Gone Fishing

For those of you who know my family well, you know that fishing is core.  And now that Victor and I are "officially" family the fishing begins.  And what a better place to fly fish than the south of Chile.  This adventure took us to the southern end of Chile: Patagonia. Victor has a good friend who lives in Coyhaique and who helped us set up an amazing 5 day adventure to this remote and idyllic paradise.  We packed our backpacks, warm clothes and rain jackets and headed south.

The first day we wandered around and got to know the town, which is quite small and not touristy at all.  For being the fly fishing capital of Chile it was amazing that they only had 1 fly fishing shop in the whole town.  The scenery is incredible; the sky is so blue and clear, which is quite the contrast from the Santiago smog.  We decided to throw our line in the water and give the Patagonian waters a try.  We got a ride out of town ~10 miles to the Coyhaique river and fished the evening hatch, which was a success.  While the fish were not too big, they put up a good fight and it was a perfect end to the day.  We fished through the sun set, and then began our trek back to down; which was an adventure as we had no ride, no cell phone service, and there was a good 10 miles between us and our hostel.  We started the hike back to town and after about a mile we were picked up by 2 local farmers who gave us a ride back to town.  It is amazing how kind and welcoming the Chileans are in the South. Not that we aren't in Santiago, but small town Chile, is much like small towns everywhere where they open their doors and welcome you at any time.

As we had never fished in the area before, we decided to get a local guide to join us for our second day.  And it was the best decision ever, as we would have never found the lake, nor the fish, without his help.  We spent a full day with Diego (our guide) at Lago Alto, about 2 hours south of Coyhaique.  The fishing was wonderful, but I must say it was more like hunting than anything, as we were actually stalking the fish. Rather than just casting the line out to where we thought there would be fish (which is my usual technique) we actually walked the edges of the lake with Diego, looking for fish ahead of us.  And the crazy thing is that you could actually see them.. they were huge!  The fish were all between 2-5 lbs and this lake had only brown trout. Once you spotted a fish, you would hunker down, so that it didn't see you, and then you had to cast the fly right in front of the fish, when it was facing the right direction, while at the same time not trying to get caught in the trees in your back cast, and also not being seen by the fish.  And all of this with 25mph winds whipping around.. so it was a challenge.  But we prevailed and had a great time along the way.  Here are the two trophy fish of the day.

 A local Chilean tradition in the South, as it is very remote (they have no cell, nor house phones) is to stay with a local family during your visit.  And after a long day fishing, and upon a recommendation from our local friend, we decided to stay with Mary, in her home, for two days.  We shared breakfast and dinner with Mary and  her family and we felt, in many ways, like we were adopted on a short term basis.  While we weren't at the house much, as we were out enjoying the wilderness, it was wonderful to wake up to home made bread and biscuits every morning and enjoy the dinner meal with her and her family.  They eat a lot of bread in the south and every kitchen has an old stove where they heat the house, cook all meals, and bake incredibly (yet very heavy) bread.

The view out of Mary's kitchen window looks out upon Cerro Castillo (photo above), which is named Castle Mountain for the unique formation at the top of the mountain.  The peak is the formidable point on the horizon and for some unknown reason, we decided to climb it.  Not to the top, but to the lagoon that sits just below the pilars.  It is a 9 hours hike in total and as I am writing this, I still think I am sore.  But it was worth it.  The view from the top, as you can see in the photos below, was spectacular.  And we were lucky to have such a clear day, as Patagonia is know for rainy overcast days (similar to Seattle). We had the entire mountain to ourselves, minus a few cattle along the way.

The day ended with an asado (BBQ) at Mary's house where she cooked a local lamb and her family joined us for the meal.  We devoured the meal and it was the perfect end to a long, yet fulfilling, day.  

The morning following our  hike we picked ourselves up out of bed and headed further south (2.5 hr by car) to Puerto Tranquillo to see the marble chapel and cathedral.  But Puerto Tranquillo was anything but tranquil.  The winds were quite strong and we had to talk the boat guide into taking us out on the lake, as he had closed for the afternoon.  That was the first sign that we were in for a bumpy ride. The boat ride out to the pilars only took about 30 minutes, and then we enjoyed the scenery of these amazing natural structures by ourselves (because no one else was crazy enough to go out on the lake in such bad weather).  The striking caves, caverns and formations have been carved away by the strong water over thousands of years.  But I must say it was not only the formations that were impressive; the color of the water was also striking, as the blue/white marble under the water reflected an immense amount of light and it appeared like the water was almost glowing.  We toured the caves for ~20 or so and then the excitement began...the ride back to the dock.  The trip that took 30 min on the way out took ~50 to return. 

