La Gran Isla de Chiloé

Chiloé.  Like many places in Latin America, its name alone evokes a certain mystical impression.  The fact that it is routinely shrouded in mist and fog only helps maintain such a feeling once you're there. A large island in the north of Chilean Patagonia, it's far enough from the beaten path to have access only by sea-going ferry.  Ironically, the Pan-American Highway runs through it, and in fact ends at the southern point of the island.  But the "highway," as it also does in Panama, runs to the sea and then picks up again on the other side.  I'll take you on a virtual walk-through of the crossing.

First, a look at our trusty sea-going vessel.

These ferries are big enough to carry cars, trucks, buses, and anything else that rolls along a highway.  I had never been on a ferry as big as one of these, so for me it was every bit as interesting as anything else we saw in Chiloé.

In the US, I suppose we've gotten around to building bridges of various sizes across just about every body of water we might feel like driving across.  I remember driving in Maryland and noticing on the map a "Bridge-Tunnel" across the Chesapeake Bay and heading to Virginia Beach.  I couldn't imagine what a bridge-tunnel would look like, so I decided to drive down the Delmarva Peninsula with the sole intent of seeing it firsthand.  It cost $12 to use it, as it turned out, which was more than I expected, but I certainly wasn't going to head back the way I'd come.  But, I digress.

Boarding the ferry.  It was interesting to observe that it was operated by Cruz del Sur, the same company that operated the bus we were on.  Quite a lucrative business, I imagine, being the means of transport for anyone hoping to come to or go from an island with a population of 150,000.  The cars were clearly being packed in pretty snugly.  Considering the trip across the channel was a good twenty minutes each way, it pays to be efficient with space.  I was impressed too by how quickly the whole process moved along.

Once the ferry got moving, our bus opened its doors and virtually everyone got out.  Apparently, we weren't the only ones impressed by the experience.  A quick trip up a flight of stairs and it was possible to join the many other people enjoying our seafaring experience.  The channel is only about 3 kilometers wide, but still, we were in the waters of the South Pacific.

For many years, there has been talk of building a bridge across this channel, which would do away with the need for ferries like this one, and permanently connect the people of Chiloé (known as chilotes) with the mainland.  There are those in favor of such a project for the benefits it would bring to the island, and those who oppose it, citing a deterioration in the unique character that the island has developed after centuries of relative isolation.

Once across, we continued by land for a few more hours before reaching our destination of Castro, the capital of Chiloé.  It was said to be a sort of encapsulated experience of what the island's many towns had to offer in terms of culture, geography and architecture.  Along the way, we were afforded our first views of the island's landscape.  Much of what we had heard and imagined about the countryside here proved to be quite true.  Green hills, dirt roads, small towns and the constant reminder of the sea, either through its many estuaries or the regular rainfall blowing in from the Pacific.

When we got to Castro it was late afternoon.  Our bus left us at a terminal downtown, a good ten blocks from the hostel we'd found after hours of phone calls from Puerto Varas.  Not only was it the high season here in the South of Chile, but by pure luck we'd planned our trip to coincide with what are known as the fiestas costumbristas of Castro.  This is a party held annually to celebrate the local culture with lots of music, food, drink and handicrafts.  That meant we'd have the fortune to see it even though we hadn't planned on it, but it also meant that the town's limited lodging was filling up fast, and we were lucky to find a place to stay, even calling a couple of days in advance.  And not a bad place, either.

After meeting the owner of the hostel and getting set up in our room, we decided to make the most of the afternoon and see the town.  I was particularly interested in seeing (and saying) palafitos.  A nice word which describes these stilt houses jutting improbably out into waterways like the one you see here.  Obviously at the moment the level of the water was rather low, but judging from the height of the stilts, it sometimes gets quite a bit higher.  But thanks to the stilts, no wet floorboards.

From the front, these look like regular houses along a street like any other.  It's not until you manage to get around behind them that you see what makes them so special.  And considering what's behind them is usually water, it can be tricky to find a decent vantage point to see them.  Fortunately, there was a bridge over this particular river, affording us this postcard glimpse.

From there we made our way down to harbor, where we saw fishing boats, military boats, commercial shipping vessels, and even a cruise ship carrying lots of English-speaking retirees, who were walking around the neighborhood snapping pictures along with us.  As we continued our sightseeing, a gentle rain began to fall.  As the afternoon wore on into evening, this rain picked up until it became a steady downpour which continued in varying degrees of intensity for the rest of our time in Castro.  We were told it rained a lot here, and once again, the rumors turned out to be true!

