano and the familar surroundings there.
Then came work. I started working for a school in Quilicura on my birthday at the end of February, full of ganas, full of energia and happy enough with where everything was going. Until I wasn’t. It was nothing to do with the other staff (who are lovely), it wasn’t even really to do with the children (challenging but I knew that beforehand). It was, I don’t know, to do with feeling increasingly less and less like myself, feeling increasingly unhappy and lost to the point where I was seriously starting to consider packing all this in and moving back to the UK. I was kept going through this time by a few good friends, but in typical me fashion, I started to isolate and withdraw from everything.
Without the support of these guys, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I did, in all honesty. They are amazing.
I got sick with a throat infection, and I think that, combined with my growing unease and, yes, depression, was the final straw. I couldn’t get out of bed – I couldn’t function. It bought back all of those old feelings and I felt terrible about it – I still do feel terrible about it because I know I let people down, and I feel, in a way, I let myself down too — but we have to consider what is best for our mental health.
I got licencia from a doctor and began thinking about what to do next. I was visa-less at this point, so my options were open. Did I try to go back to the school in an adapted capacity (an option that was offered to me and sometimes I still wish I had tried, but at the time I couldn’t even consider, mentally, the possibility of going back)? Did I quit the job and try and find something else to provide an income here in Chile? Did I give up and go back home to the UK and…do who knows what. I was lost.
Ultimately, as you may have guessed, I went with the second option. I wasn’t ready, despite the intense homesickness I was feeling, to give it all up just yet. I looked for some English teaching jobs and I applied for a few alternative positions. And now, 3 months on from all that, I’ve just finished a month of covering some classes for a teacher who had to return to Ireland and I’m about to start a sales internship for the office of Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve. It’s certainly going to be different. And in general, things are getting better, and hopefully will continue to do so. I’ve moved room again, to a smaller room closer to where the new office will be. I’m happily installed in a knitting group here and I’m slowly making friends, I think.
My new view – I moved on a rare day of snow here in Santiago
So, things are all change around here, and I think as I approach the anniverary of my arrival here that that’s okay. I have my visa (until January, when the whole joyous waiting process starts again); I have new opportunities; I have some things to look forward to. I’m getting there. I know at some point I’ll probably want to be involved in education again in some way; it’s in my heart and my soul, but I’m just not made to be the class teacher in a traditional context, be that here or in the UK or anywhere. I need to figure out where my place in the education system is.
I don’t think anyone ever expects to move halfway around the world to another country and for it to be easy, and it definitely hasn’t been. But more on that in a few days, when I’ll reflect more on my year here. (Also in the pipeline: summer camps (only 6 months late), día del patrimonio cultural, cat cafes and Huilo Huilo!)
The bus left Chaitén on a windy, cold and frankly, soggy morning. This did somewhat ruin what is apparently one of the most spectacular parts of the journey up the Carretera Austral – the bimodal route consists of the bus to Caleta Gonzalo, a short ferry ride to Fiordo Largo, another mini bus jaunt to Leptepú, and then the longer ferry ride to Hornopirén. The bus then continues to another ferry, from Peulche to La Arena before finally being able to continue on to Puerto Montt. This is not a quick journey.
In any case, this was the weather I was graced with:
The epic fjords and valleys of this part of the Carrereta Austral didn’t want to make themselves known. The rain took hold instead. If I hadn’t already been on a 32 hour ferry journey through the more southerly fjords, I might have been annoyed. As it was, I settled in with a coffee, an empandada and a cake and chatted with the Australian guys, who were making their way to Puerto Montt.
First view of Hornopirén
The ferry docked in Hornopirén at around 5pm, and I was met off the landing dock by the owners of the hospedaje where I would be staying, Brisas de Hornopirén. This couple were truely fantastic during my stay here; I cannot recommend them highly enough. And they were fine with me leaving a day earlier than planned, twarthed again by travelling just slightly out of season, by myself, and on a budget.
I had hoped to be able to go on a horseback ride to a waterfall, where the guide then also provided a barbeque…but alas, the guide was off elsewhere, and wouldn’t be starting tours until January. Hot springs were an option, but I’d exhausted my fill of hot springs. I umm’ed and ahh’ed about the walk in the national park – it’s tricky, proclaimed my guidebook! It’s a good few hours of climbing up, and then less time to come back down the same way. (If you know me, you’ll know, down does not take less time…) In any case, my hosts procured a bastion – a walking pole, and I decided hey – I wanted to do one more big trek on this holiday, let’s go for it.