We had to follow the shoreline back, and there were times when the waves were higher than the boat (you actually had to look up to see the top of the wave).  It was impressive.  As we had to catch our flight, we hopped back in the car and drove the 2.5 hours back to the airport.

For all of those who have always wanted to take a trip to Patagonia, I could not recommend a more beautiful place to feel at peace with nature and feel like you are in a truly wild and remote place.  It is like the Montana of South America, as the sky feels huge, it has a great deal of untouched wilderness and fishing in abundance.  And you will hear from us again about this part of Chile, as we are going to be taking my Mom and Dad there for a fishing trip when they come to visit in February.  So this trip was the perfect reconnaissance mission for our future trip.

We send our best to everyone for a wonderful holiday, Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukah.  Hopefully everyone will be spending the holiday surrounded by loved ones, and being able to sort through the unnecessary stresses of the holidays and truly being able to enjoy the beauty of the celebration.

Coming up in our next post... Merry Christmas from Chile!!!  We will share our pool-side holiday stories.  

-Dessa and Victor

"Otra!... Otra!..." - The Santiago concert scene

"Otra", to give a bit of context to the title of this post, is what Chileans say when a concerts ends for the encore.  And they all yell it in unison and the bands love it.  As soon as an entertainer leaves the stage the whole crowd jumps into a round of, "Otra, Otra, Otra...", the band returns and the music begins again. It is a bit of a game I feel, as all of the concerts we attended had 3 encores.  And yes, while we do have something similar in the US, with random screaming, shrieks and foot stoping, the smooth coordination of the Chilean "Otra" is impressive.

Bon Jovi: 

As you may not all know, I am a HUGE Bon Jovi fan and have been for years. As a surprise "Welcome to Chile" present, Victor got us tickets to see him.  And he didn't let us down!  We were in the section right in front of the stage.  And while I know this section is the rowdy one in the states, I have never seen such excitement, jumping, pushing, shoving and mosh-pitting (if that is a verb).

For the first 30 minutes of the concert I was only able to stay standing because Victor was holding me up from being pushed over.  But thankfully it slowed down and we were able to really enjoy the evening!  He is not only a talented singer/guitar player, he is also a good entertainer.  But I must say, while I am a fan, I did learn some new items about Bon Jovi at the concert:

1. He has had lots of plastic surgery.  Okay.. I probably should have known this, as the man is goregous and looks better now that he did in the 80s.  Victor enlightened on this subject, thanks to his education from yahoo.com.  I do think they must have removed his sweat glands, as while he was wearing a leather jacket the entire night, he didn't seem to sweat.
2. Richie Sambora (the famous guitar player) is an incredibly unattractive man.  And while that may be mean to say.. it is so true.  And the odd part was that the Chilean women loved him!  Perhaps American women do too.. I am not sure?  But regardless... I found him very off-putting. And he sweat, unlike Bon Jovi, and was all sweaty, with snot running down when he was singing.. it was too much for me. 
3. Chileans LOVE Bon Jovi!  The crowd was sold out (around 60,000) and they all went crazy! This is mainly because Bon Jovi was one of the first "mainstream" bands to visit Chile at the height of their career in the summer of 1990 (shortly after "the slippery when wet" album). An entire generation waited 20 years for this long awaited reunion.   

Joan Manuel Serrat:

While I imagine that most of you are not familiar with Serrat and his music, he is an icon is the Spanish Speaking world.  A true legend.  He has been raising his voice and playing his guitar since the 1960s. He is a "trovador" (mixed of a poet song-writter and a singer).  Serrat marked his generation (mainly during the late 60s and 70s) with music that lyrics that talk about utopia and the common good, as well as the beauty of small everyday things.  He is also a recognized human right activist that protest against Franco's dictatorship in Spain and other authoritarian regimes in Latin America.   As someone who stood up against Franco, he was banned from Spain, and then made the trip to South America, where we was quickly embraced.

While I do not know his music well, Victor has been signing it since we started dating and there are a handful of songs that I know well.  Regardless of knowing his music or not, the concert was magical.  The entire crowd (it was a two-day sold out crowd of an older generation) was signing in unison for the entire concert, knowing the words perfectly, and they hung on his every word.

If you want to learn more about him:
Manuel Serrat Wikipedia

Dave Matthews Band:

Okay.. so this was more an American thing to do than a Chilean one, but it was still fun.  I have heard Dave Matthews in concert a few times (as his favorite concert venue is really close to where I grew up in Quincy) and it was fun to see him in a completely different context.  He and his band put on a great show and the acoustics of the group are impressive.  Victor and I agreed that it was the highest concentration of Americans possible in Santiago, and I am willing to be that of the crowd of 10,000 at least 6,500 were Americans.  We went with one of Victor's best friends (Christian) and his new wife Olga.  It was a fun evening out.

