Sea kayaking and the small world of foresters...

Now with all the pictures...


Man the time flies when you are having a great time and when you`re in a natural area without internet (fortunately, I must say - it`s no punishment to live without the square screen for a while!). My last story I wrote at the 11th of March, so almost two weeks passed, in which a lot has happenend. Which follows summarized (haha I won`t bother you with complete stories). I`ll type it while sitting in the door opening of an internet cafe in Castro on the Chiloe Island, where the cold, but smelly air (fish, shipyard etc.) waves in...

El Calafate was the last place I wrote from, and after that I went into Chile. But not after having a beer and dinner with some viajeros I met before: a Dutchie who happened to be a friend of my friend Mark v.W. (and who had the most interesting stories about his survival tours with too many kilograms in his backpack), Alan from the UK whom I met while hiking around Bariloche and a Swedish guy. And that night at 4 o`clock, my bus left for Chile. So after drinking loads of wine, I got sober again while sleaping a bit in the bus station. That`s the real tramp feeling, only without a paper box.

While waiting for the second bus in Rio Gallegos (at the crossroads of the Argentinian shore, the way to Ushuaia and southern Chile), I talked with an old Chilean hippy called Luis. That was really funny, we had a good talk, also all the way in the bus to Punta Arenas. This trip took a long time, because we had to wait for hours at the customs again (that looks like former eastern Europe; waiting for hours, first at the Arg. customs and 500m later and the Chilean customs again, showing everything you carry with you, especially food, because Chile is very anxious for agricultural diseases).

There I found out that my Lonely Planet was not really well adapted to the last developments for hostelling in Chile: two times, there were hostels described who were not there anymore, which is quite ignoring when you have been on a bus the whole day. So I ended up in Carmen`s cosy family hostel which actually was a bit too expensive, but very family-like: Carmen was a grandmother who cooked every night for her grandchildren and daughter and there was a puppy running around as well. But the good thing was, she organised everything for me (she got a bit angry as I organised a trip my self...), so I relaxed a bit there. P`Arenas is a nice harbour town, the connexion to Antarctica for Chile and as well the harbour for all the cruises through the Chilean lake district. It has a lot of ancien collonial buildings, which gives it European flair (of course, you`re not looking for this in S.America, but it`s part of history).

The first afternoon, I wanted to visit a forest monument nearby, so I rented a bike. But heavy rain, unbelievable strong and cold Andean wind and a closed forest office (so no map) forced me to turn around. Again a thing missing in lonely planet. But the next day, I went to go sea kayaking on the Magellaen Strait! This I read about a few times in the Op Pad (Dutch outdoor magazine) and interested me a lot and it was a great experience! Waves of about a meter and loads of wind, and apart from that, the steer broke, so I had to use my river Linge canoing experience to steer the kayak back to the shore, of course with the help of Maria from Australia who sat at the front seat. A second trip with the guide made it extra great - I sat at the front seat and had to paddle like hell because the wind was much stronger than before. I was completely covered with salt afterwards, it was great!

That day, we (Maria, the other kayaker Emily and I) visited some museum and some pubs, which was nice.
The next morning, I went on a real touristy trip to Fuerte Bulnes, which was the first colonial (fortified) settlement on the shore of the Magelhaen Strait, but 400 years after the discovery of the strait! This really surprised me, I wouldn`t think it would take so long to build some wooden cabins...


By then, it was time to leave for central Chile, the lake district (although I was very glad to having been able to visit the most south and windy part of S.America a bit longer, after leaving Ushuaia so quick before). I flew to Puerto Montt (unfortunately, the weather was not good, so I didn`t see anything of the Andean glaciers and the Lake District), which is the saddest, poorest and ugliest town I've seen so far. I ended up in a dirty hostel with an uninterested owner and there were very many beggars on the streets, unmaintained houses, a lot of dogs and dirt etc. This made me sad (the heavy rain as well... - well people said that Chile was doing better economically than Argentina at the moment, that might be, but it starts developing from a lower level, I think, because up till now, it`s really much poorer (except the few rich houses and cars) and more simple than Argentina!) so I moved quickly to the nice Island of Chiloe.

Chiloe is a peasant and fishermans island with a lot of native Indian inhabitants, which gives it a very special atmosphere. There, after spending the night in a more luxurious hostel, I felt a bit ill, but I still went to camp in the national park. This was not such a good idea, because the weather changed, so I got a bit more ill, especially in the morning, after waking up in a complete wet tent (it really is not suitable for humid weather...). But fortunally, Lily, the camping guard, a woman of about fifty, offered me a bed in her little house, including the greatest meals, coffee, liquor etc.

She needed some company and I liked this very much as well, we had nice chats in Spanish (more or less...)!
I did some day hiking in the gorgeous park (the climate is here so nice that the fuchsia`s grow meters high and there are small birds who fly vertically and drink the nectar!) and I went to the beach of the pacific ocean! My first meeting with this big lake!!!

But the greatest part in this paradise came yesterday. In the morning I did some horse back riding with Nelson, an Indian man who told a lot about live on the island, which was very interesting.

Then, I wanted to leave for another place but... at once I was invited (living in Lily`s house for two days already) by the French practical trainee Alexandrine to join her and a Conaf (Chile`s forestry service) park guard to visit a farmer. We drove along a most gorgeous coast for kilometers and walked around a bit. At night, some friends of Lily`s and Alexandrine`s came and... there you see that the foresters world really is a small one: I met Franco who works for another forest and rural development project (Bosque Modelo) and... who knows my good friend Mark v.B. from his practical training in 1998! Apart from that, another mystery guest appeared: a friend of Alexandrine named Virginie came, who studies at the forest university ENGREF in Nancy (France) and... who knows friends of me from my Freiburg time (Jean-Marc, Julien)!!! This was unbelievable, we had a great night with some music, much wine and very good French food!


And there I sit in Castro, the "capital" of Chiloe again, typing my stories which I hope you are still enjoying. You see, it`s great to travel alnoe: you meet new friends who are young or older people, new friends who actually are old friends (of other friends) and old friends from travelling. This is amazing! I`ve got about one month to go and I know it will be very nice to return home again, to see everybody, play my trumpet who might miss me, laying apart in pieces so it doesn´t rot, and look for a job, but I surely will miss this!

Greetings from Chile!

Jeroen

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