So the next day, I was dropped off at the entrance to the park. Well. I say the entrance. I was dropped off at the entrance to the walk to the entrance of the park, a mere 7km away. The walk to the park is longer than the walk in the park itself. Utterly alone, I might add, this is not a tourist filled park. This is just nature, pure and simple. The trail is marked by occasional orange plastic tags tied to the trees, alongside a few wooden arrows now and again. The plastic tags were fantastically useful. And wow, was it muddy. And was it tricky – walking on soggy branches and stones along an old logging path to finally reach the park entrance.
I already knew getting down and out of the park was going to be a challenge.
Al fin! (This one’s free, by the way)
There are various motivational signs en route, though, just in case you’re feeling discouraged…
I finally reached my destination, Lago Pinta Concha, where I sat, enjoying the view and enjoying a well deserved lunch (of not very exciting bread and cheese). There is a free CONAF campsite here, and you can continue on on two other trails within the park – one up the volcano Yates, and the other around the lake.
And then it was time to descend. This was when it got difficult. And I was already covered in mud. I was about to be more so. As a note, my knees are not fantastic. Descending things can be tough, because of the extra pressure it puts on my knees – but I am a resilient adventurous soul (ha!) and I try not to let it hold me back. I almost regretted that on this descent, when I found myself bum-shuffling down rocky drops (I’m not embarrassed – I’d rather bum-shuffle and get covered in mud than hurt my knee and be stranded in the wilderness. It’s about balance, people, balance.) and clambering over branches, trying not to sink into muddy puddles.
Unfortuntately, on one such branch over a puddle, I slipped, doubling over on my left ankle and tumbling sideways into the mud.
Yay!
I initially thought I’d twisted my ankle, but it seemed more or less okay to walk on, and in any case, I didn’t have any other choice. How else was I going to get back to the meeting point? Eventually, after a few more hours of struggling back over branches, my foot hurting increasingly, I made it back to the drop off point almost perfectly on time, and was taken back to the hospedaje.
There, my hosts proved to be brilliant once more, drying my mud-caked shoes by the fire and providing me with anti-inflamatories and some paracetamol gel for my foot (which was now noticeably swollen, yay! Not the ankle, but across the top of the foot). Marina had even bought my bus ticket to Puerto Montt for the following day.
I had some time the following morning before my bus, so I hobbled down to the plaza to buy some food and a keyring for my collection. Hornopirén is a lovely little place. I was quite sad to leave and not to be able to spend more time exploring – I’ll definitely be back – with a car!
Next up – final (final!) destination – Puerto Varas
One of the things I’ve noticed about Santiago (and other places in Chile) compared to the last time I lived here in 2005/6 is the growth of coffee and cafe culture. I can’t remember hardly ever seeing any nice neighbourhood cafes before, and now there are ones on every corner. Even Starbucks has taken hold (no surprises there) – in 2005 I remember there being two Starbucks – one up near Alcantara metro and one in Parque Arauco Mall. It was a big deal to go to a Starbucks. Now there is a Starbucks 5 minutes walk from my flat. No, I haven’t been.
I’m aiming to discover the little hidden cafe gems, close to where I live and around the rest of Santiago (and Chile) too. I like coffee. I like cake. This should be a good mission. Plus, it gets me exploring my new home.
With that in mind, last weekend, I wandered on down to Barrio Italia, an up and coming “trendy” neighbourhood 15 minutes walk away. Oh, there are cafes galore in the barrio. I have cafes for weeks. I can’t wait to try them all! Barrio Italia itself is a little gem of a neighbourhood, with courtyards filled with eclectic little shops opening up off the street (The main street is Av. Italia) It’s one of the things I love about Santiago; things can look unassuming and almost unwelcoming from the outside, but step through the door and you find yourseld in amazing landscapes of plants, music and culture.
For my first outing, I decided to try Café de la Candelaria. This is not exactly a “hidden” choice, the cafe is fairly well recommended and well known. I thought I’d start by seeing what all the fuss was about.
The cafe itself is hidden in one of the inner courtyards, and there are beautiful trees and decor to set the atmosphere. Service was simple, but friendly. They do, on weekdays offer a lunch that looks like it will be delicious, and other customers were ordering other foods from the menu that looked very good. I, on the other hand was just in the market for a coffee. And an ice cream, because it was damn hot.
The ice cream (chocolate and lemon/mint) was absolutely gorgeous. The chocolate ice crem was incredibly rich, and the lemon/mint plesantly refreshing.