We went to Dave Matthews with 2 friends (this is Olga, the wife of one of Victor's good friends)

So as you can see, we have been quite the concert goers lately.  We have also been walking around and getting to know our neighborhood, which has a lot of amazing restaurants. I had a meal of sea bass with a mango chutney sauce that was out of this world (I am not at the point of taking photos of my food yet).

Until next week, take care and hope you are well.  

-Dessa and Victor

The Chilean Desert Oasis: Just us and James Bond

Okay.. so we really didn't actually spend the weekend with James Bond.. but we did spend the weekend where the last James Bond film (Quantum of Solace) was filmed; in the middle of the Atacama dessert!

Now that we are more or less settled in, we decided to do a bit of exploring around Chile.   And this goal led us to our weekend adventure in San Pedro de Atacama in the north of Chile.  San Pedro is nestled up against the Bolivian and Argentinian border and is a Chilean version of Death Valley.  From the salt flats, to the sand dunes and water and wind formed rocks, it is a mirror image of California's National Park and gorgeous in every way. It is a small community that originated ~11,000 years ago as a desert oasis.  The Acatameno community was a Pre-Columbian community.



We decided to make the most of the weekend and we booked ourselves full with tours. As San Pedro is in the middle of the dessert, and is not easy to get around if you don't own or rent a 4x4. The city's entire tour industry is focused around organized tour groups.  We are not usually the type to partake in such organized travel, but we had no choice, and actually really enjoyed the international crowd.  We call San Pedro the little Paris, as it was FULL of French.  There were hands down more French than Americans, Europeans and Chileans combined; no joke.  This is a photo of us along with our Brazilian friends we met in our tours; the friendliest and happiest of people.

Our first tour was to the Salar (Salt Flat) just outside of San Pedro.  While this looks like snow, it is salt.  Victor took a swim in the water, as it was like sea water and you floated.  I instead decided to wade in the actual salt flat.  It was incredible, as soon as you removed your feet from the water small salt crystals developed and soon my skin was contained in a salt shell.  They don't actually mine this salt flat, as it is a National Park, but they do a have a large mine near by for lithium.  It is odd to see the physical space where they mine, as it puts a whole different spin on recycling... so make sure to try and recycle your lithium batteries to help save the Chilean desert.

The next day we decided it would be fun to wake up at 3:30 am and venture out onto the geyser field.  You have to wake up so early, as you can't see the steam and fumes from the geysers in mid-day as it gets so hot.  Due to the high altitude, the temperature was 15F (-9C)  in the morning, and mid 90s in the middle of the day.  Talk about wearing layers, we looked like the kid off of Christmas Story with so many layers on at the beginning of the day.  The geysers were impressive, as there are so many in the same place.  But the funniest thing that I have to share is that the Chilean translation for "geyser" is "geezer".... so we listened to a half day tour where every time the guide would say geezer I would chuckle, as I was thinking of a bunch of old men :)

Following the geezer (geyser) field, Victor and I wandered up the hillside to catch the early morning sun bathing of the Viscacha (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscacha), an adorable rabbit-like creature native to northern Chile and Argentina.  As they were still slow moving from the morning cold, we were able to get really close. The long tails impressed me, and the size.  The photos may be deceiving but these creatures are a good10 lbs.

From there we headed through the desert to a cactus forest (which is really just a hillside covered in cactus).  While they don't show their age, the cactus are incredible old.  These plants only grow 5cm in a good year (meaning some precipitation) and only 5mm in bad year.  Knowing that, these cacti are decades old, and quite impressive.

After leaving the cactus forest, we were on our way back to San Pedro and came across a herd of Vicuna, the wild version of an alpaca.  They are very gentle looking animals, who are from the camelid family, and they thrive in the high desert.  They are best known for their incredibly fine and sought after wool.


Now, as we started at 4 am we actually did all of this and returned to San Pedro by 1pm, in time for a quick lunch and just enough time to jump into our next tour.  It felt like the world's longest day but we were having such a great time the lack of sleep didn't hit us yet.  The second tour of the day was a venture in the Valle de La Luna, which was to consist of a walk through part of the desert for ~2 hours.  It was a beautiful walk, but the high winds (which the locals said the full moon was the cause of) made the trip a bit interesting the the blowing sand was strong and stung.  But it was worth it, and the view was amazing. We actually got out in front of the group and had some amazing vistas.

At the end of the hike, we walked up to the top of one of the highest ridges and watched the sun set and the moon rise. It was a magical end to the day.  

