churches of chiloe

UNESCO sites. Constructed with native woods, insides and outsides. It was like a mini pilgrimage trying to visit as many as possible

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pudu spirit

Ever since I visited the Seattle zoo´s exhibit on Chiloe Island last year, I began looking forward to visiting the real Chiloe and seeing pudu deers in the wild. Unfortunately I didn´t see a single one during my week on the island, even at the national park. But I knew they were there, along with Chilote foxes, hiding in the lovely vegetation of ferns and giant pangue leaves. I stayed at the most beautiful hostel in the world, the Palafito Hostel, which is right on the water in one of the few remaining palafito neighborhoods (where the wood houses are built on stilts above the water) in Castro. There I met many other travelers and spent the days seeing the island with new friends and delighting in the fresh seafood everywhere. I´ll have to catch up with the pudus at Woodland Park this summer.

puerto varas

After 12 hours of traveling across the Andes, I wanted to rest for a day or so in Puerto Varas. It is a small, tourist town on the shore of Lago Llanquilhue (the third largest lake in South America!). Around the 1850s, the Chilean government wanted more people to settle in the remote area of the lake district, so they offered land to Germans willing to immigrate. There are several historic buildings reflecting the German settlement. Many of the homes are made of native wood and have a distinct wood-shingle siding. I walked along the path that goes by all the historically significant structures, the old Catholic church, up to the forested hill where fuschias were growing wild, ate a soy burger, and then enjoyed the twilight over the lake with the two volcanoes looming across the water.

boat bus boat bus boat

Instead of going back to Chile the way I came, I splurged and joined the tourist package crowd to cross the Andes in style in a series of boats and buses. It was a great way to see the inner landscape between the two countries and the two national parks that comprise the area. So many mountains and lakes and forests! I have never seen so many blues and greens in one day. Crossing the border back into Chile was a bit intimidating because they have a lot of regulations about what you can´t bring into the country. For example, fruit, cheese, meat, products derived from plant matter, feathers, animal-skin drums, etc. So when the tour guide announced this about 30 minutes before we got to the border, everyone began frantically eating the food they had with them. The old couple sitting next to me scarfed down about four packages of chocolates they had bought in Bariloche.

bariloche, argentina

After two months of volunteering in Temuco, it was time to take a little vacation and renew my visa, so I took the 8 hour trip across the border to Bariloche. The bus passed through a variety of distinctive scenery and crossed through two national parks. As soon as I got to Argentina I immediately noticed the difference from Chile. Primarily the Spanish accent but also just a lighter feeling in the air. It may be because I was higher up in the mountains, or because I was on vacation, but it was a surprisingly welcome change. I spent four days in Bariloche, first browsing its chocolate shops. I met some wonderful people at the hostel - Lise from Canada, Casey from Idaho, and a sweet Argentinian couple from Buenos Aires, Jorge and Belen. It was a lot of fun hanging out with people outside of my Temuco bubble and sharing stories. In addition to hearing about Argentina´s history with Britain (i.e., the Malvinas/Falkland Islands), I learned about the dictatorship in Argentina and how there is still a strong movement of mothers and grandmothers demanding justice for their children who disappeared in the 1970s. With Jorge and Belen, I went on a hike through the magical arrayanes forest (apparently these trees inspired Walt Disney to create Bambi) to beautiful lakes, and spent a day in El Bolson (the hippie town 2 hours south) with Lise eating street food and wandering around the open air market. On Casey´s last night in town, we feasted on handmade gnocchi and talked about traveling, life, and relationships.

urban weavers

After visiting Sra. Iselia and her sister out in the countryside, Francisco and I took the bus back into Padre Las Casas to visit another weaver who will be having a workshop built in her home. Isabel has been weaving in one of the upstairs rooms of her house for over ten years. The space is tiny and barely fits the loom in which she is currently making pillow covers. One of the wooden poles of the loom has created holes in the wall and ceiling from the weight and pressure over time. Much like the reaction I had to the beautiful weaving I saw in the dark and run down space at Iselia´s sister´s place, I was also immediatedly enamored with the soft green pillow cases being created on Isabel´s loom. She dyed the yarn with eucalyptus leaves and is incorporating Mapuche designs into each piece. She showed us some of the yarn drying outside (for another project) which she had recently dyed olive green using peach leaves. Whatever is surrounding the loom or the yarn, whether it is a dirt floor or a torn up wall, it seems to fall away and the art of the weaving process always shines through.

