This is the end, my only friend, the end...

It's been now almost 29 months since I started this blog. At the time, the purpose was just to keep contact with my Portuguese and European friends, to show them how it was to be in Chile. It ended up being more than that: it was a travel blog, a cultural showcase or even a dear diary at some point. Looking back now, I must say I am proud of it! Proud of the posts, proud of all the replies I got and proud of noticing that what you write is actually read. And, in the end, it helped to keep my friends close to me, the first goal was actually achieved. But, because all good things come to an end and I am back in Portugal, continuing this blog makes no sense anymore. I may open a new one when I start fresh again, but for now, it is time to close and preserve the memories of the two best years of my life. I will still check it for some time, in case you want to keep in touch, but I will probably not post anything else (or maybe just one more... who knows?). It has been a pleasure to have you all as readers and it was a pleasure to write! See you soon! :)

Finding inner peace...

It has been long time without writing here. This absence, right after an 8.0 earthquake, could generate a lot of speculation, but I am still alive. A few days after this giant earth movement, I started a trip that had been planned for a long time: visit Peru. It was the country that excited me the most in South America and I wanted to visit it before leaving back to Portugal. It ended up being more than just a trip. For 3 months I went from desert to jungle, from high Andean plateau to exotic beaches, from big capitals to tiny charming villages, from south to north and east to west. I didn't see it all, you never do, but I was more than just the common backpacker. I did the touristy "been-there-done-that" track but had plenty of time to go to places that rarely see a foreign face and especially to take my time at each of them. The trip, originally meant to be of just a couple of months, was extended to three and I spent 10 days in Bolivia on my way back to Chile. In the beginning I considered opening a blog for it, but I then decided not to, I didn't want to spend my trip in front of a computer. I couldn't share with you all I lived through these months but it was for a good reason.

I met a lot of people along the way, some will stay, some will not, but all are remembered and will be for long. I lived a lot of new things, new experiences, new sensations. Backpacking alone is a thrilling experience, though sometimes lonely as well. A special kind of loneliness, that kind that connects you more with yourself, that lets you see through your own barriers and solve your toughest problems. I had one... I couldn't accept the fact that I was about to leave Chile and everything I built during these 2 years along with it. I can tell you that it works and it works by itself. At some moment, while walking on some mountain lost in the Andes, I realized that I had overcome the anguish, that I didn't have a conflict anymore, that I was going to leave Chile and that was it. I also had some other big conflicts that got solved in a similar way, during these 3 months. I had found peace... and I came back with a lighter attitude, giving less relevance to some things and feelings that probably didn't deserve it and giving more importance to the simple things. Nothing is forever and some things simply are not worth bothering before they are a problem.

15 Best Moments in Peru and Bolivia Photo Album

EARTHQUAKE!!

It was friday night and I was at home. I'd been longing for a quiet and regenerating night of sleep since a few weeks, so I didn't go out. I managed to sleep until 3:30 in the morning, when I was suddenly awaken by my house mate shouting "EARTHQUAKE!". I was sleeping like a baby, dreaming that the bed was moving. As I heard the shout, it took me a couple of seconds to react, I was wondering why there was dust falling on my head and why the bed was in fact moving. I jumped out of the bed, still sleepy and without fully realizing what was going on, and ran down the stairs. Everything was shaking including the ground beneath my feet. I reached the door and saw my friend trying to hold himself to the bushes. I stayed at the door, as I felt that the movement was slowly stopping. In total, it must have lasted a couple of minutes...

This was one of the 10 strongest earthquakes ever. It started at 8.8 Richter near the epicentre and reached Santiago with 8.0. We've been having regular aftershocks of over 6 Richter, very close to the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake. Aftershocks! There were also tsunamis, on the Chilean coast a boat was carried 400 meters inland, on Easter Island and Hawaii people were evacuated and it even reached Japan! Chile is a mess as I write. 799 deaths so far, a lot of people out of reach, without electricity, potable water or food. Luckily, my house is standing and without major damage, but on the suburbs some buildings are in risk of falling down. As we go south, roads have huge fissures, bridges fell, historical heritage is on the ground. The same day I walked around the center of Santiago to see how damaged it was, but fortunately, apart from broken glasses or some old buildings partially collapsed, no serious damage could be seen.

Now that most of the dead and injured are taken care of, other concerns arise. Bad people are taking advantage of the situation and looting started everywhere. Some cities are under military control. Slowly, supermarkets reopen to provide people with first need goods. Just yesterday I had news from all my friends, fortunately good news, though some have serious damage on their houses. It is nevertheless worth to mention that solidarity between Chileans is incredible. Apart from the international aid (including from the neighbouring countries, with whom Chile doesn't have the best relations), a large number of events were organized to collect goods to send to the most affected areas. Some people are even organizing trips with fully equipped 4x4 to get to areas that the authorities are still neglecting and help people in need. A large movement has already started to bring Chile back to normal as soon as possible.