This didn't stop us from having fun that afternoon, as the rain was still, at this point, a light sprinkle.  We were thoroughly enjoying the coast, the unique houses, and the town of Castro itself.  Everything about it was pretty much just what a tourist would hope to come so far to see.  Hence our surprise to see the hulking building looming atop the hillside, at such stark contrast with its surroundings.  Still under construction, it conjured up comparisons of Death Star-like proportions.

Situated only a few blocks from the town square and Castro's iconic wooden church, we ventured to guess it was a shopping center, and once back in Santiago weeks later, we learned we were right.  Photos much like the one we took here appeared all over the newspapers, with headlines and articles exploring the controversy.  For tourists, and for those locals who count on tourism for their livelihoods, it was a bane on their impression of Castro's quaint small-town atmosphere.  For many others in Castro, who currently travel three hours and across the ferry to Puerto Montt for anything from a movie theater to a fully equipped hospital, the mall would bring a welcome dose of modernity.  Probably no modern medical clinic, but a movie theater?  Maybe.

The project was under scrutiny not only for its inconsistency with the rest of the town's architecture, but also because it had allegedly been built with a few more floors than what was originally authorized.  The project's financier and designers, for their part, claimed that the municipality was changing its tune halfway through the process now that it was provoking such a high-profile reaction around the country.  Leaving the project, for now, in limbo.  Whether or not this and the bridge across Chiloé's northern channel get built anytime soon, though, it's clear that the pressure to bring the community here into fuller integration with the rest of Chile is strong.

Much of our time, due to inclement weather, was spent indoors at our hostel.  With a large group of guests and a nice communal area including a fully functional kitchen, it was easy to pass the time like this.  And as usual, Tamia found a friend her size.

We also spent time playing cards, drinking wine and researching the next legs of our trip, working out how many days we'd spend in each place and how to plan our bus trips and accommodations accordingly.  As I've said in past postings, this was the high season, and it was essential to look a few days ahead in order to not get stuck in an unfamiliar place with nowhere to stay.  In Castro especially, we saw many backpackers going door to door in the rain, looking for somewhere to sleep for the night.  That's bad enough when you're in your twenties and on your own, but traveling with a small child makes that an especially unconscionable idea.  But thanks to Skype and wifi service at even the most rustic hostels, it was easy to stay a step ahead.

Doing my best to make the most of our time, I donned a rain jacket and tried to take advantage of some of the less rainy moments.  During such times I explored some of the more rural areas surrounding the town of Castro itself.  Maybe because it was cool, green and wet here, and maybe because of the humbler way of life, it reminded me a lot of being in the Sierra of Ecuador.

At one point I also got on a fogged up, run down city bus and went for many kilometers along a slick road out of town and to the famed fiestas costumbristas.  One of the soggiest events I've been to in a long time, it was a bit short on attendees that day thanks to all the rain.  As you can see from the photo, many of them appeared to be on their way out as I was heading in.  Undeterred, I vowed to stay under the cover of the many wooden stands while sampling as much food and warm beverage as I could during the next couple of hours.  My favorite was the chochoca, a thick sheet of savory potato dough roasted over a grill and then served with fried pork folded into it.  This I washed down with a nice, warm glass of wine heated with orange slices.  Tasty!

Reinvigorated by my warm meal, I headed back out into the rain and over to the main stage, where a cumbia band was performing.  Their enthusiasm was matched by the sheer amount of rain falling from the sky.  At this particular moment it happened to be coming down harder than ever, as you can see in the photo.  Not many people were sticking around to see the performance.  For my part, I had found a place to stand under the wooden soundboard booth, also built on stilts.  It turns out that a building on legs is as good underneath as it is inside.  There, untouched by all the precipitation, I was able to enjoy the music as much as the musicians were enjoying playing it, they too being unperturbed by the low turnout.  Far from it, they played with all the bravado of any cumbia act I've ever seen.

The next day it was time to leave, and it kept on raining.  It rained as we left Castro, it rained as we crossed the channel, and it was still raining when we got to Puerto Montt, where we would be spending the night before getting on an early morning bus to make our way to Argentina.  We spent a lot of time on buses during our trip, but this felt like a particularly long ride, delayed by construction and other traffic jams.  Nonetheless, all of us passengers managed to stay in good spirits.