padre las casas and beyond

My coworker, Francisco, is coordinating a project of building weaving workshops for 15 of the artisans to be able to have a dedicated space in their home for their craft. Today we went to visit two of the women who will be having workshops built. We took the city bus past Padre Las Casas to the end of the line to visit the first artisan. We were told to get off at the ¨trunk¨ bus stop, which of course we missed because it wasn´t a bus stop but a tree stump at the fork in the road. We walked for a half an hour down a dirt road eating blackberries from the vine along the way. Francisco had visited this house before, but it had been almost a year. So we asked someone if they knew where Sra. Iselia lived and he directed us to keep walking, count the houses, and when we got to the fifth house, that would be hers. We finally made it after walking for an hour past countless fields of wheat and eucalyptus trees. When we got to Iselia´s house, she served us instant coffee and bread while we talked to her nephew about agriculture and the education system in Chile. Afterwards, Iselia, a heavyset woman in her 60s, walked with us in shoes that were too big for her, another half hour to her sister´s home where the weaving workshop will be built. We never would have found this place since it was off the main (dirt) road and behind a magical pine forest. We must have jumped three fences to get to the property. Francisco took some measurements of the building site and I took some pictures. Iselia´s sister showed me her current weaving space in a dark shack with a dirt floor. She said it´s difficult to work in the winter because the wind comes in through the slats and it´s really cold. Despite the rustic conditions, her loom and the weaving on it was a beautiful thing to see.

looking for home

Whenever I am far from home, after I've gotten used to all the novelties, I start looking for similarities to try to approximate a parallel existence in the other place. It's starting to happen here in Chile, and the first thing I looked for was fake meat. It is impossible to find soy burgers or garden burgers or chik nuggets or tofu dogs. People say that sometimes you can buy soy burgers on the street, and I saw a tattered flier announcing Temuco's veg fest (which already happened of course). But its all a bunch of mysterious murmurings and I had just about given up. But the other day I found the "Chinese" restaurant that I'd been told serves vegetarian food and lo and behold there was soy meat! Each item under the heat lamp was 500 pesos, about $1 US. So I bought two triangles of soy meat sandwich. Other offerings included lasagna, quiche, pansit (!), and egg rolls. Later in the week I discovered an opened bag of TVP left in the kitchen of my new house and cooked it up with some rice. I can feel the infusion of protein into my body once again!

Also included here is a photo of a stack of books in Temuco's only used bookstore, which isn't really a full bookstore but there is a stack of used books and vintage magazines amongst cheap clothing and school supplies. Ah the feeling of leafing through old books and not knowing what you'll find! I am slowly piecing together my parallel existence, though nothing will ever compare to Seattle's bookstore and fake meat options.

product photography

One of my projects at the Foundation is to photograph the various products sold in the museum store so that we can include it in the online catalog (which currently only shows the wool products). The Foundation works with over 20 artesans in the region who make a variety of things from salmon skin wallets to silver jewelry to ceramic replicas of traditional Mapuche pottery. Today I spent the morning taking pictures of the txon txon which is a cow skin receptacle that was traditionally used for collecting and carrying seeds, etc. The txon txon are really fuzzy and sweet looking because they still have the cow´s fur. Is it wrong for a vegetarian to like something like that?

