Archive for November 16th, 2009

A couple of days ago I took a local minibus from Puerto Varas to a stop in the middle of nowhere (actually by a pueblo called Lenca), which allowed me to hike 5K in the rain to a trailhead in Parque Nacional Alerce Andino. I came to the little cabana marking the start of the trail and met a tiny Chileno who began speaking rapidly to me in (what I think was) Spanish. I understood absolutely nothing (other than one or two words about peligro and/or prohibido) and no matter what I said or tried to pantomime about my slowness or lack of understanding or stupidity, he continued to speak a torrent of Chilean Spanish. I rudely left him talking quickly (and now loudly) to my back at the trailhead and started up the muddy trail on my own, and cursed the Chilean weather for a solid hour and a half while trudging through the mud until I came across what looked like a very wet guanico on the uphill side of the trail. It seemed not to be afraid of me, and people, these things are beautiful, like a llama’s foxy sister, so I was pretty excited to see one up close, and so tame. That is, until it also started in with the rapid Chilean Spanish. My understanding of Espanol was getting a little better in Argentina, and I could entiendo quite a bit near the end of my stay there, but Chilean Spanish is a guanico of a different color, so to speak, and I’ve had quite a bit more trouble getting by here. So I was confused.

At this point, I was already soaked from the hike to the trailhead and a bit grumpy about the whole sogginess of the last couple weeks (and frustrated that I couldn’t understand the tiny Chilean nor the guanico), so I decided to make camp for the night right there, in a clearing a few metros uphill from where he now stood, calmly appraising me.

I cooked a satisfying meal of, of course, lentecas and arroz (with a bit of salted palta for texture), set up my champ of a waterproof tent and tried to go to bed early, but the big-eyed fellow outside refused to callate (a lot like the little guy at the trailhead cabana), no matter how much I attempted to “lo siento, senor, no entiendo” him. After a couple (few?) hours of this, I unzipped the tent, climbed out, and found myself in a place that looked a bit different than it did in the daylight. The sky had cleared and was full of flashlight stars; the horizon had expanded, the trees lowered or cut, and the bedrock under all that damp brown soil had been exposed. My tent was now on a broad expanse of volcanic rock, and I remember being surprised that I didn’t feel the change from inside the tent, although my sleeping pad is very plush and would have cushioned any movement below.

My furry pal outside was now dry and seemed to be in a better mood. His once rapid Espanol was now a bit more mellow, and I was able to understand a few words now and then. I picked out “la noche,” “amable,” and what sounded like “fantastico,” although I’m not positive that’s a word in Spanish, Chilean or no.

A path led off through the rock perpendicularly from the main trail that I hadn’t noticed the day before, and was lit low to the ground by phosphorescent hongos, each plant (fungi?) glowing a subtly different pastel color. After a quarter hour or so of basking in the starlight and listening to the low chatter of my friend, I watched him move off down the path to the left (unfortunately uphill) and decided as I probably wasn’t going to sleep any time soon, I might as well follow. Also, my new rain jacket hadn’t proven watertight the day before, and I hoped that a stroll in the balmy night air might dry it (and me) off a bit.

Entonces, after an easygoing 20 minute (or so) walk up the rocky face of a treeless Andean Sierra under the cover of a million sparkling points, my pretty-eyed guide and I arrived at another, smaller cabana, this one in a bit better shape than the Chilenito’s, with lace curtains in the windows and “Wilkommen” carved into the woodwork above the door. I was a bit suprised to find something like this, as most of the Deutsch-type architecture had been, up to this point, in the German-colonized village of Puerto Varas, now quite a few kilometros below us.

I followed my easygoing guanico inside & found a few friendly faces gathered around a television attached to a portable DVD player. The matronly, apron-clad woman from my short stay at the hospedaje in Puerto Montt, Mirta and Colombian Pedro (with perfect Spanish) from Ancud, the winking schoolgirls from Chonchi, and most confusingly, Buby, our guide to Refugio Frey. They were rewatching, of course, the Argentine National team playing Peru in the torrential downpour during my stay in Recoleta. Buby kindly said que tal, although I could tell that he, like the rest of the cozy little room, was busy waiting for the catalytic moment near the end of the game when Martin Palermo scored the ultimate, winning goal. I found myself, as I often do while watching futbol, a bit aburrido, but decided to stay awhile and see if I could follow the game, at least until the final goal, as I’d missed it live the first time and wanted to be a part of the experience with these people I’d met and had difficulty communicating with over the last couple of weeks. A clear night outside, a warm glow from the (tiny) TV inside, a torrential downpour on the television through which we can barely see the futbolers. And my tent and all I own on the continent forgotten below.

Palermo scores, the streets of Buenos Aires erupt, the Argentines and Chilenos pound the tables. We drink, we fly, we drown, and Buby saves our lives over and over again. My Spanish is perfect; I’m comfortable everywhere I find myself. I have a baby, I buy a house, I cherish my friends and family. I read, I write, I work hard, I enjoy my life. Things work out in the end, in the little cabana in the bosque in the parque.

Even though all it does is rain.

Truly Yours, Delaney.