Month: March 2016

We had a tour of Santiago today — I am sure that a day tour does not do the city justice. It is huge. And, unfortunately, it is very, very smoggy. We took the funicular up to a city park early this morning and could hardly make out the Andes in the distance. The city’s sprawling mass of buildings still makes an impression even with the blur of pollution.

The memory of the Pinochet dictatorship is still very much alive. Our guide simply said “it was a bad time.” And he was polite enough not to mention that Pinochet’s coup had been backed by the U.S.  Returning to democracy has been a very positive experience for the country. Trade improved with the elimination of embargoes — and, in general, the life of the people became easier and more open.

We also toured Pablo Neruda’s home La Chascona– he was an avowed opponent of all Fascist movements, but was very ill at the time of Pinochet’s take-over. He actually died less than a month after the coup. His widow, Matilde (she of the crazy hair that inspired the name La Chascona) kept up his opposition and was a major voice for people’s rights throughout the Pintocnet’s regime.

Here are some pictures from La Chascona — no photos allowed inside the home:

Most remnants of Pinochet have been destroyed. Even the location of his burial plot has been kept secret for fear that it would be desecrated. As our guide said — he killed so many people, there are many who would take revenge. There is a museum (which was closed on the day we planned to visit) that deals with the Pinochet area focusing on the victims and remembrance of the repression of the time. (We learned that Pinochet sent many of his advisers to the University of Chicago to study under the economist Milton Friedman. This group was later referred to as the “Chicago boys.” Whatever they learned there did not translate into a better life for most Chileans.)

It is weird to talk to people for whom democracy is a new experience. Pinochet was turned out of office in 198 — the coup was in 1973. He called for an election with the clear idea that he would win — after all, the opposition had no newspapers, no way to gather strength. He was wrong.  Today the current president — Michelle Bacholet — is in her second term after a gap of 4 years. Chilean law does not allow consecutive terms. (Perhaps a good idea in the U.S??) She was very popular after her first term, but, according to our guide, has made many, many mistakes this time around. In today’s complicated world, I wonder how mistakes can be avoided.

Late lunch at Bocanariz, a wine bar recommended by our friend Lucy Comerford who spent time in Santiago not long ago teaching English.  It was just steps from our hotel. A perfect stop. The feature wine flights and I was happy to give the bubbles flight a try. Delicious! We started with tapas and then main courses. All terrific. A plus was meeting a group of young men dining next to us….from Louisville! They were from the restaurant Rye — and I’m sure eating their way through their week in Chile as a tax deduction. Very nice guys.

A couple of funny things from the day. Didn’t know that there was such tension (maybe not the right word) between Chileans and Argentinians. Certainly not in the south — there people refer to Argentina as “we are neighbors.” But here’s a Santiago joke….”Do you know how an Argentinian commits suicide? He climbs to the top of his ego and jumps.” Yikes! A more gentle funny thing is the name given to Santiago’s high-end financial district:  San-hattan.  Very funny.

 

Escape from the falls and on to Hacienda Los Lingues. And a discovery! Google is soooo smart. If you look up directions while you have internet connectivity, Google “remembers” the route and guides you to it.  Jeesh! Why didn’t we know this before the Puerto Montt excursion. But then, Cliff would not have made the acquaintance of the lovely carabinieros. (Note: this word is remarkably similar to the word that means “large shrimp”.)

Google and its welcome English directions took us DIRECTLY to Hacienda Los Lingues. What a wonderful place. An oasis. More wonderful than I expected. It is in the midst of grape vineyards, fruit orchards and, I suppose, horse farms.  We have not spotted a horse yet. Regardless, we are thrilled with this place and it turns out that we are the ONLY guests. The owner greeted us in beautiful English and made us feel immediately welcomed. He told us that the hacienda has been in the family for 18 generations! Yikes. They started it in 1520 something. It was partially destroyed in the 2010 earthquake (8.8 on the Richter scale) and was closed for 3 years. There are still a couple of places that have not been fully repaired. He told us that the buildings have been triple repaired — Adobe, cement, steel and then more cement. If the next earthquake takes these buildings down, he said, the whole of Chile will have collapsed into the Pacific:-)

Los Lingues is a flora paradise. Trees, roses, bushes, trellises and vegetable gardens. These are all irrigated with a system that must have been created centuries ago. It is sort of like the Roman aquaduct system with gates and valves that feed water into different areas around the property. The lushness of this place makes it clear that this watering system really works!

