Day 4
Janaury 20, 2010
Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
Mile 857
We wake early to grey skies and drizzle. We´ve arrived in Patagonia and are excited to get off the boat, hire a taxi and get on our way. We don´t let the the weather hold us back. From the boat I can see daisies and lupine. Rain or shine, that´s enough for me.
Today we hire Oscar and, per usual, I sit in the front and attempt to communicate. For $140.00 for the four of us he will bring us on a four hours cir
cuit out of Puuerto Chacabuco, hug the Simpson River and ultimately will bring us to the Patagonia Lake District town of Coyahique. I´ve asked him to stop often, let us take photos. I also give him permission to surprise us with places we never planned on seeing. Despite the weather, we´re not disappointed. The road we're on parallels the Simpson River. Because of the rain, water cascades off mountain cliffs in bridal sheets of cascade and waterfalls. The river runs swiftly. It´s a beautiful place.
At this latitude, identical to Plattsburgh, summer arrives late. It´s a month after the summer solstice, but the fields are still full of daisies, lupine and foxglove. Daisies: in January. I never stop marveling at that. And lupine in bright shades of blue, lavender, white, pink and periwinkle. Magic! All of it!
Our trip brings us from the port through the Simpson Valley. It rains, dissipates, then rains again. But we´re in a narrow valley and, despite the low cloud cover, we have marvelous vistas of l
ow range mountains, some still snow topped, waterfalls, the ever meandering Simpson River... and daisies!
Oscar is polite and takes very good care of us. But he´s no Leticia. It´s very difficult to hold on to his Spanish. He drops consonants and plurals to the end of words. It forces me to another level. I miss a lot, but learn a lot too. (There are multiple Spanishes, just as there are mulitiple Englishes. His is just another challenge.)
He tells me in rains ten months of the year. (Not for me, although the place is lush and verdant and evident of this rainfall.) It can snow 30 inches at a time and schools close for kids here, too, but in June, July and August. He moved here three years ago from Santiago because it was a safer place to raise his children and there were more job opportunities.
I see lots of evergreens and ask him if they're used as Christmas trees. despite the abundance of a Patagonian variety of fir tree, he tells me no one uses them in their homes in December.
He tells me that there are lots of fox in the mountains, but deer are so few that they´re protected. It´s too cool and wet for home gardens, but the area is rich in lumber and salmon and these small communties are growing because it offers lots of jobs. Salmom are farm raised, 100,000 to a cage. The water is cool and clean, so my guess is if you´re buying Chilean salmon it´s safe.
We stop as often as possible to look at waterfallzs, the lovely Simpson River and verdant, snow capped mountains. We
ultimately reach the town of Coyahique, as far as we´ll go before turning around. Kirk has been telling me he´s quite concern about the persistent cough. It´s persisted for days and has gotten worse again. He´s a recent graduate of the Albany School of Pharmacy. I ask Dr. Kirk to go into a pharmacy with me. He´s convinced I have pneumonia. My Spanish is pushed to the limit. The parmaciost pulls out several boxes of anitbiotics and Kirk points to the strongest of the lot. In many countries one doesn´t need a doctor´s Rx. Kirk shows his credientials and that is enough. Another $100.00 later I walk out with a two weeks supply. Days later I know it does the trick. What was affecting me lay deeply in the lungs, but a week on the new antibiotic does the trick. My stomach is still doing flip flops from something I´ve eaten the day before. There is a rumor onboard ship that there´s a lot of sickness. I'm not about to tell them that my parmacist, the good Doctor Kirk, thinks I have pneumonia. I´d be quarantined. Despite feeling lousy top to bottom, I refuse to let it stop me.
We linger a bit in this lovely town, listen to a group of Andean muscicians from Ecuador play pan pipes on the street, stop into a small restaurant, drink a coffee near a roaring fire. It´s summer, but quite cool. This is Glenda´s favorite town on the entire trip, she tells me much later.
On the way back to Puetro Chacabuco we laugh a lot. I keep shouting out, "Wow, look at the field of daisies. And there, more lupine. Look at them, climbing up the hillside." I do it so many times that Marc tells me to shut up. We laugh again. Kirk and Glenda never stop talking in the back seat. It´s still raining, but who cares. Marc is ready to kick me out of the car if I point out another field of flowers. This is a very compatible group and we´ve had a great time together.
By 5:00 pm we´re back on the ship. I take a nap for two hours. Sunset isn´t until 10:00 pm, so we wait until late to eat. We ask for a window seat, but the sky is a soupy gray so we never actually see the sun set, but twilight lingers until almost 10:45. We´re heading south, closer to the Straits of Magellan, and ultimately to Cape Horn--toward the long, white nights of a southern South America, to "the end of the world."
This, I know, is just the beginning of the deep
magic.
