Sunday, December 29th, 2013
This morning, I packed up a small bag very early and walked
down to a local bus station to catch the 8am bus to the very small town of
Cochamo. As could be expected, the bus didn’t actually arrive until a good
20-30 minutes later, and as luck would have it, the bus was standing room only
for my entire 2 hour ride. This side-trek is a small bit off-the-beaten-path,
and the lack of frequent transportation options showed it.
From the town of Cochamo is a valley that opens up into a
stunning canyon of towering granite peaks. Tanja back in Pucon told me about
this place, so I e-mailed the only accommodations in the valley, Refugio
Cochamo, to secure a bed for a few nights.
The only problem is that I didn’t exactly know how to get to
the refugio – all I knew is that from the town, I could call a taxi to drive me
6km over rocky roads to the trailhead, and then I just needed to follow the
cow-worn trails for about 12km and keep the river to my right side until the
refugio magically appeared in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately for me, a Chilean couple Andres & Teresa
were on the bus and headed to the refugio as well. Andres had been to the
valley a few times already, so he had a pretty good sense of the trail overall.
So the three of us shared a taxi ride and headed to the trailhead.
Unfortunately for us, it started raining during our taxi
ride. Further, the taxi wasn’t much of a taxi – it was an old low-end pick-up
truck with a plywood high-walled bed, where Andres and I were able to enjoy the
aforementioned rain. And since my small backpack had already begun to sport a
nice hole on top, my raincoat was dedicated more to cover the pack instead of
my body.
The trail was almost completely under forest cover, so the
rain didn’t bother us too much because it wasn’t too heavy. The trails were
mostly easy to spot – apparently there are several ranches deep into the valley
as well, so cows & horses used the trail a lot and dug trenches into the
soft soil. The rain water must have further entrenched the trails or something
because significant sections of the trail had trenches that were 6-7 feet high.
Because these got so deep, cows and horses sought alternate nearby trails,
which also quickly became overused and deep. Hikers, on the other hand, attempted
to create trails through the woods a few feet from the cow trails in the high
ground to avoid the mudpits – while largely successful, we still spent a ton of
time trying to navigate the endless web of trails.
And then at some points, the trails would completely
disappear, especially when the rainwater didn’t concentrate in a specific
pathway, instead choosing to spread out and erode any pathway that may have
taken place. And in other spots, the parks service was so kind as to build
wooden bridges or walkways to both demarcate the path for hikers and to provide
an unflooded unmuddied surface.
In any case, the walk was gorgeous even through the light
rain. About halfway through, the rain stopped altogether and every once in a
while the sun would peak out. And about 2/3 of the way through, a small green
space opened up where I could see some of the purplish granite grandeur that I
would get to stare at in awe the next few days.
Towards the end of our 3.5 hour walk, we started to see
fences & gates – much of the area in the valley is actually private. Some
owners are perfectly fine with hikers and rock climbers walking along trails
while others are not so inclined. The owners of the refugio I was staying at
are a couple who built their guesthouse a decade ago and have a large flat
space that is used as a campground as well. After reaching the campground, we
had to cross the river to get to the refugio… but the river is too large to
simply build a bridge over it. The only way to cross without horses is by a
manually-powered single-occupant cable car. It was pretty cool.
The refugio itself was stunningly beautiful and matched the
surrounding scenery. It’s a small guesthouse, with two private rooms and a
larger dorm-style room with two levels of side-by-side bunks that can sleep up
to twenty people, a bit packed in like sardines. But the structure is
completely wooden and is kept toasty by the kitchen and a well placed wood
stove.
Power was not readily available here, so the food served was
almost exclusively vegetarian, except for salami/pepperoni that they could put
as a topping on pizza. The baking oven was a bit on the legendary side and
people raved about their bread, particularly their wheat loaf. I didn’t find it
that exceptional, but it wasn’t bad. In any case, I had an over-sized pizza for
my dinner with almost half as leftovers for the next day.