Other contrasts. No stopping at a gas station for lunch today. Beautiful words “would you like lunch in the garden or inside?”  The garden, por favor. We are alone until another couple comes in as we are finishing up. The attention to detail here is apparent. There is music in the garden with speakers “disguised” inside bird houses. Quite an environment. I am happy. (That makes Cliff happy — especially after how unhappy I was yesterday.)

Honestly, this place looks as though really, really, really rich people have been collecting furniture, rugs, accessories, silver and plants for centuries. And, I suppose, they have. Our room consists of a bedroom + bath that has sumptuously carved headboards, chairs, armoires, side tables and a cozy wood burning stove plus a sitting room that is equally furnished. Dinner tonight was in a main dining room where, when there are more guests, they gather together. If you’d like to be alone, there are two separate areas where they’ll serve dinner to you separately. We dined in the big room filled with amazing pieces of silver serving dishes, a fireplace and a table big enough to seat 18…..and there were 18 matching chairs to go along with it. Our host stopped in to ask if everything was to our liking….we said, “yes, of course.” And he answered that they would have to kill someone if it wasn’t. I’m not sure he was kidding!

Back to our room where they have lit the wood burning stove. How cozy. Cliff has Jane Monheit playing on his iPad. How good is this!?

Monday and Tuesday couldn’t have been more different. Monday was our day to slog through car repairs, bad directions, even worse meals and Ann’s decidedly bad humor. After awaking to a glorious sunrise in Frutillar, the day went quickly downhill.

On a positive note….

Off we went to Avis’ downtown Puerto Montt location — no easy feat the find without a GPS. We’d discovered that our GPS problem was the result of a faulty 12volt cigarette lighter connection in the car. After getting completely lost trying to use the map Avis provided, Cliff hailed a very nice man to assist us. We were nowhere near where we wanted to be though the man couldn’t pinpoint exactly where we were on the Avis map.

Twenty minutes later, Cliff ran after three uniformed lady carabineros (complete with serious looking guns) on a busy street. They immediately asked for his identification papers (yikes!) and somehow assured him that they would help. Eventually, they called the downtown Avis location where there was no one who spoke sufficient English to assist. After about 10 minutes and several phone calls to God knows who…..with hand signals and smiles, we were directed to make a right hand turn and get to the waterfront. From there, we were back to the Avis map, but we at least had an idea of where we were and, happily, found the right street without too many false turns. Avis confirmed the problem, did not have a replacement car, but said the lighter could be fixed in 30 minutes.

We took the opportunity to make lemonade out of lemons with a walk along Puerto Montt’s waterfront, a stop for a cup of coffee and some photo taking at a mosaic filled fountain on the way back to Avis. Hooray! Car is ready to go when we get back 40 minutes later.

And we’re off!

Not exactly. The GPS does not recognize Salto de Laja (our next stop) as a point of interest. It does recognize a street by the name of “Salto Laja” in Los Angeles, the nearest town to the falls. Unfortunately, the street and the town are not really near where we want to go. After many u-turns and much grumbling (Ann), we look at a tiny map in a guide book and see that the falls are quite a bit north of Los Angeles. We get back onto the main highway and promptly get into the wrong toll lane which requires some sort of auto-pay card (which, of course, we do not have). The truck driver behind us generously offers his card to us — but the logistics of using it and then returning it to him seemed difficult. Eventually — again with hand signals and smiles — he backs up and we are able to get into the correct lane. Whew!  A few miles later, Cliff sees a red exclamation point light up on the car display. Not good. A message appears on the center display (in Spanish of course!) and quickly disappears before we can figure out what it says. We decide to continue to the next gas station exit. As we drive, the message re-appears and Ann deciphers “estanciamiento” as one of the words.  Aha! She’d earlier figured out that a big “E” with an arrow meant there was public parking nearby. Parking! Parking! What could it mean? The parking break was slightly on — having been triggered as Cliff was dealing with being in the wrong toll lane.