Janaury 20, 2010
Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
Mile 857
We wake early to grey skies and drizzle. We´ve arrived in Patagonia and are excited to get off the boat, hire a taxi and get on our way. We don´t let the the weather hold us back. From the boat I can see daisies and lupine. Rain or shine, that´s enough for me.
Today we hire Oscar and, per usual, I sit in the front and attempt to communicate. For $140.00 for the four of us he will bring us on a four hours cir
cuit out of Puuerto Chacabuco, hug the Simpson River and ultimately will bring us to the Patagonia Lake District town of Coyahique. I´ve asked him to stop often, let us take photos. I also give him permission to surprise us with places we never planned on seeing. Despite the weather, we´re not disappointed. The road we're on parallels the Simpson River. Because of the rain, water cascades off mountain cliffs in bridal sheets of cascade and waterfalls. The river runs swiftly. It´s a beautiful place.At this latitude, identical to Plattsburgh, summer arrives late. It´s a month after the summer solstice, but the fields are still full of daisies, lupine and foxglove. Daisies: in January. I never stop marveling at that. And lupine in bright shades of blue, lavender, white, pink and periwinkle. Magic! All of it!
Our trip brings us from the port through the Simpson Valley. It rains, dissipates, then rains again. But we´re in a narrow valley and, despite the low cloud cover, we have marvelous vistas of l
ow range mountains, some still snow topped, waterfalls, the ever meandering Simpson River... and daisies!Oscar is polite and takes very good care of us. But he´s no Leticia. It´s very difficult to hold on to his Spanish. He drops consonants and plurals to the end of words. It forces me to another level. I miss a lot, but learn a lot too. (There are multiple Spanishes, just as there are mulitiple Englishes. His is just another challenge.)
He tells me in rains ten months of the year. (Not for me, although the place is lush and verdant and evident of this rainfall.) It can snow 30 inches at a time and schools close for kids here, too, but in June, July and August. He moved here three years ago from Santiago because it was a safer place to raise his children and there were more job opportunities.
I see lots of evergreens and ask him if they're used as Christmas trees. despite the abundance of a Patagonian variety of fir tree, he tells me no one uses them in their homes in December.
He tells me that there are lots of fox in the mountains, but deer are so few that they´re protected. It´s too cool and wet for home gardens, but the area is rich in lumber and salmon and these small communties are growing because it offers lots of jobs. Salmom are farm raised, 100,000 to a cage. The water is cool and clean, so my guess is if you´re buying Chilean salmon it´s safe.
We stop as often as possible to look at waterfallzs, the lovely Simpson River and verdant, snow capped mountains. We
ultimately reach the town of Coyahique, as far as we´ll go before turning around. Kirk has been telling me he´s quite concern about the persistent cough. It´s persisted for days and has gotten worse again. He´s a recent graduate of the Albany School of Pharmacy. I ask Dr. Kirk to go into a pharmacy with me. He´s convinced I have pneumonia. My Spanish is pushed to the limit. The parmaciost pulls out several boxes of anitbiotics and Kirk points to the strongest of the lot. In many countries one doesn´t need a doctor´s Rx. Kirk shows his credientials and that is enough. Another $100.00 later I walk out with a two weeks supply. Days later I know it does the trick. What was affecting me lay deeply in the lungs, but a week on the new antibiotic does the trick. My stomach is still doing flip flops from something I´ve eaten the day before. There is a rumor onboard ship that there´s a lot of sickness. I'm not about to tell them that my parmacist, the good Doctor Kirk, thinks I have pneumonia. I´d be quarantined. Despite feeling lousy top to bottom, I refuse to let it stop me.We linger a bit in this lovely town, listen to a group of Andean muscicians from Ecuador play pan pipes on the street, stop into a small restaurant, drink a coffee near a roaring fire. It´s summer, but quite cool. This is Glenda´s favorite town on the entire trip, she tells me much later.
On the way back to Puetro Chacabuco we laugh a lot. I keep shouting out, "Wow, look at the field of daisies. And there, more lupine. Look at them, climbing up the hillside." I do it so many times that Marc tells me to shut up. We laugh again. Kirk and Glenda never stop talking in the back seat. It´s still raining, but who cares. Marc is ready to kick me out of the car if I point out another field of flowers. This is a very compatible group and we´ve had a great time together.
By 5:00 pm we´re back on the ship. I take a nap for two hours. Sunset isn´t until 10:00 pm, so we wait until late to eat. We ask for a window seat, but the sky is a soupy gray so we never actually see the sun set, but twilight lingers until almost 10:45. We´re heading south, closer to the Straits of Magellan, and ultimately to Cape Horn--toward the long, white nights of a southern South America, to "the end of the world."
This, I know, is just the beginning of the deep
magic. 
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