Monday, December 30th, 2013
Last night, the rain picked up in a big way and it only
briefly paused this morning. The skies were pretty clouded over and it was
clear that much more rain was coming. Over our quite limited breakfast
primarily consisting of homemade bread and butter or other spread (excluding
peanut butter), another couple staying at the refugio (I think they were a
couple, at least) Andre & Samara from Brazil invited me to join them to do
some rock climbing. Apparently, this valley is a rock climber’s dream because
of all of the granite cliffs or something. Owing to my “say yes more than no”
and “embrace serendipity” trip pseudo-mantras, I said yes even though the only
time I had done this in the past few years was a very brief 2 hour session in a
rock climbing gym several months ago after work.
Climbing on wet surfaces is an obvious “no go”, but there
was a great climbing area about a 30 minute hike away called Pared Seco that
was always dry because of a rock overhang. Fortunately for me, the route that
Andre & Samara were attempting was a 5.10b rating. I don’t know what this
means, but I remembered climbing a 5.08 in the climbing gym and I figured this
should be fine since 5.10 vs 5.08 is less than 1% difference so how bad could
it be?
Well, let’s just say that it was pretty hard. It didn’t take
too long for Andre to set the rope up and reach the top – the hardest thing for
him was dealing with the very cold rocks. Samara was next and it took her a
little longer to get to the top, owing primarily to her smaller frame. I was
last, and I couldn’t make it up the first 10 feet, because I just didn’t have
the finger strength. The way the rock was laid out, this was actually the
hardest part. So Andre took some climbing bands and fashioned a makeshift rope
ladder to get me to the second section of the climb. From there, Andre kept me
from falling by holding the rope steady while I reached, jumped, and lunged the
rest of the way up. My forearms were burning by the end and I knew they would
be ridiculously sore the next day.
After snacking briefly, Andre and Samara tackled a nearby
route that was rated 5.12, which I politely declined even trying. It took Andre
a good 45 minutes to finally get up because of a few ridiculously tricky spots.
Meanwhile, a couple from Colorado Zach and Katie joined and went up the 5.10b
route we had just vacated. I liked them immediately, and they let me mooch from
their cache of crackers and peanut butter. Oh how I love peanut butter.
The rain never really let up for most of the day, so I’m
glad I opted to join Andre & Samara instead of attempting a hike with
Andres & Teresa. When we got back to the refugio, Andres told me that they
hiked for an hour before turning around due to the rain.
For dinner, I had the vegetarian meal they offered, which
was some sort of potato pancakes with salad and some amazingly cooked quinoa.
They also brought out my leftover pizza, but there was no way it was going to
fit in my stomach – that would have to wait until tomorrow.
Tuesday, December 31st, 2013
It rained all night again, and this continued into the
morning, though it did slow down a little after breakfast. I wanted to get a
good hike in today, so I joined Andres & Teresa to a set of waterfalls near
Pared Seca. These waterfalls were not actually falls so much – the water ran
down a very long declined rock surface to a pool below. In warmer &
non-torrential times, apparently this is a favorite place for tourists to slide
down in their swim trunks. But that wasn’t going to happen today.
Next, we headed for a location called Anfiteatro
(amphitheater) which was nestled in between two mountains about a 3 hour hike
in each direction. The hike was mostly in the forest and had a lot of ups and
downs, including many spots that were quite steep or required wooden log
bridges or makeshift ladders. Fortunately, the trail was pretty well marked
with orange ribbons tied around trees.
After about 2 hours, the weather got much worse. The rain
was starting to come down hard and we were getting wet despite our rain gear.
So we opted to abort and turn around – this was a shame because I am going to
end up leaving Cochamo without having completed any real hikes. Andres said to
me “I always tell my friends abroad that Argentina and Chile are not places you
go to, they are countries you come back to.” I suppose he’s right. I’ll just
have to come back.
On the way back, the rain picked up even more and before
long, we were all completely soaked through. Apparently, the “water-proof”
claim does not apply when you are hiking in a torrential downpour. I do think
my hiking boots would have held up had it not been for the water penetrating my
pants and running down my legs, creating a veritable puddle in both of my
shoes.
After a few hours, we made it back to the refugio. As luck
would have it, 20 minutes later the rain stopped and it was much nicer outside.
Andre & Samara also showed up soon after us and told us that they hiked all
the way to Anfiteatro and couldn’t see anything because it was too cloudy and
the rain was too heavy… so it’s definitely good that we turned around when we
did.