new life with window

On Saturday, after 48 days of living in the most depressing room I´ve ever known, I moved into my new place on Las Gacelas (Gazelle) street. As you can see, the old room was lit by a bare flourescent bulb. The new place has a window the size of an entire wall. From my comfortable, bug-free bed, I can watch puffy clouds float by in the blue summer sky. And note the ample floor space for yoga. Suddenly the entire town of Temuco seems brighter and I feel much more like myself. I no longer have to spend the evenings playing Tetris on my ipod to escape the prison-cell-like character of that cave of a room. Now I can leisurely read a book by natural light as the gentle breeze turns the pages. All I did over the weekend was marvel at the amenities and simple pleasures of being in a normal house. It was even fun going to Sodimac (the Chilean Home Depot) and buying things like dish towels and wall hooks. I celebrated with a can of Pringles and watched "Tremors" dubbed in Spanish on the lovely television. The only thing I miss about the old place was the little orange and white cat that visited me every day. There is a black and white cat named Meme who lives in the new house who likes to sleep on the dining room table.

expolana

Expolana is a crafts fair to celebrate woolen goods and is sponsored by the Chilean version of Martha Stewart magazine. There were 40 vendors selling a variety of things from yarn to alpaca jewelry to gastronomic delicacies (although I´m not sure what that has to do with wool). I was surprised to see how unique the products of the Chol Chol Foundation were in comparison to those of other companies made with synthetically dyed yarn. The Mapuche weaving technique is something I have increasing admiration for. The customers (many of who weave and/or knit) who stopped by our booth told us how it would take them a year to learn how to weave in that style. Other customers (unaware of the complex process and/or the concept of fair trade) turned their nose up at the prices. Although the long hours sitting at the booth were delirium-invoking, it was worth it getting to know Marcela better, and learn more about the products and the clientele. I will also say that the one perk of the fair was the free shots of Bailey´s every evening. And of all three flavors: original, chocolate mint, and caramel.

pucon redux

I am not sure I need to return to Pucon. Sure, it was sunny and 85 and birds were chirping, but it wasn´t an easy task encountering these few pleasant subjects to take photos of amidst the hoards of tourists. A little vocabulary lesson: "cuico" refers to rich people; Pucon´s nickname is "Cuicon". During the summer months of January and February, people from Santiago swarm the town and its nearby beaches. A fair amount of foreigners also use Pucon as a hub for adventure sports. My coworker, Marcela, and I were there to work at a four-day wool crafts fair. Our schedule was noon to midnight for four days straight. The schedule of the majority of vacationers was more like wake up at noon and go out to the clubs at midnight. Marcela and I checked into a hostel on a peaceful dirt road away from the action, but when we came back at 1am after working all day, we had to dodge the taxis whizzing by and dropping people off at the discotheque that we discovered in the lot next to the hostel. At 3am, the two 16-year old girls who were rooming with us came back to the hostel, turned on the lights with no regard, and were talking loudly. Although I was annoyed to be woken up, the lights revealed bedbugs that were crawling on the walls and in our beds. We made the hostel management change our mattresses and bedding and they fumigated the next day, but needless to say, we didn´t sleep well for the rest of our time there. Not to mention the disco sounds thumping until the roosters started crowing at dawn. Not unlike my return from my first visit to Pucon (remember New Year´s eve?), I was relieved to come back to Temuco and pass out in my dark and tiny room that smells like wet dogs.

monkey tail motherland

National parks never let me down. Conguillio National Park was no exception. Upon entering the park my jaw dropped just the way it did when I passed through the gates of Yellowstone or Crater Lake. Conguillio has some things in common with several of the parks of the western US since it was also formed by volcanic activity. The ground is made of black lava pebbles that contrast against piercing blue lakes and the white of glaciers on mountaintops. But when you look more in detail you see the bizarre plant life which is predominated by araucarias (monkey tail trees) that are hundreds of years old. They are everywhere in the park, living amongst oaks and bamboo-like stalks. Light green moss lives on the araucarias and is a soft compliment to the pokey armor of the gigantic trees' leaves.

My coworker and I took the bus to the park entrance and were prepared to walk the 18 km to the camping area. Luckily we got picked up by a couple of nice young fellows on motos and they took us to the lake where we arranged to stay in a tent of one of the park employees. We explored the park that afternoon with our new friends, Pablo and Gerson, and the next day did a rewarding hike that ended in a beautiful view of the lake, the mountains, and the forests of monkey tails.