And Tamia, as she usually does, made a friend.  This girl was a few years older than Tamia, was concerned about our daughter's relative lack of eyebrows, and as we neared Puerto Montt, broke into a hearty round of "estamos llegando, ¡chuguay, chuguay!"  If you don't speak Spanish, a quick Google translation will satisfy your curiosity, all the way up to the two word refrain, which was a mystery to us.  And that, my friends, is where I leave you, until the next fun-filled installment.

Stopping off in Puerto Varas

Picturesque Puerto Varas.  A sort of quintessential town in the south of Chile, it embodies much of what people expect when they think of this part of the country.  A small community with wooden houses, lots of trees, a frigid but beautiful alpine lake, and of course, a majestic, snow-capped volcano looming on the not-so-distant horizon.  There are many towns like Puerto Varas in southern Chile, but few manage to lure as many tourists.  Perhaps because this one has reached a critical mass of tourism, which brings in enough consistent revenue to pay for more infrastructure for tourists, who come in greater numbers and bring more money.  So it has gone over the years, leading Puerto Varas to become something like a Vail, Colorado of South America.

While many people come to ski in the winter, just as many make their way here in the summer for hiking and other outdoor activities.  But many families, like us, come simply to enjoy the town itself.  With a wave of German immigration in the 1800's, the town has been left with a decidedly Teutonic cultural stamp, most visibly in the form of its many historic buildings.

Incidentally, the thousands of German settlers in the area have had an important effect on Chilean culture up and down the length of the country.  From the ubiquitous schop (draft beer) to be found in any given bar in any town or city in Chile, through the tasty chucrut (sauerkraut) they put on their hot dogs, all the way to the kuchen (cakes) served for dessert, one of the best ways to experience German influence here is with your belly.  Another significant result of all of this is the Chilean ability to actually spell my last name right.

Even as the German settlers and their descendants have intermarried and assimilated into the general Chilean culture, the architecture in this part of the country is still influenced by the old German style.  In Puerto Varas and many other towns in the area you can find many more recent houses like our hostel, pictured here.  With wooden shingles lining the exterior walls and old-fashioned wood stoves to stay warm in the winter, these communities emanate a homey, residential atmosphere that made me think of what life must have been like in the US a few generations ago.

That's not to say that the town doesn't have plenty of modern influences.  With the amount of tourism flooding in during two distinct times of year, in the town's small center you can find international brands and modern, hulking shopping centers interspersed with the older and more modest storefronts.  And like any tourist town, there's plenty of shops selling clothes, souvenirs and local products, like delicious cheese. With much of the cheese we buy in Santiago being produced in this region, we went out of our way to buy a few samples while we were there.

Since we didn't have a car, we decided we'd rent a bike.  And since there were three of us, we decided to rent a bike made for three.  Pedal powered and with two steering wheels (although only one of them was actually connected to the wheels), we thought we'd found a nice form of local transportation.  But once we got a kilometer or so away from the center of town, we heard a loud pop and our ride started getting a lot rougher.  As it turned out, we'd blown a tire.

After some consideration, we came to the conclusion that one of us ought to walk back to the rental shop while the other stayed with our daughter and the bike.  Soon, a replacement bike was procured, and the girl from the rental shop was stuck pedaling the broken down vehicle back limpingly to its origin.

We continued our fancy-free tour around town, enjoying our liberating form of transportation, until we got back downtown, when some piece in the drive train happened to snap off.  The steering wheel was locked in place, and the front wheels were stuck turned a few degrees to the left.  Fortunately, we were less than a block from the rental shop, and we were able to muscle our vehicle back to where it came from without drawing too much attention to ourselves.  We weren't sure how the girl would feel about us breaking two of her bikes, but she seemed to feel like it was her fault and looked embarrassed.  She even offered to let us use a third bike if we were interested, but we decided not to push our luck any further.

Instead, we opted to spend the afternoon on the beach.  The lake upon which Puerto Varas was built is icy cold, even in the summer.  Some people still braved its waters, and even more went out onto canoes and paddleboats.  Before our mechanical difficulties with the bike, we thought we might do the same, but considering our luck, it seemed like not such a good idea to head out onto the water in another rented vehicle.  So instead we spread out a towel and enjoyed a snack while taking in the beautiful view.  And Tamia made a friend about her size.