I’m not even going to give you the gory details of an earlier attempt to find “the best French fries in Temuco.” We settled for a not too bad meal of grilled chicken breasts at a gas station. This was not as bad as it sounds — but definitely NOT what we had in mind!

We, at last, arrive at Hotel Salto de Laja and, as promised, our room has a perfect view of the falls. They are disappointing. The room is disappointing. The bath mat is not large enough for Cliff to place both of his size 13 feet on it. The restaurant — and especially the waiter — retrieves the day from abysmal to “we’re on vacation.” We order the smallest dinners they have (grilled fish — delicious!) and a nice bottle of wine. A woman nearby hears us and comes to our table, asking if we are Americans. She is an American married to a Chilean and has lived in Chile for 41 years. She said she noticed that Cliff had ordered a nice bottle of wine:-)

Turns out that her husband is related to Sara Braun, a prominent name in Punta Arenas. She was his grandmother and he had fond memories of being at the mansion in Punta Arenas which is currently used as some sort of civic club with the sunroom now an ivy-lined pub open to the public.

You’ll get the compare story in the next post!

 

 

Travel day from Awasi was a lazy one by their standards. Just two or three hikes up from our villa to the main lodge — about 1/4 mile each way. After five days of real trekking, we were definitely ready for a bit of lazy before our 2pm departure for the two-part journey back to Punta Arenas. We bid adios to our guide Daniel in Puerto Natales and arrived in Punta Arenas around 7pm. What sounded good? A plain old pizza! With a little internet sleuthing, we found a recommended pizzeria with the unlikely name of Gyros Pizza about 8 blocks away. Delicious — with the cheese browned and bubbly and a crisp thin crust — and a definite switch from the elegant meals of Awasi. Our dinner timing was perfect for us to watch the money shot in a Spanish dubbed version of the 10 Commandments. Charleton Heston parted the Red Sea and we departed the restaurant for a well-deserved early bedtime.

The next part of our trip was completely planned by me and will be a car journey. Not a perfect combination for either of us. The first challenge was the GPS unit we got with our rental car in Puerto Montt….it only speaks Spanish. We did manage to get the keyboard and the screen info into English and then quickly learned to pick out the words “izquierda” (left!!) and “derecha” (right!!) as we tooled along. Alas, the GPS gave up the ghost after we arrived in Frutillar so we drove back to Puerto Montt early on Sunday only to learn that we cannot get a new one until Monday. This change throws a bit of a wrench into our travel plans to Saltos de Laja waterfall, but I am sure we’ll recover.

We spent Easter Sunday driving around Lake Llanquihue (ay-key-whey) getting amazing views of the water and the two volcanoes which dominate the scenery. There are estancias and haciendas and shacks and weird looking housing developments to be seen along the way. I would guess that he micro-climate here is something like Vancouver’s given the lush flower beds and abundan fruit trees we saw along the way. There are wind breaks along the fields comprised of ancient poplars and eucalyptus that are spectacular. A terrific way to spend a day.

We’d hoped to have lunch at La Olla in Puerto Veras — a long wait deterred us and we ended up stopping at a tiny sandwich shop immediately across from one of the official volcano viewing points on the lake. The restaurant featured llamas that you could feed for $1 🙂 The sandwiches were HUGE and a bit unusual. Cliff ordered our Spanish standby — queso y jamon — and I opted for an Italiano, which surprisingly consisted of sautéed beef chunks, smashed avocado, tomatoes and a bit of mayo. The most amazing thing about both sandwiches was their size — 8 inch rounds about 2 inches high! I think a VERY light dinner is in our future.