I ordered a cappuccino. I’m not really sure why; I’m more of a strong dark and black coffee drinker. Future cafe outings will see me ordering something more on those lines. Or maybe more than one coffee. Multi-coffees. Mmm. Coffee. It looked the part, but it just didn’t hit that coffee buzz that I was looking for. Lacking in coffee flavour.
But the ice cream. Yes.
Location score: 5/5
Coffee score: 2,5/5 (but maybe that was the cappuccinos fault.)
Food (dessert) score: 5/5
Cafe de la Candelaria, Av. Italia 1449, Providencia, Santiago
The next destination on my voyage up the northern half of the Carretera Austral was Chaitén. Chaitén hit the headlines across the world in 2008 when the nearby volcano, dormant for the previous 9000 years, promptly erupted, sending ash and smoke down over the landscape, blocking the river, causing it to divert and flood half the town. Inititally, the Chilean government didn’t want to rebuild Chaitén; the resisdents who remained were left without running water or electricity for a number of years. Eventually, however, the government changed its position, and the water and electricty were switched back on and Chaitén is slowly, slowly rebuilding itself from the ashes.
On arriving in Chaitén, the aftermath of the eruption is immediately apparent, despite the work towards reconstruction. The coastal promenade now looks out over a massive mud flat before you finally see the sea – leftover from the layers of mud and debris that rushed through the town. There’s still a slight crunch of volcanic rock underfoot in the streets. And there’s the volcano, visible from town, calmly smoking away in the distance.
My first trip the next morning was with Chaitur, run by Nicolas, one of the resisdents of Chaitén who stayed on throughout everything. A group of French tourists were heading out to hike up to the caldera of the volcano, so I tagged along on their trip. I didn’t want to climb the volcano myself – volcanos tend to be steep, and I’d heard that the descent can be quite tricky, and I wasn’t sure if my knee would be up to it. Nicolas offered to take me deeper into Parque Pumalin to do a couple of the other trails instead.
We first hiked into the blast zone of the volcano, where Nicolas explained the different types of volcanic rock we could see and talked about the interesting scientific nature of the eruption. It’s the first such eruption since around 1912, so scientists were quite excited to be able to study it. There, the French group left us for their ascent, and Nicolas and I went on to the short Alerces trail and the Waterfalls trail – both beautiful landscapes.
The evenings in Chaitén were a quiet affair; there weren’t many other travellers, and I was, again, the only resisdent in my hospedaje. I took to spending an evening eating cheap but yummy completos in the food bus (Natour), using their internet and enjoying their decent coffee. I then headed out for a walk along the promenade. It was very tranquil.
The next morning Nicolas rang me and said that two Australians were interested in doing something that day, and did I want to join? I headed down to the office and we decided on doing a hike and going out to the hot springs at Termas de Amarillo, since it was a bit of a cold and cloudy day. In the end, due to the low cloud, the hike didn’t happen, but we did enjoy the springs.
On returning to Chaitén, the boys realised that they had, in fact, missed their ferry to Puerto Montt, which left at 10am…not 10pm. Cue walking around Chaitén, sorting that out! First to Naviera Austral, who (unsurprisingly) refused to offer a refund, and even if they could have transferred the tickets, there were apparently no more ferries for a week. Then down to Kemelbus to see if the boys could get a bus ticket to Puerto Montt for the following day – thankfully there were still tickets available on my bus! And then to a hospedaje to find them some cheap accommodation for the night. Phew! We wandered around town a bit more together after all this, including up to the viewpoint and to the Museo del Cielo Abierto – where they have left some of the houses which were destroyed exactly as the volcano left them.
I also managed to find a little souvenir shop selling keyrings (for my collection) and got talking to the lady who ran the shop. She was another Chaitén resisdent who had remained throughout everything – she just didn’t want to leave, she told me. This was home, and she wanted to rebuild her life and her town here.
I was going to go to Natour for my evening completo, but it was shut…which was strange, so I wandered to the pizza restaurant instead, which was thankfully open, but no lights. Oh, power cut. After about 30 minutes the boys reappeared – they had also discovered the power cut, which put paid to their plans to cook and eat cheaply, so they came to join me. The pizzas in this place though; seriously the best pizza I have eaten so far in Chile. Really good.
With that, it was time to leave Chaitén; an incredibly interesting little town. Hopefully the future will be kind to them – the people are certainly resisilent and determined to make Chaitén a success!