Sunday was a much lazier day and we decided to sleep in, as the day before had been quite full.  But we did decide that it was worth the venture to go visit the desert flamingos.  I am not sure if any of you reacted to that sentence, but I certainly didn't believe that there were really flamingoes living out in the middle of the desert when I was first told.  So we ventured out to have a look, and by golly, there are flamingoes.  There are actually three different species, and they are not just a few, there are a lot of them!  It was a beautiful contract to see the stark, large birds set against the open, vast backdrop of the desert.  

Random facts we learned over the weekend:

1. The driest place in the world is in Chile.  There is a section in northern Chile where they have never recorded any precipitation; ever. Remember the recent James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, that supposedly took place in Bolivia.  Well, it was actually filmed in northern Chile in the exact area where we spend the weekend.  
2. The highest geyser field in the world is in Chile; 4,200 meters above sea level.  This is the same geyser field that we visited.  
3. One of the best preserved mummies in the world is from Chile and from San Pedro.  Miss Chile, as she is named (cute, isn't she, that's her real hair) is from ~500 years ago, but looks quite good for her age.  Because it is so dry the body didn't decompose so it is frozen in time; it wasn't a prepared mummy like the Egyptians.  We thought it was pretty cool/creepy.  
4. People can go sand surfing.. we actually saw it for ourselves in the middle of the desert. Basically you use the same snow board and head down the huge sand dunes just as if it where snow, except in shorts and a t-shirt.  It looks like fun, but we aren't sure we would like to have to deal with all the sand everywhere when you are done for the day.  But if anyone is looking for a new adventures sport, I would recommend giving it a try.  

We hope that everyone is doing well and has exciting plans for Thanksgiving.  Sorry we haven't written more, but I was traveling for 2 weeks and then returned to come down with a cold, which Victor then promptly caught as well.  But we have both recovered and are back on track.  

We send our best and hope that everyone enjoys the Thanksgiving holiday (turkey or no turkey) surrounded by those they love.  We have Ex-Pat Thanksgiving plans here to go out to a local American restaurant to enjoy a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner, turkey and all.  Supposedly they shipped in cranberry sauce from the US just for the dinner; we shall see!

-Dessa and Victor




P.S.  All photos (minus Miss Chile) are courtesy of Victor Dumas Photography :)  

We have arrived!

It has been just over a month since we have been in Chile and it has passed so quickly. One of our goals was to get this blog up and it is exciting to make our first post.

We are set up in our new home, which was quite easy, as it is a furnished apartment, so we literally only had to unpack.  But we are still unpacking a bit, as I brought more shoes than I remembered and am still trying to find places to hide all of them.  And while we didn't get much of a honeymoon (we are calling it a mini-moon as it was only 2 days long) no honeymoon can surpass how good it felt to unpack and be home.

Here are some photos of our new home:

Our new home is in the bohemian part of town  (called Providencia) and is in an older building (built in the 50s) that Victor's Grandmother used to live in.  The great thing about older buildings in Chile is that you know they are well built if they have made it this long with the earthquakes :)

The building faces the Mapuche river so we have a nice view of the mountains on a sunny day as there is no building blocking our view (see the photo of the view farther down in the blog).  And these is a walking bridge right in front of our apartment that leads to a park with a public library. I sometimes go work from the library as they have free-wifi; it is a cute little library and great to have so close.

The kitchen is also red, like our old kitchen in DC, and I love it.  It is a large space, but set up kind of funny, so you don't actually have a lot of counter space.  And I have never seen such fancy appliances in my life.  The frig is made by the same company who makes my contacts: Bosch, and the washer and dryer have buttons in 3 languages.  I think only when you live abroad do you try appreciate how exciting it is to make the appliances work the first time.. it is as if you have figured out the secret code.

One bad thing is that we did have problems with the refrigerator when we returned from the wedding and it wasn't working for the first 10 days, so we were eating out a great deal. But now it is up and running.

This is the view out of the kitchen window.  The hill is called San Cristobal and it is a city park.  There is a statue of Mary at the top and there are walking trails, as well as a cable car to go to the top.  Also you can see the Hospital on the right, which is just around the corner, so we are in a great part of town with everything so close.

This is our living room. It has a bit of a 70s feel to it with the funky light fixture and the sofa (which you can't really tell, but it is purple velvet!).

This is the view outside my office on a beautiful day.  The Chileans call days like this Santiago in HD (high definition).  While I must say that not all days are like this, as Santiago also is known for its smog, the beautiful days really do stand out.

This is my office and where we spend a great deal of time either playing Wii (our favorite wedding gift) or watching cable (this is the first time we have ever had cable and we are enjoying it).


Until next week, over and out from Chile.