With the many national parks in the area, and with mountainous forests all around us, the lure of getting out of town and exploring was a strong one.  With our decision, however, to make a tour of as many destinations as possible during our trip, came certain consequences.  We were traveling at a time when lodging and buses were booked many days in advance, requiring us to anticipate how many days we'd spend in each place before we got there.  More than once, we left a place without having explored it as much as we might have wanted to.  That's how it usually is when you visit a nice place, I suppose, and with luck this initial, exploratory tour of the south of Chile will not be our last.  In the meantime, we couldn't feel too much disappointed, what with the many stops still ahead.

First stop in the South of Chile

We recently took a trip that included several towns in the South of Chile, doing our best to see as much as we could in the amount of time we had for traveling.  It was something of an exploratory trip, as we had never been to any of these places before.  Chile is a uniquely shaped country, and its extended length means that thorough travel throughout its many regions requires a lot of time, and some careful planning.  Adding to the challenge is that Chile, like many of the countries in this part of the continent, isn't cheap, especially in the high Summer season of December through February.

Especially in the South, the high season lends itself to tourism because you've got the least chance of getting rained on.  The names of Chile's southern regions, such as Los Ríos and Los Lagos, highlight the abundance of water and its defining presence in the area.  Our first stop was Valdivia, the capital of the region of Los Ríos.  It has an extensive history of various waves of European colonization and indigenous resistance, but the biggest earthquake in the recorded history of the world, at a magnitude of 9.5, was responsible for the destruction of most of its historic buildings and economy.  That means that today Valdivia itself isn't much to look at compared to many of the other cities in the area.  But it's blessed with some gorgeous geography: three beautiful rivers, like the one you see above, as well as a varied coastline made up of multiple islands, and plenty to do.

We arrived in Valdivia at night, having taken the train from Santiago as far south as it goes and then busing it the rest of the way from Chillán.  Despite making a reservation at a hotel and confirming it the night before, the receptionist told us they had no rooms for us.  Some mild indignation, reenacted on your left, landed us in a private cabin at a discount for our first night until they made room for us in the hotel.

The masses of travelers that flood into Chile's southern destinations demand plenty of forward thinking, like the booking of hotels and buses several days in advance.  And even then, you should be prepared to behave assertively when necessary.  You're in direct competition for space, and even the national parks and monuments have no qualms about visibly raising the prices this time of year. 

One of our cost control methods was, whenever possible, to stay at accommodations with kitchen access, either in a modest apartment or carefully negotiated private cabin, or in a hostel where the kitchen is shared with the other guests.  That said, we still made a point to sample some of the signature dishes in the South, where dark beer and buttery potatoes are served as accompaniments to seafood and lamb that crumbles and melts upon contact with your watering mouth.

Like at the Kunstmann brewery, the home to Chile's famed German-style microbrew.  As I've written before, Chile is in the midst of a craft beer revolution, putting Kunstmann on the map today in the eyes of enthusiasts.  Their restaurant is something of a mix between Cracker Barrel and brewery, walls lined with memorabilia painting a clear picture of the historical German influence on the region.  The theme is rounded out by the impeccable stainless steel fermenters on display behind glass, and the countless T-shirts, commemorative steins and gift boxes of beer for sale.  Skipping the gift shop, we contented ourselves with a few pictures, a huge meal, and a pitcher of unfiltered lager.

The guidebook I relied on for this trip had a definite love-it-or-hate-it attitude about the South of Chile, placing each destination squarely in either the can't-miss or not-on-your-life category.  It sang the praises of Kunstmann beer, for example, while condemning the food as so German that only the nostalgic Hansel or Helmut among you would find it appealing.  I thought it was pretty damned tasty, though, and a few friends who have also been there have echoed my impression as well.  Can't please everyone, I guess.

The coastal areas of southern Chile, during much of the colonial age, lay at the edge of Spanish territory and the settlements consisted mostly of heavy fortifications which have weathered the centuries and earthquakes better than the buildings in the city of Valdivia.  Except for the cold and fog, some of these forts reminded me of the ones we saw in Cartagena de Indias.

This one was in a place called Niebla, aptly named for the prevailing weather conditions.  While the visibility was low and confounded our attempts at taking pictures, it was fascinating for us to be at the other extreme of Spanish influence in South America.  From the Caribbean forts in Colombia to these in South Pacific, one was struck as much by the similar architecture as by sheer distance between them.

The three forts we visited formed a triangle of defense with each point located on a different island or peninsula, separated by the estuary of the Valdivia River.  When you look at the system of forts on a map after seeing them for yourself from the water below, it becomes clear how formidable the fortifications would have been for pirates or other attackers.