I arrived in Puyuhaupi at around 8pm in the pouring rain, and dashed directly to my hotel (Casa Ludwig) where the owner was just about to give my room away (apparently my email of 2 days prior was not sufficient confirmation of the fact that I was actually coming).
Casa Ludwig, owned and run by the daughter of one of the founders of Puyu
I stashed all my stuff in my room, and popped straight back out to talk to The Guide at Puyuhaupi’s tour outfit, Experiencia Austral. He shall henceforth be known as The Guide because despite talking to him every day that I was in Puyu, I completely failed to discover his name, and the longer it went on, the more awkward it got to ask… We arranged that we would see how the weather was in the morning and decide from there.
The following day dawned bright and (mostly) clear. The Guide and I agreed that the conditions were good enough to go out on a kayak trip across the fjord to a hidden waterfall. Because it was just the two of us, we took a double kayak. I’ve never kayaked in the ones where you get sealed into the kayak before, but it all felt very secure, and off we went onto the clear Puyu waters. We paddled out a fair way before we beached and went on a mini trek off to a beautiful waterfall, completely hidden from view and unless you knew where it was, you wouldn’t find it. The water was also really fierce because of all the rains the previous day, so I declined to swim in the pool, but in the higher season when the rains are less, it would be a gorgeous place for a dip!
We waited for a while before heading back because The Guide wasn’t sure if they would be doing the daily explosion along the road (they are widening and improving the Carretera Austral, which involves blasting away the mountainside with dynamite. It’s a big job.) but we eventually worked out that being Saturday, there was no blast, so we headed back out onto the water. On the way back we saw a seal!
My plans for the next few days involved: the hot springs and trying to get up to and trek the Bosque Encantado…The Guide suggested I take the morning bus to Coyhaique but get off at the Bosque, which seemed like a good plan, until you consider having to wait until the evening bus back…or hitchhike…but I decided to wait and see what the weather was doing before making a decision.
The next day it was chucking it down with rain, so the decision to go to the hot springs was justified. I decided not to cycle (it didn’t seem worth the cycle hire) but to walk instead, figuring the effort would justify the long relax afterwards. I got up to a certain point in the road where they were holding the traffic , where the lady controlling it told me that it wasn’t safe for me to walk along the next bit, and she proceeded to commandeer a truck for me, which in fact took me all the way to the springs.
There are two main hot springs in Puyu – Termas del Ventisquero, which as easily accessible by everyone, being literally next to the road; and the more exclusive Termas de Puyuhuapi which are only accessible by boat and are hidden on the other side of the fjord. I was, obviously, at the cheaper ascessible one…Despite the rain, they were an enjoyable experience, sitting in a hot pool watching the rain fall on the fjord…and then jumping into said fjord before dashing back into the hot pool. There was one pool that I could literally not go in – it was so scauldingly hot that it felt like it was boiling my skin off if I even so much as dipped my foot in. There were a few other travellers there, and I fell into talking with a fellow Brit – one of the first I had found on my travels, or since arriving in Chile, really. He was travelling in one of the Wicked Camper vans, and was headed north, so I took advantage and got him to agree to give me a lift back to Puyu, where we went and had lunch. There was also judicious borrowing of my Carretera Austral guidebook (always super popular among other travellers for the wealth of information in it! – Although despite being the newest guide out there, it was still out of date on some things – but things change quickly)
The art of trying to take a picture of yourself posing on the Carretera
It was still raining when I went to sleep, so I decided not to get up early and get the bus…my reasoning being that the trail would be wet, and there was a river crossing and if it was still raining and there wasn’t much traffic I was going to be stuck there until around 6pm waiting for the bus back…In the morning, when I woke up, it had stopped raining…so I did have a brief moment of regret for my decision and was considering trying to hitch up there instead. In the end, I teamed up with two other travellers, one from Germany and one from Ukraine, and we decided to try and hitch up to the Bosque together – strength in numbers! Maybe too many numbers, because we weren’t successful at all in trying to hitch – the cars with space ignored us, and the cars without space waved apologetically…
We decided instead to go on one of the hikes out of Puyu mentioned in the town walking tour leaflet, and headed out onto a cow trail – it was the old road out to the lake, but it’s now not in use for anything except cows. I got my river crossing – it was almost easier just to walk through it, for me – and we saw lots of interesting plants and mosses. The cows attempted to block our way back through the gate, but we managed to get them to move eventually…after one of them got its head stuck in the fence which was a bit of worrisome moment!