Since tonight was New Years Eve, the refugio had a special
celebration planned. Instead of a wonderfully cooked vegetarian meal, they
roasted an entire lamb with all the fixings and we all ate together as a big
group. The food was plentiful and a few guests had brought wine to share with
the rest of us. And “us” was a whole lot of people for this tiny refugio –
easily 50 people in total.
After dinner, the locals played a combo of drums and guitar
and sang songs and danced… it was a lot of fun, though it seemed like they were
doing most of the celebrating and the guests were more sitting around and
watching. It was still nice to have company for the holiday though.
Wednesday, January 1st, 2013
After breakfast this morning and lingering a bit to say
farewell, I joined Andres & Teresa for the hike out of the valley. It was
still lightly raining, but given the weather over the past few days, the trail
was sure to be excessively muddy and messy. Kate & Zach & 2 Israeli
girls were also hiking out around the same time. Within an hour, we were at the
end of the pack because we were still trying to avoid stepping ankle deep in
mud, whereas the rest of them had already taken an “f-it” approach and trudged
straight through. After all, all of our boots were already soaked through from
the torrential downpour the day before.
About 15 minutes later, I decide to take the “f-it” approach
as well and catch up with Katie, Zach, and the 2 Israeli girls and just plod
through the mud instead of the delicate approach. Within a few minutes, I’m
walking through a muddy mess and Andres & Teresa take a path that goes a
bit up the side of the mountain instead in hopes of avoiding the mud. And then
all of the sudden, any semblance of trail that I was following disappears
completely. So I decide to turn to my right and join the trail that Andres
& Teresa are on instead – it’s easy to get a few steps off the trail and
this was a no-brainer, but not this time unfortunately.
I soon find myself with trees, brushes, roots, ferns, and
muddy muck surrounding me in all directions and I can’t even figure out where I
just came from. I called out to Andres a few times, but I could barely hear
myself because of the sound of rushing water from the numerous streams around
carrying water to the river. And then panic sets in. I start running in the
direction that the trail must be until I need to take a detour because of an impassable
matrix of vines & fallen trees, so I take a detour of the detour, and then
another one, and then another one. By this point, I’ve taken numerous tumbles
and all of the initial care I had taken to not become a filthy mess is an
afterthought. I had to stop a few times and tell myself out loud in most cases,
“Paraag, don’t panic and stay calm”. I start singing songs to myself – “first I
was afraid, I was petrified…”. I just want to keep my mind from imagining how a
search party might possibly find me and just how long Andres would be at the
end of the trail waiting for me before sending for help. Or if he’d just
continue forward to catch his bus and assume that I made it through before him.
I briefly wonder if there are any wild animals watching me and just waiting for
me to tire out so they can pounce… and then I remember that there are no wild
animals. And I wonder if I should take my chances and just go straight down to
the river and take my chances floating down it instead.
After about 30 minutes of panic, I reach a large stream that
I can’t find a crossing for and it occurs to me that the trail must have some
sort of bridge set up to cross it, so I follow along the banks of this large
stream and I spot it – a beautifully constructed wooden bridge. I want to kiss
it.
I crossed the bridge and pick up my pace a bit to try and
catch up with the others. Along the way, I notice a beautiful open space with a
wonderful view on my right. And then I notice that the river is on my right
side as well. And then I walk along a very long pathway of horizontal wooden
planks, which was very similar to the pathway I crossed with the others hours
before. It finally dawns on me – I’m going the wrong way.
It’s decision time – do I continue the wrong way for another
hour and get back to the refugio and try to hire a horse to take me out the following
day? Or do I turn around and try to catch the others at the trailhead so that
they don’t panic and wonder what to do about their missing friend? I had done
the math – at this point, I was over almost 90 minutes behind the rest of the
group. I don’t remember if the refugio has a satellite phone to even call
anywhere, I only know that they have internet access for a few hours in the
morning. But I’m pretty tired of this valley and I just want to move on and get
out.
So I make a deal with myself – I’ll turn around and
unbacktrack. I’ll stick to the cow and horse trails as much as possible because
I’m already muddy as can be. If I lose the trail at the same spot, I’ll just
turn around for the refugio and get the horse the next day. There’s easily 8 hours
of daylight left, so there’s little risk of hiking in the dark.
