26feb06
woke up in hornopiren to the same sound of rain that had put us to sleep. pulling back the sunlit curtains on the off chance it might reveal blue sky, but all grey. following breakfast we explored the road south down to cholgo. e-j began a bout of sighing and burping and feeling nauseous and complained that mg drove to fast and mg complained that e-j complained too much. we stopped to pick blackberries which grew like weeds on the side of the road and for a moment had delusions of a newfound ability to live off the land. returning to hornopiren to catch the 3pm ferry, we popped to the garage to checked our tyre pressure, while the mechanic fixed our taped up license plate with a big metal screw and fastened in the wobbly mud guard. the car may survive a head-on without a scratch, but the continual ridges on the road’s surface were already take their toll, rattling and loosening every nut and bolt.
the ferry blew it’s very loud horn for a gratuitous half minute and we were off. there was a basic waiting area upstairs but we spent most of the time in the car, e-j furiously typing away into the laptop to salvage the website from it’s withered state while i read guidebooks. getting out the car even briefly was a risky proposition as large waves often soaked the entire deck. in mid journey, the very loud horn blew again and driver’s faces from within wet car windows exchanged puzzled expressions, until one passenger was seen shouting and excitedly pointing into the sea. we all forgot about getting wet and ran up to the side of the boat, where a half dozen dolphins were swimming alongside, jumping in and out of the wake. for me, seeing a dolphin is always as exciting as seeing one for the first time.
at 8pm we landed in caleta gonzalo, on the perimeter of the pumalin park. 15 years ago, the american billionaire douglas tomkins (of Esprit clothing label fame) covertly bought small chunks of chile through intermediaries to avoid pushing up the price of land. in 1995 when he publicly declared how much he had amassed, a 5 year national scandal began, chileans fearing his 3000sq km ‘nature sanctuary’ split their country in two and provided their traditional adversary argentina with direct access to the pacific. tomkins had to convince the chilean government (as well as the catholic church and everyone else who chucked their objections in) that this gringo was not up to no good - he was in to ‘deep conservation’ and wanted to protect the land from deforestation. the park is currently owned by the US Land Conservation Trust and is in the process of being donated to a chilean government owned foundation of which tomkins and his wife will sit on the board.
for us, it was a scramble to get off the ferry first and in to the information centre / organic restaurant with fireplace / eco-hotel reception where we were told only one room remained and it cost $110 plus $45 for dinner. as we weighed up splashing out on a real treat vs saving up for later, coziness vs spirit of camping adventure, staying dry vs getting wet, a queue of would be guests formed behind us, eager to snap up that last cabana. it was getting late and if we decided to camp we had to move quickly. fifteen minutes later, the queue ran out of patience and dispersed but to the receptionist’s amusement we continued to debate. eventually we sadly stepped away from the beckoning candle-lit tables and the homely smell of healthy food and smiled to the lady at reception goodnight, because we had planned to camp, we had the equipment to camp, and we were damned if a bit of rain was going to put us off. the 15km to the campsite was made in silence. head to toe in waterproofs we set up camp and boiled water for our non-organic pot noodle dinner. an english couple who were biking around south america came up and we exchanged travel stories under the cramped but dryish tailgate of the car. it was getting later and colder – i could see e-j politely turning blue and looking for a break in conversation to go to bed. we wished each other happy travels and climbed on to our roof tent, proud of ourselves for having refused the temptation of the hotel but nonetheless wet and moderately miserable. e-j complained there was no hot water for a shower in the morning, and that her thermals were too tight and could she borrow mine and i said goodnight.