And my knees are nearly recovered, too.

Sort of. Today’s excursion was fly fishing. The location: a secluded lagoon in the Sierra Baguales area. Getting there required a 1 1/2 hour hike UP hill. The lake itself was remarkable. I’d say a little less than a mile across and roughly oval in shape. The far end of the lake abutted rocky bluffs. For the most part, the edges of the lake were a soft weave of grasses. Our fly fishing skills leave much for improvement. Cliff caught a large brown trout….which threw the hook just as he was bringing it to shore. Our guide was at the ready in waders with a net….but, the fish had other plans. I had a strong nibble, but in my excitement managed to pull the fly right out of the fish’s mouth. Even though we did not have a photo of a fish at the end of our excursion, we enjoyed the day thoroughly. (Perhaps not the “walk” in!) The guide Ben and his assistant JP were phenomenally patient and totally charming. The spread out a wonderful picnic on the shore complete with wine (of course!) which I declined knowing that the “walk” back was ahead of me. I’m wobbly enough going downhill without a glass of wine!  Our guide’s name was Benjamin Vial, the director of Patagonia Lines fly fishing tours. We would highly recommend them. Check out www.patagonialines.com. The company is located in Puerto Natales but provides service as far north as Torres deal Paines national park.

The drive to our starting place was an adventure in itself, crossing two suspicious looking bridges and fording a stream filled with imposing stones and boulders. And in between, marshy spots with thick mats of green ground cover that oozed mud as we drove across them. There were several places where I was sure we would have to get out and push! But Ben gave precise directions complete with hand signals and JP got us in and back with only one or two ominous clunks from rocks. Sheep, cattle and rheas crowded the semi-flat road when we finally got to it.  JP moved forward to get them moving and most often they just ran ahead of the car for quite a distance before abandoning flat road for the dry hilly terrain on either side. A rhea did a zig zag dance in front of us before finally heading  off to a hill.

I can’t tell you how fabulous it was today to come in for lunch and find the group 20-somethings already ensconced and to see them leave in obvious pain. When I asked them how their day was they “confessed” that they’d taken a day to rest up from the previous one. Mind you, this was only their second day at Awasi. This was the first day that we’d taken just a half day of trekking and returned for lunch at the lodge…..aren’t we intrepid?! So, after getting over this feeling of old-age superiority, we headed to our villa and luxuriated in the hot tub again.  Ahhhh.

Our trek today was a mild one outside of the nationa park to the Sierra Bagueles, known for its f0ssil finds. In fact, the area has been purchased from estancia owners by the university at Punta Arenas to protect the find of fossils and an enormous sea dinosaur that was found in a cave. After the first discovery there were many looters who took items — and some of them are now in the British Museum. Today, the area is protected and Awasi has a special arrangement with them to let their tour guides pass into the area. Our walk took us along a very gentle river (with some slippery rocks!) and into gentle hills where we literally picked up fossils by the handful.

One of the souvenirs that Awasi has left for us in the villa is a booklets with native people stories. The myth that Cliff and I liked best was about Dolphins. The story goes that a group of native peoples was captured by the Spanish and were on the way to Spain as slaves. A huge storm overtook their ship and a kind Spanish sailor released them from their chains. They were flung into the ocean and the choice was to go back to the Spanish boat or to remain in the sea. They were far too far from the shore to save themselves, but they remained in the sea rather than return to the ship as slaves.  The story goes that they turned into dolphin — which is why dolphin breathe air and have human-like brain power.  A lovely story we decided. (Except the slavery part).

Wednesday was blustery and a bit rainy. We had a fairly easy day — I’d say a half day. The hot tub was wonderful and I think did us both lots of good. Highlights of the day were a gathering of condors on the ground (fairly unusual according to the guides), rainbows across the mountains, incredible scenery, and the joy of being just three people enjoying the beauty of the little bit of the river we were on. It is amazing to be in such a vast area and to find that you have it (at least the spot you are in) all to yourselves.