My entire outlook on the trail changed on the way out. I
openly cheered when a flat stretch returned back to a set of muddy crevasses. I
openly cheered when I saw fresh hoof prints. And I openly cheered when I saw
fresh horse poop. These things I tried to avoid before were now very good
signs. And because I was so far behind, I broke out into a jog when I could and
a pretty fast paced walk at other times.
The next 2 hours were packed full of second-guessing. Am I
just being stubborn or am I also being stupid? I can hear my mom’s voice in my
head over and over “Don’t take chances” and “I only have one son named Paraag”.
How I longed for my bed back home, hugs from my family, and cuddles from my
doggies. I wanted to go home right about now.
At long last, I made it to the trailhead. I was expecting a
hero’s welcome and my fellow hikers to rush up and ask me where I was and what
happened. I got very little. Apparently, they had only reached the trailhead 15
minutes prior. When they got here and didn’t see me, they wondered what
happened to me but not enough time had passed to be concerned. Andres’ first
words to me were “we just called the taxi and he’ll be here in 10 minutes.” I
was incredulous. I must have really booked it coming back to catch up on all
that ground.
I was still clearly visibly shaken, and so Katie & Zach
gave me some food to calm me down and share their own stories of when they had
each gotten lost alone in the woods somewhere. To these experienced hikers, it
was more a rite of passage of sorts, and not something that should be a source
of ongoing concern. If anything, they were congratulating me for making my way
through it. This made me feel much better, but inside I was still in a bit of
shock.
We loaded into the back of the taxi truck for the ride back
to town and then used the taxi driver’s home to change into some dry clothes.
It was the late afternoon by this point, but we still had a few hours to kill
before our 5:30 bus to Puerto Varas. Andres & Teresa were headed a
different direction, so I joined Zach & Katie to wander around a bit. The
town of Cochamo itself doesn’t have much in it, but we found a general store
that was open and grabbed some Tostitos & dip as a snack. The lady who
owned the store offered to let us warm up inside near the stove in her home and
brought us coffee to boot. Zach also had a family tradition to uphold – every New
Year’s Day, you have to eat some black-eyed peas. It was a bit of a random
surreal moment: here we are, huddled around a warm stove of a general store
owner in a small village on New Year’s Day, eating Tostitos & spinach/artichoke
dip and a can of black-eyed peas with a cup of instant coffee. It was just a very
random moment.
About 20 minutes later, our host gave us some bad news. She made
some calls and learned that because it was a holiday, the 5:30pm bus was not
running. Our choices were to stay the night there (she operated a guest house
as well) or take a taxi to a town halfway to Puerto Varas for the equivalent of
$70 USD total and then grab a public bus for about $2 each for the rest of the
trip. Zach had a flight to catch the next morning, and I just wanted to get
back to civilization given my experience earlier in the day, so we went for it.
Back in Puerto Varas, I trudged back to the hostel with my
back and took a much-needed shower. I also saw David, Clemy, and Thomas from
Pucon there for one more night and it was nice to nice to see familiar faces.
Many places were closed that night, so pickings were slim
for dinner. I found a pizza place downtown and settled in. Within 20 minutes,
Zach & Katie walked in and joined me because they couldn’t find anywhere
else to go either. Strangely enough, there was a DJ spinning dance music
outside in the square – I learned later that they had been going nonstop since
about mid-day yesterday for New Year’s Eve. I actually liked the music – it was
the type of trance music that I used to love dancing to a decade+ ago when my
friend Liang and I would go clubbing until the place shut down in the late 90’s/early
00’s.
Thursday, January 2nd, 2013
I didn’t do very much today at all. I wandered around the
town of Puerto Varas a bit, not that there was very much to do though. I think
with all the excitement yesterday, I just needed a day of recuperation. There
was a town up the road that was recommended to take a bus to and walk around –
for whatever reason, the towns in this area (including Puerto Varas) have a
very distinctive German feel to them, and this village Frutillar was supposed to be the best and most
picturesque. But as easy as it would be to get there, I just couldn’t be
bothered. I think I’m starting to hit travel fatigue.
The weather cooperated in enabling my lethargy too. It was
raining in spurts all day.