View over Puyu
We lunched together and mooched around town a bit more too, before sorting out a trip to Ventisquero Colgante for the German girl – the Ukrainian was planning on taking the same bus as me the following day – the one a week bus to Chaiten. I needed this bus to come (I was quite anxious about its arrival, not going to lie) because otherwise I was going to be stuck in Puyu! And lovely as it was, and as interesting as the history is (that’s a whole other post, probably already better done by others) I had exhausted my options in Puyu! The problem (for me, at least) is that the bus left Coyhaique at 8:00am…and it would arrive in Puyu when it arrived. No bus terminal or ticket office in Puyu, just the road and waiting for the bus.
Nalca (a kind of rhubarb on steroids!) cat!
I was there waiting for the bus just after 12, as I had been told to expect it “sometime between 12 and 1 – or maybe 2, depending on the road” – chatted to and said goodbye to The Guide (I am sorry I never discovered your name…) and called the bus company to check the bus had in fact, left Coyhaique (it had.) It eventually turned up shortly after 1pm, took us the 40-odd kilometres to La Junta and then stopped for lunch for an hour. So, hey, I got to see La Junta too! And then onwards, through varied and beautiful landscapes, past glaciers and lakes, past mountains and valleys until we pulled into Chaiten.
La Junta
The only remaining monument to Pinochet is found in La Junta
(I am so very behind with these posts, but I am trundling on! I blame the end of travelling, followed by dashing around for Christmas, followed by a long list of tramites in Santiago trying to get all the paperwork for my visa extension sorted, followed by 2 weeks of English camps (I cannot wait to get to the blog post about these!), followed by moving to Santiago…and here we are!)
Puerto Cisnes having been a bit, well, shut, I made the decision to head back to Coyhaique, arriving at around 10am, and checking back into the same hostel. I booked in with them for a trip to Ventisquero Colgante the next day, as having been burned a bit by the experience in Coyhaique, I didn’t want to get to Puyuhuapi and find that I was unable to do anything, especially with the road closures of the Carretera Austral just south of the little town.
My tour guide for the next day arrived a little late, but he was a brilliant guide. We drove on to Villa Manualidades, where we pulled into a little cafe/artisan chocolate shop called LucyMarc for coffee and kuchen (never say no to coffee and kuchen) Sadly, his wife was away, so there wasn’t much chocolate for purchase.
We continued en route, through typically beautiful scenary, and although I was going to be retracing this route the next day, I was actually quite grateful to be taking a tour because it meant being able to stop for photos, which is something you miss when taking the public bus (there’s only so many photos you can take through smeary windows on a bumpy road…)
We arrived (late) in Puyuhaupi, on a gloriously sunny day (another good reason to have gone there!) and hastily ate our (incredibly delicious) lunch. It was seriously one of the best meals I have eaten so far in Chile. It used Chilean ingredients, but with a bit of a twist – we started with trout cerviche, and the main was austral hake baked en papillote with potatoes, chorizo, cheese and vegetables. It was amazing, plus the fresh juices they made with a choice of sweetener!
We then headed back to Ventisquero Colgante, part of Parque Nacional Queluat. We arrived in time to enter the park before closing, and began the short trek to the laguna for the view of the glacier. There is another longer (3 hour round trip) trek up to a viewpoint by the waterfall at the top of the glacier, but we obviously didn’t have time for this – it’s something to come back for! The glacier itself was utterly breathtaking – the colour of the water in the South never fails to entrance me, and we spent a good half an hour there just taking it all in.
All too soon, it was time to start the long journey back – we did stop again at Lucymarc Chocolates for more coffee and kuchen (who can resist great kuchen twice?) and finally arrived back in Coyhaique at around 10pm.
The next day I had the whole morning to kill before my bus back to…Puyuhaupi (it’s the Carretera Austral, just go with the flow, don’t rush, don’t sweat it) but I spent it relaxing in the Plaza, reading a book on my kindle and purchasing a few supplies as I knew the next few places would be a bit more remote, and there wasn’t going to be the option of heading back to Coyhaique this time!
I arrived in a slightly damp Puerto Cisnes at 8:30pm, and was dropped at the restaurant/hostel where I was told to wait to be taken to the other hostel. At that point I waited until around 10pm…the owner had been held up by the cortes in the road between there and Puyuhuapi and got back later than planned. I was then dropped off at the other hostel – a house, essentially, with no one else there…just a big empty house. With a kitchen and wifi and a double bed for me. But still. Empty house.
This dog tried to come to Cisnes too
It was at this point I started having doubts about staying for 3/4 days in Puerto Cisnes.