You can see pictures of the Eartquake effects here: http://www.emol.com/especiales/2010/fotos_AD/terremoto_chile/index.htm

Hasta Siempre, Paranal!

It is almost two years now, that I left Portugal for a fresh start in Chile. Yesterday was my last day at Paranal. Though it has been on my mind for a while, I could not run away from it anymore, my time in Chile is running out. The last months haven't been easy, I had to start making some decisions concerning my future, which made me more than once come across the fact that I will leave Chile. When I left Portugal, I knew that I would be back in two years, that this experience was putting my life into pause for two years before pressing play again. Now I see me, staring at the play button without any desire of pushing it, knowing that pushing it means pushing the stop button of these two years as well. I am at that point of my path where I have to make one of those decisions that leave something behind. And whatever the decision is, I will leave a lot behind and I HATE it!

Yesterday was my last day at Paranal. I lived here for more than half of the time I was in Chile. I said many times that Paranal was my home, whilst Santiago was going on holidays for 6 days every two weeks. The atmosphere at Paranal is not just that of a common workplace. People sleep here, share emotions, share a life, you create yourself a family, because it is the only way to keep sane in such a working schedule. In two hours, I had to say goodbye to my family, more than 50 people, one by one, office by office. To some people I said goodbye several times during the day. It doesn't really matter if they were around for two years or just a couple of months. The strength of the bonds you create here is timeless. I managed to find a way to make the moment less emotional, less depressive, by creating opportunities to meet everyone again before leaving, either in Santiago or Antofagasta, but in the end the moment was very very hard to handle. I do not know if I was sad or just melancholic, but what is a fact is that the day I left Paranal, without any perspective of returning, was the day that started the process of an ending. An ending for a period on my life, an ending for my time in Chile and even an ending for this blog. Saudade... Inevitable...

Santiago Cordillera

Just a couple of hours away from Santiago, in the Andean range, one can find true natural treasures. One of them is the Rio Clarillo National Reserve, in the transition area between the plains and the cordillera itself. The Clarillo river flows down from the mountains forming small water pits where people can bathe and enjoy the surrounding woods. Together with some friends, I went to spend a day there, do a barbecue and enjoy the river and the sun.

Deeper into the Andes, there is the already mentioned Cajón de Maipo, which I'd visited during winter and was covered in snow (see here). This time the landscape was completely different, full of vegetation and with visible glaciers. A 3-hour trek leads to the bottom of the San Francisco glacier, passing by a small lagoon. In the glacier there is an ice cave that you can enter. Amazing experience! February is typically the holiday month in Chile, which makes it a good time to be at Santiago. That is what I've been doing, spending time with friends as time slowly runs out...

Chiloé

In the south of Chile, lying on the pacific coast right at the beginning of the Patagonian dominions is the archipelago of Chiloé. Separated from mainland, these islands evolved for centuries away from the rest of the country, building their own culture, traditions and way of living. It is composed by a main big island and several smaller islands relatively close to it lying on the gulfs between the big island of Chiloé and the Patagonian main lands. The people on the islands come from the mixture of two indigenous tribes, chonos and mapuche, and later the Spanish. The chonos were basically fishermen and lived from the sea, while the mapuche lived from the land. This created a unique lifestyle in Chiloé, where sea and countryside are next to each other and people live from fishing but also from agriculture and cattle. It has excellent seafood, but also renowned wool clothing. Moreover, it has beautiful wooden churches, of which some are world heritage sites, and a lot of colonial wooden houses. In short, it is a culture vault and this is what most stands out for Chiloé. Of course it also has natural beauties as native forest or different species of penguins on its coasts, but these can be found on other places of Chile as well.


When people asked me what was I going to see in Chiloé or what I was looking for I said I didn't know. I knew that I wanted to live as much as possible that cultural feeling, but didn't know exactly what to do or where to go. Life itself took care of it and presented me all that I was looking for, without any intervention from my side. Quite convenient I must say! It all started when the night before I found out that a French journalist friend of mine was also going to Chiloé the same day and on the same flight, on a mix of holidays and work. Basically we were together for all my six days and then she stayed to work. We settled in Castro, the main city and the most central on the island and from there we did short day trips to different places. We visited the towns of Ancud, Dalcahue and Chonchi, we saw penguins, trekked on the national park and marvelled ourselves at the endless desertic beaches on the pacific coast.