Friday, January 3rd, 2013
I grabbed the bus this morning for a local bus to the larger
nearby town of Puerto Montt, where I had booked a 4 day/3 night trip south through
the Patagonian Fjords ending in the town of Puerto Natales aboard a cargo ship operated
by Navimag. This region doesn’t have very good road access owing to the difficult
terrain created by the numerous mountains and lakes in the region. The
Carretera Austral road has been extended about halfway down, but it is
frequently shut down by bad weather, so this cargo ship is about the only way
to see this landscape.
When I arrived at the ferry station, I checked in and paid
for my ticket and left my large bag with them. Up until this point, I had some
concern that the trip would even materialize – the company didn’t return
e-mails and when I had someone with better Spanish call to book on my behalf a
month ago, they first said they were sold out and then “double-checked” and
said there was space because someone was double-booked. A few days ago, my
Puerto Varas hostel owner called to confirm and they had me double-booked. I’ve
heard this is entirely unsurprising for a Chilean business owner.
I met a Swiss fellow named Christian at the station and we
walked around a little bit since we had about 3 hours to kill before the boat
launched. He had stayed in Puerto Montt last night and confirmed what I had
heard; the town kinda sucks. He had to do some shopping, so I killed time by
walking around the square and then grabbing some snacks from a grocery store.
At the station, they loaded us onto a bus to take us to the
actual ferry. At first, this seemed a little silly to us but the dock was a lot
bigger than we had expected so it made sense. When we got to our destination,
we walked onto the ship – it was basically a giant ferry. There were no proper
stairs to the cabins, we just all walked onto a massive car lift and we were
slowly elevated up a few levels.
The rooms they gave us were pretty small and cramped, but I
didn’t really expect much better. There were four of us sharing a room which
had barely more space than two sets of bunks and enough room for the four of us
to stand. We’d basically have to take turns doing anything at all. In addition
to Christian, my other new roommates were Gabriel from Spain and Mateo from
France.
After getting settled, we gathered in the dining hall and
got a briefing on how everything would work. It became abundantly clear that
this was not a tourist vessel in the least. There were 33 of us basically
living in what could have been crew quarters and Navimag was just getting $500
per person to ferry us in addition to their cargo. We were basically given some
safety instructions and our meal times. Everything else was pretty
laissez-faire.
Most of the passengers were Europeans, with a few
smatterings of South Americans. There were very few North Americans. People
were mostly speaking Spanish – so my conversational skills were going to be put
to the test. For the most part, I had conversed in basic pleasantries plus a
little more, but had never really gone into a full-blown real conversation in
Spanish because I just don’t have the vocabulary.
On deck, we had some really spectacular views when as we
left port and sailed through the channel. The sunset was positively stunning,
despite a heavy cloud cover. Rain hadn’t broken out quite yet, but it was clearly
on the verge of doing so at any moment. For now at least, we enjoyed the views
of the surrounding mountains and the reflections of whatever sunlight was able
to peek through to the water below.
Dinner was okay – the food was served cafeteria style but
was nothing more memorable than just not being that memorable. I actually don’t
know how else to describe it.
A lot of the other tourists stayed up pretty late playing
cards and talking. Much of this was in Spanish so I was having trouble keeping
up – usually in a 1:1 conversation, I can decipher the gist of what is being
said, but listening in on a conversation with multiple fluent speakers is
faster than my mind can translate and fill in the blanks. And even though these
folks were from different countries in Europe, all of them seemed to be fluent
in Spanish. And French. Their English was not too shabby, so sometimes they
would humor me by switching, but it was clearly less comfortable for them.
Saturday, January 4th, 2013
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner today were similarly
non-memorable. Much of the day was very windy or rainy, so I didn’t spend a ton
of time out on deck unfortunately. Very few people did, actually. I did see
some wildlife today though – most notably a mother and baby dolphin swimming
near the ship. There were plenty of other dolphins jumping around from time to
time as well.
There were about 15-20 non-tourists who joined us in the
cafeteria for meals as well, and they all seemed to have little interest in the
scenery, instead spending their days eating during mealtime and watching action
movies at an inordinate volume in between. I learned through some others that
these folks were the drivers of the trucks that were on the ferry.
I ended up hitting the sack a little early because the ship
was starting to roll a lot from the waves. We were sailing in the open ocean
this evening and it showed. The rest of the trip was through channels between
islands and the mainland, and the waves wouldn’t be nearly as large.
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