Patagonia...finally

Between September 12th and 24th Cole, Paul, Rodrigo and I went to Patagonia to stay in one of the retreat houses that the Manquehue Movement has on a farm/ranch in Patagonia. A group of 6 high school boys and 2 girls, as well as 2 older tutors went along as well. The following is a slightly better version of whatever I managed to scribble down in my journal while I was there. (no electricity so obviously no computer)

This is where I was (I hope this link works) The farm is huge, but the houses we stayed in are right near that 265 road sign near the smaller lake.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=aysen,+chile&sll=-45.566107,-72.071686&sspn=0.02698,0.054932&ie=UTF8&ll=-46.765265,-72.567444&spn=0.105593,0.219727&t=h&z=12

Day 1

We flew from Santiago to Puerto Montt and then on to Balmaceda. The airport at Balmaceda was easily the most isolated airport I have ever seen. The airport, and town, sit in the middle of the pampa (large open fields in Patagonia) and they are surrounded by hills and the Andes. This airport is seriously in the middle of nowhere. And I am pretty sure the only reason the town is there is because someone had the bright idea of building an airport in the middle of nowhere.

The weather was actually pretty nice when we got there. A little chilly but for someone from Minnesota is was fine. I was a little worried before going to Patagonia because I didn’t bring many warm clothes to Chile. I have a few long sleeve t-shirts and a fleece pullover as well as a rain coat (which I happened to leave at a friend’s house the day before we left for Patagonia. We were all watching the big football match there). I borrowed a big wool sweater from Vicho (guy we live with) and it reminded me of that scene in Wedding Crashers (“You know I’m not happy about this”). Anyway, it was nice out so Paul, Cole and I decided to walk around this very isolated yet vast and spectacular area of Chile. We had some time to kill anyway because we landed around noon and the bus that would take us to the farm wouldn’t be here until 3. So we had a lot of time because 3 o’clock Chilean time means more like 3:30 and 3 o’clock Patagonian time is like 4. So we decided to walk to Argentina. (I later found out it wasn’t really Argentina but until I get to Argentina for real I am going to count this) A little ways down the road from the airport was a border station and a gate crossing the road. There were signs saying Chilean border control or whatever so we figured we could explain to whoever was working that we wanted to cross the border and that we would be back in 5 minutes. However when we got there we couldn’t find anyone so we crossed the border, took some pictures and then left.

Me in "Argentina". Taken from the Argentina side, looking onto the Chilean border post and the rest of Chile.

¡Welcome to Chile!

When the bus finally got there we crammed all 14 of us and our bags into it. It wasn’t a very big bus and there were already people on it so every seat as filled as well as most of the aisle with all our bags. Despite being packed in like sardines, listening to the bus driver play the same music over and over, and feeling a little sick after driving 6 hours over bumpy gravel roads, the bus ride was pretty amazing. I figured I would fall asleep for most of the time but the amazing views of the mountains and valleys kept me awake the whole time. Plus I got used to the Spanish music and he even threw in some CCR and A-Ha (Take on Me obviously). We finally arrived at the farm around 11 or 12 at night and were greeted by the college-aged women who were on a semester long retreat there and Jose Antonio, the oblate who lives at the farm and would be living with us for the next 12 days. There was a full moon that night and a huge halo surrounded the moon. There are three houses on the farm; we went with Jose Antonio to our house (San Bonifacio) while the high school boys and tutors went to San Bede and the women stayed in a house on a little hill overlooking most of the farm. We had dinner with Jose Antonio by candlelight and then went right to bed.

One of several pictures I took during the bus ride.

Day 2

The farm in Patagonia is owned by the family of the wife of the founder of the Manquehue movement. It is located in the Aysen region of Patagonia, on the shore of Lago General Carrera, a huge lake that straddles the Chile/Argentina border. It’s a huge farm with a ton of cows and three gauchos (cowboys) who take care of them. We met one of the gauchos today while walking around the farm. JA (Jose Antonio) had driven us (Cole, Paul, Rodrigo and me) down the road and dropped us off a couple miles from the house so that we could take a walking tour of part of the farm. So we walked across fields with cattle grazing and hopped over the simple wood and wire fences. If you are picturing this ranch as a bunch of cows packed together onto a large, flat plain then you are way off. This isn’t your ordinary ranch, well it is for Patagonia, but from what I have seen back home its very different from American ranches. Its very simple and the land is still pretty untamed. The cows graze on huge expanses of land with grass, brush, trees and every kind of thorny bush imaginable. Plus the land is very hilly and there is a huge lake nearby with the Andes mountains in the background. I don’t know how they did it but the Andes managed to almost surround this place, they seemed to be on three sides with the forth being foothills. So basically it was like the most spectacular place I had ever been, let alone the most beautiful farm I had ever seen. So anyway, we’re walking across the fields and we end up at the puesto (little house) of one of the gauchos (Orlando). This guy had a great accent (which means I couldn’t understand a word he said) and he invited us into his place for a few minutes. He lives in this small simple house alone most of the year while he works on the ranch.

Orlando's puesto on the ranch

This is the view from right outside the house I stayed in.