Ahhhh.

Cliff and I took a 2 hour horseback ride yesterday. The idea of a horse carrying us across the beautiful landscape — and us NOT hiking through it — sounded like a great idea. But what did we know? Trotting is not for the faint-hearted or butted. I believe I ended the ride about an inch shorter than I started. Having access to areas that you would otherwise not see was a treat. Our horses sauntered through herds of guanaco. Along the trails we saw evidence of “the circle of life” — bony remains of a puma’s dinner.  Mostly guanaco, but one fox still identifiable by its pointed nose an ears. Perhaps I should have paid more attention when our guide Danielle asked if we were afraid of heights. No, we replied — not imagining the very narrow path along a steep bluff leading to a river bed. The horses were thirsty and we were relieved to be on flat ground.

After dismounting (thankfully), we hiked through an area called, appropriately, Guanaco Hill. We were able to nearly walk right up to one of these sweet looking camel-cousins. They merely scooted out of touching distance as we approached and are quite obviously used to people — unlike guanaco we saw (later in the week) in Sierra Baguales that did their sentry calls to let their herd know that danger (us?!) was in the area.

Guanacos slowly edging away.

Lunch was staged at a postcard ready site overlooking appropriately named Lago Azul with the park’s main peak and the Cleopatra’s needles formation in the background. Yellow jackets joined us and I managed to get stung on my wrist. Ouch. (Fully recovered in no time.)

Woke this morning to rain. Our immediate thought: Do you think they’ll cancel today’s trek!? We were both hoping the answer would be yes:-) It stopped raining as we departed our villa for the main lodge and breakfast, so the trek is ON!

Yikes, but we are out of shape. A long, hot soak at the end of the day was definitely therapeutic! The trek yesterday was around a penninsula that juts into the Gray River with prime views of the Gray Glacier. We learned later than the piece of the glacier that’s visible here is a teensy part of the entire thing — it sweeps up from the lake, around the peaks and into vast ice fields.  We did see “icebergs” from the glacier — but they were very small — in Alaska I think they would call them “burgie-bits.” The bright aqua of the bergs and muted hues on the glacier itself were contrasted by the gray of the river which has so much sediment in the water from the glacier that there are no fish in it. Later we stopped at another lake and spotted large salmon near the shore. (We had delicious smoked salmon at our picnic lunch mid-afternoon.)

Info sign at Grey Lake

Cliff & Danielle on stone beach

Burgie bits barely visible.

Hiking around the peninsula

After our very strenuous walk across the mile long rock beach, hike around the peninsula jutting into Grey Lake and then the trek back across the beach….lunch! To soothe our aches and pains, Danielle served Jameson on the rocks as our preprandial.

Cheers!

Picnics are served elegantly.

Tuesday featured the western side of the national park.  The scenery here is quite different from the Lake Sarmiento side. Our villa overlooks Lake Sarmiento with a range of snowy peaks in the distance. The western side is arid with beautiful contrasting colors of wheat gold and chocolate brown. Not nearly as much wildlife spotted there, but the guanacos make regular appearances as do herds of sheep (and rainbows!)

A funny sight as we were driving was a herd of sheep seemingly being driven by rheas in their midst. These flightless birds are pretty speedy and the sheep move out of their path in startled trots. We learned an interesting thing about the rheas. The fathers incubate and then take care of the newborn chicks. After the chicks hatch, lone males are seen with a dozen or more chicks in their wake. The fathers are quite fierce in protecting their broods. Our guide reported seeing one charge after a fox that had its eye on two dawdling chicks — the fox took off.

We did get our dip in the hot tub! Much needed.

Cliff stirred up the water to make sure we wouldn’t end up cooked! A cold water faucet is conveniently provided to cool the water down to a bearable temperature. VERY relaxing.

And, boy, am I glad I got a good pair of hiking boots (thank you REI!). My feet are tired, but not distressed!