Today, however, they stand as little more than a crumbling relic of the past, punctuating a profoundly beautiful landscape where the continent meets the sea.  This fort is located on the Isla Mancera, a picturesque island with a walking trail along its perimeter, ostensibly open to the real estate market as evidenced by the collection of rustic houses to be found on the path, but fortunately lacking any large scale development so far.  When you find yourself at the right vantage point here and look out over the sea, you can't help but hope that places like this will somehow manage to avoid the greedy eyes of developers forever.

The last, and the largest, of the forts we visited was in the small town of Corral, with a population larger and more concentrated than the haphazardly scattered homes on Isla Mancera.  Hopping from one destination to the next on a small ferryboat as we did that day, you begin to get the feeling that you could keep at it endlessly, exploring one town after another in infinite procession.

That's why I sometimes prefer to look at a map after the fact, or perhaps never, so as not to put limits and borders on that feeling of unlimited expanse.  But even then, when your eyes are filled with wooded hills and blue water as far as you can see, that's about as close to the infinite as you can hope to fathom.  Especially when you're on the first leg of a trip full of places you've never been.

Back in Valdivia, we walked the costanera, a boardwalk at the edge of town that comes to a point at the confluence of the two rivers that defined the historic borders of the city.  There, a colony of stocky sea lions have made themselves at home, a few of them seen basking on a raft, in front of the tour boat in the river.

These boats will provide you with an all day river cruise, stopping off at the same forts we visited.  We opted to make the same trip on our own terms, taking a city bus to Niebla and then hiring our own ferry from one stop to the next, but for those who prefer the convenience and comfort of a packaged trip, there are kiosks of tour agencies on the boardwalk ready to make you a deal.

And, while I mentioned before that Valdivia didn't have much historic architecture left after the 1960 earthquake, that's not to say it doesn't boast a few remnants of its former glory.  What has remained has been polished up and painted, rendering certain corners a miniature Valparaíso of sorts.

It was in one of these buildings where we had our second taste of southern cuisine on our way out of town.  With our backpacks piled up in the corner, we hunkered down to a full-on seafood feast of fried fish and a hearty stew loaded with all kinds of shellfish I don't know the name for in English or in Spanish.  Accompanied, of course, with deliciously buttered potatoes.  And washed down, naturally, with a nice, dark beer.  It was going to be another long bus ride, and we'd need our spirits high.


A fitting end to our first stop.  Stay tuned for another fun-filled installment.

Oktoberfest in Chile!

In the U.S., when we think of Oktoberfest, we think, naturally, of Germany.  German sausage, sauerkraut, maybe some German music, and everything written in a nice, German-looking font.  But let's face it, we mostly think of beer.  So when I heard of an Oktoberfest happening in the small community of Malloco, a short drive from Santiago, I was happy to find out that here, too, Oktoberfest means beer.

Apparently, la Fiesta de la Cerveza, in Malloco (read: Beerfest) started years ago with the restaurant pictured here, Der Münchner.  Indeed, the first thing we saw as we climbed off the bus from Santiago was the colorful front of this German restaurant, with the beer festival happening essentially in its back yard.

When I say "we," I mean a group of English teachers like myself and other friends, all understandably curious about the very promising, long list of Chilean breweries that would be present and serving many varieties of their hand-crafted beers.  Upon arriving at the bus terminal, we discovered many, many buses with the words "Malloco: Fiesta de la Cerveza" scribbled on the sides.  Presumably, these buses would be making round trips all day long, shuttling partygoers to and from the capital and the party.  Just how many people would be there?

Once we had paid the 5000 peso admission (about $10 US.  Chile, defying the long held reputation that Latin America is a cheap place to travel, can be pricey), we wandered past several rows of stands selling commemorative steins, hats, and various things to eat.  After a few minutes of this, we began to wonder, where was all the beer?

But then the path opened up into a wide, dusty field encircled completely by beer vendors.  Literally, dozens of breweries.  And at that hour, right around lunchtime, there weren't so many people at all.  So we went straight up to one of the first breweries that caught our attention and made a purchase.  Dark, delicious and cold beer.  Not your typical commercial pilsener; that day, there would be none of that.  No.  Nothing less than microbrew, at its flavorful finest.  We split up, some of us dedicated to enjoying our first pints in the shade, and the others striking out at once, intrepidly in search of the next cupful.