However, what made this trip special was a hat trick that my journalist friend pulled off. She had a contact on the island to whom she had spoken only by phone for a specific interview some time ago. Born there, he is an investigator of the Chiloé culture since long ago and is also connected to the Ministry of Culture and to documentaries on the television. My friend wanted to meet him in person, which we did and he ended up being our guide at many different levels. Making use of the natural warmth and sympathy of the people from this region, after a couple of hours of conversation he invited us to go with him to his village, Calen, where he was restoring an old house, which belonged to his father. Calen is a small village by the inner coast of Chiloé, very peaceful and not easy to reach. His house is by the beach, at just an amazing couple of meters from the sea when the tide is high, all made of wood. After cooking the delicious salmon and seafood that we bought on the way, we took the time to drink a glass of wine around a long and interesting conversation about one of the most intriguing characteristics of Chiloé: its mythology. Born with the original indigenous people and complemented by the Spanish, the myths and legends here are unique, covering sea and land, and until a few years ago feverishly believed by the people.


The day after, we went to spend the night there, a full moon night. Amazing and relaxing experience, lying on the hammock, looking at the sea at night and listening to the sound of the waves. On the next day we experienced something unique and rare in Chiloé nowadays: a so called minga. It is a gathering of friends and neighbours to help someone in some heavy work, normally something as exotic as moving a house of place. Houses here are based on big wooden pillars and not directly on the ground, because with the heavy annual rain in Chiloé, the wood would get rotten. Then, whenever someone decides to move the house of place they move it, through sea and land if needed. Tradition says that this is not paid with money, but the organizer has to offer food and drink to the people. In this case, it was not like that, as the house move was for a museum. Anyway, the house travelled through the sea, pulled by boats, until it reached the shore. From there, 8 pairs of bulls pulled it out of the water in a quite complicated procedure. We then spent that same night at his house again and the next day, on the way back, we went to see one of the islands nearby, to eat oysters! I returned to Santiago with the feeling that something special happened. A lot of childhood memories came up during my stay in Chiloé, it is not that different from the countryside of my home country, but here you have it together with the sea and you can literally be at the beach or on a big grass field, depending on which door you take to exit your house. Just perfect!

Chiloé Photo Album

New Year's under the Sun

One of the most strange feelings of spending the last days of the year on the southern hemisphere is the fact that it is summertime. Christmas, for instance, is not surrounded by rain and snow, nor those cold dark days, but instead you wear t-shirt and think about going to the beach. Whilst on Christmas this goes completely against my past family traditions around a fireplace, almost making me forget the season, on New Year's I have to confess it is awesome! Celebrating the last night of the year on the streets without rain or cold perfectly matches the concept and definitely fits my ideals. This year I spent New Year's at Valparaiso again (see Valparaiso post last year) with different people and in a different place, but with the same concept: party on the streets until dawn and beyond. It was excellent like last year, but I decided to do something else for the New Year: beach! I longed for it for such a long time that on the first day I left Valparaiso to Santiago and directly to spend three days under the sun!

Tongoy is a fishing town in a rocky peninsula near La Serena, five hours north from Santiago, known by its excellent beaches and marvellous seafood. I rented a bungalow in the town, managed by an extremely friendly and slightly crazy Catalan/Brazilian couple. I enjoyed two days of beach, doing nothing, just feeling the sound and smell of the Pacific, going through childhood summer memories and of course eating all the seafood I could. It was so cheap and tasty and the variety so wide that I never repeated the same dish twice. From shellfish to oysters, crab to locos and the typical empanadas, I ate it all and prepared in different ways. It was a delight! It was a great time! I should had done more beach around here...

Patagonia Road Trip - Chapter IV: Lago General Carrera and The End

The last days of the trip were dedicated to explore the southern part of the Carretera Austral in Chile, back in the XI Region, where we started the trip. As mentioned before, to go from Puerto Natales to this region we have to go through Argentina. We basically drove from Puerto Natales to El Calafate and then took the same Ruta 40 that we had taken when coming down. After 14 hours driving, we reached Perito Moreno, close to the Chilean border we wanted to cross. Reaching there we realized that the first flat tire we had was deflating again! We brought it to repair and it actually had a visible hole now, probably aggravated by the long journey of the day. Luckily this one was repairable and we didn't spend much money to recover it. We finally entered Chile, through Chile Chico, on the southern shore of the General Carrera Lake (we had entered Argentina for the first time through the north shore). From here, the idea was to drive along the southern shore of the lake, until reaching the Carretera Austral and then head south. Driving along this dirt road was definitely the best driving experience of the entire trip. The road was narrow and full of turns and bumps. On one side we had big mountains and on the other deep slopes ending on the lake. The landscape was simply gorgeous! We drove the whole afternoon and arrived at Cochrane in the evening, to spend the night. Very friendly people hosted us, showing us again the sympathy and warmth that characterizes people around here.