As lovely and serene as advertised. There are 11 villas on the property, each one secluded (and, alas, a goodly distance from the main lodge!). Our villa consists of a small sitting room with a fireplace, a large sleeping area with an oversized king-size bed, a well-equipped bath and steps away, a wood-fueled hot tub. We have not tried the hot tub yet — it was too windy and too much of a fire hazard.

Hot tub is on the right.

Speaking of wind. WOW! Our first hike to a glacier-fed lake and a waterfall featured winds of 50+mph. Yes, they could nearly blow you over. I crouched down several times along the way to wait for the wind to subside even a bit. Cliff managed to topple over once due to his backpack acting like a sail — whoops! He got a pretty good sized scratch and assorted abrasions but was not seriously damaged, thank goodness. The hike was 2 1/2 hours long. We are only at about 500 feet altitude so we did not have thin air to contend with, but the terrain was up and down. I think they consider this trail to be low difficulty. We’ve got a “medium” coming up. Yikes.  We hiked to two other sites after lunch — but these were of the 10 minutes out and 10 minutes back variety.  At moments, I thought, well, we’ve seen Patagonia…check — let’s move on to a spa resort.  Five more days filled with treks might be a bit much!

A highlight of the day (other than the scenery, which was magnificent), was a picnic lunch complete with cloth tablecloth, wine glasses and a cheese dish (a cross between quesa fundido and saganaki) cooked on a propane stove. One of the wine glasses cracked in transit, so I drank my delicious red wine from a tin cup meant for the soup!

Scenery is unbelievable (and I hope to get to a connection that allows me to post pictures soon — Awasi is definitely not the place.) I’ve taken several shots on my iPhone that could be used for one of thos Apple billboards that boast “taken with an i6”. They are that spectacular — and obviously did not require any photographic ability at all.  My billboard could say “taken with an i6 by an utter amateur”!

We are the grey-beards among the guests at Awasi. Two couples look to be 10 or 15 years younger than us. The others are, at most, in their early 30’s. One brave family has two little kids — like under 6 — in tow.

Had to add a comment about Awasi hospitality. We arrived at the lodge on Saturday around 3pm — too late for lunch, BUT they have a meal interlude they call “after lunch” (Cliff decided this is something like Pooh’s elevenses.)  Three courses, plus wine, of course.  You can see that we look pretty happy with it!

 

Our location in Patagonia is BELOW the antarctic circle — but all of our time in Chile was at about the same longitude as California.  The “California connection” is not very apparent in Patagonia, but a definite feeling once you are as far north as Santiago, Valparaiso and the wine valleys.

Not quite….after 9 1/2 hours in the air from Miami to Santiago, we had a 3 1/2 hour layover and THEN a 3 1/2 hour flight to Punta Arenas, our overnight stop before heading to Awasi tomorrow.  Our friend Jim Comerford reminded us that he and Cleo made the trip from Chicago!! The good news? It’s just 20 minutes from the Punta Arenas airport to our hotel Rey Don Felipe. The bad news? We have a 5 hour drive ahead of us tomorrow! The hotel here is quite nice and they included a “welcome drink” as part of our package. Cliff enjoyed (maybe?) his and mine. I opted for a nice Chilean Cabernet savignon instead 🙂  Cliff took lots of pictures through the plane window on the way to Punta Arenas….I haven’t quite figured out how to grab them, but will post as soon as I do!

After a semi-misadventure trying to find a restaurant we’d picked out which involved a very steep hike and a walk through some iffy looking neighborhoods, we ended up having dinner at the hotel. It was terrific. I tried conger eel, which the waiter described as being like sea bass. He was right – but the eel tasted better and had a better consistency than a lot of sea bass I’ve had in the past. Cliff opted for lamb shank, also delicious. Promise not to make this a food travelogue…it’s just that day one didn’t have much else to report on!

Cliff enjoying our “welcome drinks.”

Photo below: this is what a conger eel looks like. Don’t think it’ll be an easy sell in the U.S. But very delicious. (Picture courtesy of the Internet!)