You see, we were not limited to one successful formula for enjoying an extended afternoon of sampling so many uncommon beers.  With the next several hours as full of promise as they were, the temptation was certainly there to enthusiastically take down a few pints in rapid succession.

Clearly, there were many festival goers who were doing just that.  But after an education at Ohio State University, my personal rate of consumption had been tempered by years of experience, and most of those in our party had clearly learned similarly.

Rather than make the mistake of indulging with wanton abandon, then, only to be met with a physiological compulsion to sleep in the later afternoon, we chose to make our second beer purchase only after a shrewd sampling of as many different beers as possible.  Because of the relaxed atmosphere brought on by the low turnout at this early stage in the day, most of the sellers were happy to talk at length about their beer, their philosophy, and to give out free samples of an ounce or two of each beer they had on offer.

We spent a good couple of hours in this regimen of socializing and sampling, staying out of the relentless midday sunshine as much as possible under the cool shade of the canopies hanging over each stand.  It was in this way that we learned that the overwhelming majority of the many breweries in participation that day hailed from central Chile.  I didn't hear of any coming from further north than La Serena, and not many came from much further south than Santa Cruz.  With the reputation of southern Chile as being the major beer producer that it is, that bodes well for future sampling as we begin to explore places like Valdivia and Puerto Varas.  Tasty!

Time passed, and a second pint was finally purchased, with the benefit of a well-informed knowledge of what was available.  Moving in reverse, having started with a stout, my second beer of the day was an amber ale from a brewery I had never heard of before, and may well not hear of again until Fiesta de la Cerveza 2012.  But it was the one that stood out in my mind as having the nicest hop profile so far, and that was what I was going for that afternoon.

Meanwhile, the festival was filling up, and the beer stands were heaving with spirited clientele.  Thankfully, that didn't mean that the vendors stopped giving out free samples, but the time for idle chit-chat was over.  Interactions with the bartenders became terse and to-the-point:

Bartender:¿Cuál?
Me: La negra. 
B: ¿Grande o pequeña?
M: Una muestra, nomás.
B: Vale. 

Deciding it was time to take a break from the crowds, we opted to have some food and some time to relax in the shade.  In the search for a place to sit down, we walked past the obligatory carnival section of the fairgrounds.

Incidentally, the little wheel behind the red tower is one of those contraptions that is designed to send you spinning along multiple axes at the same time.  The weekend before at the same event, a young man who had likely had too much to drink, decided he would stick his legs through the bars of the cage he was locked in for his safety while the ride was in motion, and his feet caught on the center axle, snapping his legs at the shin.  He died in the hospital a couple of days later.  Not surprisingly, that ride was not in operation the day we went.  Alcohol and carny rides are never a good combination.

After a nice break, we launched back into our methodical sampling of virtually every beer on offer at the beer festival.  More stands were visited.  More beers were tasted.  Another pint was purchased, by me.  This time, it was an IPA, the only one I had found the whole day.  It was from this brewery, if I remember correctly.  A well-crafted IPA is one of my favorite beers, but in the US amongst microbreweries today, there seems to be a tendency to load the beer up with a quantity of hops far in excess of what an IPA traditionally called for.  The one I tried that day was well hopped, but not to the extreme like some of the "double IPAs" you can find.  I wanted to bring a bottle home with me, but at the end of the day this brewery became somehow elusive, and I couldn't track it down.

When all was said and done, we had tried beer from just about every brewery available that day, over the course of five or six hours.  Drinking at a moderate pace for that much time doesn't get you drunk if you do it right, but it was like a shift at work, and left us physically exhausted at the end.  The bus ride home was a rowdy one, us standing in the aisle with crowds of Chileans chanting hymns that all of them knew and none of us did.  Were they singing about politics, or football?  Instead I focused on the number of beer stains noticeably visible on the white shirts of many of the people seated around me.  Perhaps the people were on this bus and not behind the wheel for their own safety, and for the safety of others.

My personal bill for the day was 5000 pesos for the entry fee, and about 1500 pesos for each pint, 3 in total.  Plus food, and another 700 pesos or so for the bus ride each way.  Let's put the grand total at around 15,000 pesos, that being about $30 US.  I'd do it again next year.  Who's with me?

