I write this in the rain from the side of the road in a little town called Villa O’Higgins, where I and two guys have been standing for over three hours trying to hitch a ride out of town. But the town is tiny and it’s at the end of the road and there is no traffic whatsoever. Sometimes cars go past but they already have four or five people in them. People in Chile seem to be more efficient car users than in America. In any case, this is a good opportunity to describe how I got here.
Last I wrote Anna and I were about to head up the mountain to camp before some more hiking. I had plotted quite an ambitious route which ended up being 34km/21 miles which we proceeded to do very merrily, even though we only had half an avocado and a cereal bar to eat for lunch. Anna was very much not a complainer – a highly desirable attribute.
Dinner that evening was graced by a majestic view as our reward. To say we appreciated the food would be an understatement. It’s crazy how exquisite packet soup and plain pasta can be.
The next day we returned to town, said our farewells and I set off north. I hitchhiked the first 20km with an Argentinian guy who has a summer house in the valley. He parked, we got out, he put on a harness and zip lined into his garden. There is no driveway! The only way in is via zipline over a river.
Eventually I got to the start of the trail and was looking forward to an easy 5km hike to the campsite. Unfortunately I was gravely mistaken. It was a 4 hour clamber up and down steep slopes, crossing little rivers with barely any stepping stones which was impossible with my big backpack on my back and my little backpack on my front unbalancing me, and it had started to rain very hard. My backpacks aren’t waterproof so I had to put my rain jacket over the front one and just hope for the best for the back one. It was quite a bleak walk that I got through by chanting inspirational quotes to myself repeatedly and forcing myself to list out loud all the ways in which the situation could be worse. At least my legs weren’t broken, and my feet weren’t cold, and I had friends and family etc. I was scraping the barrel a bit by the end. The walk took a bloody long time to finish. Then I had to put my tent up in the rain and I couldn’t do up my jacket to sleep in because my fingers were paralyzed by cold.
The next day I refused to leave my tent until the sun shone directly on it and me. Eventually I set off and looked for a campsite that was supposedly 10km away. Unfortunately it didn’t exist and I limped lamely the full 20km to chile. The old Achilles’ tendon was not in a good way. Luckily it was a beautiful day and a beautiful walk and my spirits refused to be dampened by my physical travails.
The next day after a long ferry ride it was raining again. And I tried to escape the wretched town we arrived in, Villa O’Higgins, via hitchhiking, and that was the situation when I first started writing this blog post almost a week ago.
Things have changed drastically since then. Or rather, they haven’t at all. I’m still here and am staying indefinitely. I’m staying at an eco camp in the woods which is the most heavenly place.It is all built by hand by the owner, Mauro, from naturally fallen trees. Everything is recycled, water from a spring, wood stove, compost loos, communal cooking, incredible light coming through the trees all the time, and mainly just an amazing energy and atmosphere. Almost everyone who comes here stays for a handful of days when they only planned on one day, even though there’s technically nothing to do, just because it’s such a pleasure to be here. I was umming and ahhing about how long to stay, and I asked Mauro if there was any work to be done around the place, and then we started this project building a little wooden cabin. Later on he told me that the project was just an excuse to get me to stay, but it is SO fun to work on, the ulterior motive doesn’t matter at all. I’m doing it with Mauro and three Spanish guys. We wield the chainsaw, collect wood, hammer logs into place, chisel…all these cool skills I was clueless about before. The other guests come and go, but we are staying for free because we’re volunteering, and I’ve been upgraded from my tent to Mauro’s house and like to think of myself as queen of the campsite. Everyone is Chilean or Spanish at the moment so my Spanish is coming along a bit. Mauro has to leave the campsite in a week or so to go do biology classification work on a glacier somewhere and he’s asked the four of us volunteers if we want to stay here and run the place in his absence. We would take all the money from the guests and put it towards the communal food. We wouldn’t be giving money to him on his return or taking wages ourselves. It would just be for fun. It’s a dream of mine to run a sustainable eco lodge, so actually getting to do it right now is a crazy opportunity. I am full of the knowledge now that there is another way to live – like this. And I like it a lot. Every evening I go walking through the woods and it is extremely trippy. Every sense is magnified and I can’t stop staring at trees and plants.
emmaschlee 