Still, I decided to give it a try in the morning, and found a different hostel to check into – this one was cheaper, included breakfast (but no kitchen) and had cable TV in the room, so at least there was some entertainment! I then checked out Cisnes…
And concluded I couldn’t stay for 3 more days.
The one tour operator that was open (thankfully!) weren’t offering any organised trips until the 13th of December – I’d arrived before the start of season proper! I was able to rent a kayak and head out to the beach – I saw dolphins in the bay!
The ladies in the tourist office told me I’d need a guide to do the Sendero Dos Lagunas – but I couldn’t get hold of one, and that pretty much exhausted my options in Cisnes! I did the history trail of the town, and plodded up to the viewpoint…and bought a bus ticket back to Coyhaique for the following day – Wednesday.
And found a local beer (even though the brewery was closed for remodelling) to drown my travel sorrows. No one likes retracing their steps, or not enjoying a location like you thought you would!
I could have also headed to Puyuhuapi two days early, but that would have thrown out the rest of my plans – there is only one bus a week to Chaiten, and I’d timed my exit from Puyu around that!
So thus ended my trip to Cisnes – a pleasant enough place to visit…for a day or two, Especially if you have a car and can continue on to somewhere else! Or if you are a more flexible traveller than me…I really must get better at just going with the flow!
I arrived in Coyhaique bright and early on the morning of the 2nd December, and checked into my lovely hostel (Patagonia Hostel) Also checking in at a similar time was an American, Matthew, and although he declined to join me for my immediate trek out to Coyhaique National Park, he did book onto the same tour as me for the Marble Caves the following day. Travel companion!
I headed down to the (only) supermarket in town to get some food for the park – bearing in mind I was working on little sleep and just a desperate need to walk somewhere that wasn’t limited to the small deck of a boat – and discovered the longest queues in supermarket existance…which seemed to be fairly consistent during my entire stay in Coyhaique. I suppose that’s what you get when you’re the only big option in town…By the time I got out of there it was pushing 12:30, so I grabbed an empandada and grabbed a taxi up to the park ($5000) – otherwise there was no way I was going to get the trails in!
PN Coyhaique is again, not a spectacular park. This is no Torres or Fitzroy, but as with much of the landscape in Chile, it has a quiet understated beauty, and also benefits from being quite empty!
One of the 3 lagunas you can see in the park
There are two circuits you can do in the park – one of 4 hours or so around the lagunas, and another that extends this circuit up to the top of the mountain, adding another 4.5 hours or so onto your hike. I, unsurprisingly, having arrived at 12:30, was on the shorter trail. It was quiet and peaceful, and the perfect way to readjust to land after 32 hours of ferry life.
The next day (Saturday 3rd) was Marble Caves day! The capillas de marmol are one of the “must see” sights of the Carretera Austral. They also are 220km south of Coyhaique, so it’s a long day trip! If you’re planning on going further south than Coyhaique, definitely stay in Rio Tranquillo and do the tour from there. However, going on a tour from Coyhaique also means photo stops – a luxury you don’t get on a public bus!
We arrived in Rio Tranquillo and decided as a group to go straight out to the caves and have lunch after. Our tour guide drove us a few more minutes out from Tranquillo to a smaller bay where our boat was waiting. Apparently, getting to the caves from here is calmer and quicker – and certainly our journey was smooth! The lake where the marble caves are located is called Lago General de Carrera, and it is the largest lake in Chile by surface area. It’s also not a lake to be messed with: Douglas Tompkins, founder of North Face and owner of Parque Pumalin (future destination!) died following a kayaking accident on the lake.
The marble caves were beautiful – the juxtaposition of the colours of the marble with the pure turquoise blue of the lake was stunning – and luckily the sun even came out, which meant I was able to capture some of that magical colour you’ll see on google images – although some of that is definitely photo editing!
Matthew and I being very tourist.
Sunday I took as a lazy day, although Matthew and I did wander out to Pierda del Indio (a naturally formed rock that looks somewhat like the face of an indigenous person) and to the shops. Monday I was due to head off to Cisnes in the afternoon, but I didnt feel like doing nothing again all morning, so I booked a horse riding trip up in the hills. It was lovely – although rather odd to be doing the trail lead by a Brit named Ali, who lives out here now (except in the Chilean winter) with her Chilean partner, Lucho.
And with that, it was time to say goodbye to Coyhaique and to Matthew (who was heading south, to be crossing back over into Argentina – probably at Chile Chico. Probably) and on to the next destination – Puerto Cisnes…which is a whole other post.
Chilena de Corazon 