On top (and inside) of a mountain

Way up a winding road heading into the cordillera de los Andes from the town of Rancagua, south of Santiago, lies the town of Sewell.  Its setting on a steep mountain valley, the sheer and snowy slopes flanking it, the colorfully painted buildings that comprise it, its rich history as a copper mining town, all of this make it an attractive destination for tourists. But if you come, don't plan on spending the night.  Sewell is a ghost town.  Today, no one lives in any of its buildings, and the road that leads you here is closed to all traffic, save that going to and from the nearby El Teniente, the world's largest subterranean copper mine.  Save also tour vehicles like the one parked in the bottom left of the photo, full of tourists like us, seeking a day trip different than your typical wine tour or run for the beach. 

The road to Sewell led directly through the facilities of the mining operation.  I, probably like most people in the world, had never been on a tour that featured a copper mine before, so I took a lot of pictures along the way.  Some areas, with the blue, yellow and red theme, and unusual architecture, imparted a whimsical sort of Willy Wonka's copper factory impression. 

Then you round the bend and see something like this.  Toxic pools, grey concrete buildings under ominous cloud cover, with barren land all around.  That's what you expect massive mineral extraction to look like.  Our guide delivered an endless set of statistics and explanations surrounding Chile's copper industry, and told us that it would be impossible for a mining operation on this scale to not have an impact on the surrounding environment.  At the same time, while Chile has worked hard in recent years to diversify its economy, the exportation of copper remains its single largest source of revenue, and without it, the country would not enjoy its current level of development and prosperity.  So don't expect El Teniente to close any time soon.

In addition to selling copper, Codelco - the government-run mining company responsible for El Teniente's operations - also runs tours.  In fact, not only did our tour lead us around the facilities.  After passing for several kilometers through this kind of industrial landscape, we donned the hardhats and orange reflective gear required by law, and drove straight into the mine itself.

As I mentioned before, this is the biggest copper mine in the world, barring open pit mining.  Chuquicamata, an open pit mine in the north of Chile, is the 2nd largest such mine in the world, matched only by Bingham Canyon Mine, located in Utah.  To give some perspective, since Chuquicamata was opened over a century ago it has cranked out some 29 million tons of copper ore.  In its own right, El Teniente produced more than 418,000 tons of copper ore in 2006 alone.

I've been within the man-made bowels of the earth once before, when I walked with my family a hundred meters or so into an old gold mine in Zaruma.  This particular winter's day in Chile, we drove more than 6 kilometers into one of this mine's many tunnels.  We were merely scratching the surface, so to speak, of the vastness carved out beneath the ground.  Not a tour for the claustrophobic.  This particular leg of the tour can be bypassed for those who'd rather not go into the belly of a mountain.

As this hand-drawn diagram indicates, there are some 7 horizontal levels of tunnels dug into this mountain, each at a different depth, each counting on gravity to bring materials down first from their respective mines.  From there they are carted to the white apparatus indicated on the right, where they are ground up and dropped down to the level where they can be loaded and driven out from the valley below. 

It turned out that the white apparatus in question, known as a chancado, was part of the tour.  In layman's English, we might call it a crushing machine.  The room that houses it reminded me of the place where they filmed the final scenes of Terminator 2.  The crushing device itself looked like a big electric orange juicer, with ground up rocks rather than orange juice pouring down from the spinning blades into a long vertical shaft leading below.  You'll have to be satisfied with my description to conjure up an image in your mind, but I will include a photo of the cavernous and seemingly endless hole in the ground, leading down to the lowest depths of the mine.

In addition to demonstrating the many levels of the underground complex, this photo also reveals the horrid air quality to be found beneath the surface.  It took me a couple of takes to realize that the odd interference in each photo in this room was the result of infinite particulate matter reflecting the light from the flash.

Otherwise unseen, but definitely noticeable from the chalky taste in your mouth, this is the stuff that ultimately ends up clogging the lungs of many career miners, leaving them with a case of silicosis after years and years underground.  That mining is hard on your respiratory system is well known, but seeing and smelling it for myself gave me a more visceral appreciation for the hardship that miners must go through to make their living.  Unlike them, I could go home, rinse off the dust from my body and breathe easy the next day.

Besides the chancado, there is also an underground casino.  But before you start thinking that these miners can gamble away all their hard-earned income before they even see the light of day, I should mention that this term has a far different sense in Chilean Spanish than it does in English.  Gambling casinos are known in Chile, but the majority of the places you'll find bearing this name fall under the category of what we'd call a cafeteria.