On the next day, we departed to visit a very picturesque village called Caleta Tortel, south from Cochrane and the southest point we got to on the Carretera Austral. This coastal village has houses built on the rocky slopes that border the Baker river and access to them is made by wooden pathways that connect the entire village. Walking around here can take you hours, exploring all the different paths, but we had limited time. We had lunch at one of the very few restaurants here and we were told that there were energy problems in the village. The only power source was a dam built further up the river and since they hadn't have rain for more than one week (something rare in this area of Patagonia), power distribution was being rationalized and people only had light for certain periods of the day. We left the village after lunch and went back up north to reach Puerto Tranquilo, another small village on the west shore of General Carrera Lake.


Here we stayed the last two nights of the journey. We rented a small house and relaxed! The only thing we actually did was a boat tour to some amazing marble caves on the lake. The colours and the shapes were really astonishing, specially if we take into account that this region is predominantly basaltic. On the way back there was some wind and we were against the waves, which made the trip quite exciting and wet! We considered visiting a glacier on the afternoon but it was cloudy and we were tired, so we just spent the afternoon playing cards and doing nothing. Here we had some more episodes with Israelis, one of them wasn't very nice actually. I really don't understand why, but they can be very rude and arrogant and this was a shared opinion with some local people. Most of them travelling in Patagonia are still kids that just get out of the mandatory military service in Israel and are probably still under the effect of military discipline. On the last day we went to the airport and delivered the car there. Our brave 4WD cost us more than 50% more than we expected, accounting for the crash and the tires...

Epilogue:
This was definitely the trip of this second year of Chile. I would dare to say that, more than the natural beauty of the region, it was the experience and the unexpected episodes that we will remind the longest. We drove more than 5000 kms, crashed the car in the middle of nowhere, blew two tires, drove on gravel through all kinds of roads, crossed different landscapes, met all kinds of people. However, more than that, we met ourselves. Travelling together for 17 days and going through all kinds of emotion, while dealing with different personalities, is not easy at all. These big trips are the ones that make you discover yourself along the way, that sometimes push you to the limit and tell you what your limit is. In the end, and despite the friction on certain moments, the four of us have something in common and a lot of stories to tell.

Patagonia Road Trip - Part IV Photo Album

Patagonia Road Trip - Chapter III: Penguins and Fiords

Crossing into Chile, we found ourselves in the 12th region, the Magellan Region. This area is separated from the Aisen Region (where we started the trip) by a large ice field, which means that it has no land access from the rest of the country and you have to cross into Argentina to reach it. I had been in this region before, for one week last year, but my friends hadn't and this is one of the icons of the Chilean Patagonia. The capital is Punta Arenas, where we stopped for one night to see penguins. We took a 5-hour boat ride to Isla Magdalena, in the middle of the Magellan Strait, home of thousands of penguins that are used to human presence and let you get really close. It is always a stunning experience to suddenly see yourself surrounded by such charismatic animals.


On the next day, we departed to Puerto Natales, the closest town to Torres del Paine, the most famous Chilean National Park and the symbol of the Chilean Patagonia. We settled there, as accommodation inside the park is very expensive. Last year I was there to do the famous trek to the Torres, so this year we split into two groups for the first day: my portuguese friends went to do it while me and my Chilean friend decided to do an historical route around the Eberhardt fiord, including kayaking and biking. Hidden behind the wildness of Torres del Paine, Puerto Natales also has its own history and was a port of extreme relevance until the Panama Channel was opened. All boats to South America would go through the Magellan Strait and would stop here for trading and food. The first settlers arrived here from Europe and established huge industries of meat and fish processing. During this trip we kayaked to an island in the middle of the fiord, where ancient graves could be found, though now it is occupied by many bird species who come here to nest. We then biked on one of the fiord shores, in a peaceful idyllic scenery.


The day after, me and my Portuguese friend were going for an epic journey to Torres del Paine, for an alternative trek to a glacier and a cascade, rated as an 18-hour walk there and back! We thought we could make it in 12 hours easy and decided to give it a try. However, our beloved car wanted some attention and surprises started again: a flat tire! Nobody had noticed it the day before so it must have been during the trip to Torres del Paine but losing air slowly during the night. We replaced the tire and searched for a garage to try to recover the tire. We were told that the tire was good and somehow it had deflated... Good, we replaced the tire again and moved on with our plans, three hours late. We started the trek at 12:15. According to our best estimates we wouldn't make it to the end, but we decided to do part of it anyway, until it was time to go back. We managed to do an epic trek, up to the end and back again, in 7.5 hours, heroic but that left us almost dead! We saw the beautiful waterfall, two glaciers and one lagoon. We didn't see more than 5 people along the way, which made it a peaceful and isolated trek to a rather unexplored part of the park. When we arrived back at Puerto Natales, the second surprise of the day: another flat tire! Not the same, another! This one had clearly got a puncture during the way back and we didn't notice it! The tire was completely wasted and we had to buy another one. Statistics so far: one accident, one wasted tire, one flat tire, five tire changes. We were getting experts on this...

Patagonia Road Trip - Part III Photo Album