After this picture was taken we saw the casino for ourselves, and had lunch there.  Besides the lack of windows, it was your typical working class mess hall.  Soup, rice, meat, sauce, salad, drink.  At least, that's what we saw people eating.  The lunch for tourists ran about $10 more than the regular cost of the tour, which seemed a little steep for what you get.  We brown bagged it.

After lunch we took off our dusty helmets and orange jackets and made our way up to the highlight of the tour, which was the abandoned mining town of Sewell.  The first stop on the guided tour was a museum housed in one of the most well-maintained buildings in town.  The top floor was certainly the best - if most unlikely - exhibit, housing a collection of copper items from around the world.  Copper sextants, copper helmets, copper weights and measures, all beautifully preserved.  And, this copper Ganesh.  It's interesting to note that while Chile is one of the world's major exporters of copper ore, little of it is refined here into pure copper, or manufactured goods.

So it is that the copper used here in Chile may have come from Chile, but chances are it then got shipped as ore and then sent to Asia.  From there it was refined, shaped, included into any number of electronics or other such product, and then shipped out around the world, including back here, to Chile.

This irony is not lost on those in the copper industry of Chile, but when the established infrastructure and cost of labor is such in Asia that finished products can be churned out for far cheaper than here in Chile, there is no economic incentive to do otherwise.  In that light this exhibit, with its collection of artistically crafted copper sculptures, antiquities and other bemusing curios, stands as a microcosm for the curious situation that many countries like Chile find themselves in.

Rich in resources but lacking a tradition of manufacture, we find an economy chugging along nicely on the export of raw materials, but all of the added value that comes later from the finished product earns profits abroad.  I don't know if it was Codelco, with profits from its copper business, or some other entity which bought the fine pieces we pored over that day.  And for a fine price I'm sure, judging from the condition of the pieces.  But whoever the owner may be, they're making some added profit from the trickle of tourism coming to Sewell and this museum, so we've got some locally added value after all.

The rest of our tour took us around the snowy, wind-blown streets of Sewell.  Our guide mentioned one story after another to reveal the curious lives of miners and their families, stranded so far from civilization up here in the middle of nowhere.  Founded in 1904, everything was brought in on a train, including the miners, and once here they couldn't expect to see anything else for months on end.  That set up the typical situation of the company town, where the mining company owned and operated everything.  Once the road to the mine was built, the mining company began phasing out life in Sewell in 1977, which means that there are plenty of people with memories of life in Sewell.

Indeed, since the tour, I've happened to mention to a few Santiaguinos that I was there.  Santiago is not so far from Sewell and El Teniente, and the mining industry is such a big part of the economy that a couple of the people I've told have mentioned that they remember their early childhoods in Sewell.

As you can see from the photos, the weather conditions at this altitude are extreme, and in the few decades since its abandonment and substantial dismantling, the elements have taken a major toll on the remaining buildings.  Now an UNESCO World Heritage site, efforts have begun to restore what's left of the town.  However, many of the structures which have been at least partially restored have already suffered a new round of damage from the long winters and the subsequent effects of significant snow accumulation.

Apparently, plans are in the works to bring some full time employees to the town in order to run an on-site hotel in one of the finer buildings, allowing tourists to spend the night in the ghost town of an old mining encampment.  Does that sound like fun to you?  There's even an old bowling alley...

Built on such a steep hill, Sewell was composed of many levels, both geographically and socially.  Here, on the concrete plateau between flights of concrete stairs, we can see an abandoned schoolyard where dozens of children of miners must have once played.  Further up the hill, and now mostly dismantled, were the well-appointed homes of the English-speaking managers and executives of the mining operation back when it was a foreign holding.

While these wealthy expats would have enjoyed as many amenities and comforts of home as money and the limitations of the time would have allowed, the miners themselves were housed with their families in small rooms stacked up in big apartment buildings like the ones seen here.  The difference in the quality of life of these distinct socioeconomic strata would have been very clear, according to our guide.

Nonetheless, the local miners were afforded a quality of life far greater than at other mines, with enviable salaries and benefits.  Today, the miners can still apparently expect a fair salary for the hard work they do, and most of them live with the modern comfort and nicer weather of the city of Rancagua in the open valley far below.

That leaves Sewell behind as a nearly lost relic of Chile's past, rescued from ruin and now enjoying what could be the beginnings of a nostalgic renaissance.  Standing in the icy air of a ghost town like this one, a colorful oddity amidst the grim machinery of a huge industrial project, puts you in the middle of several levels of contrast.  If you ever go, you could even try and count them, like counting the stairs on the way up the hill.