After checking email and doing an update for the blog in
Cochrane we waited around for the main grocery store to open back up at three. We killed time by cruising around town on its
paved roads and went into the museum that was open. It had a few interesting
natural history things but of course was all in Spanish. It was possible to interpret some of the
graphs etc without knowing Spanish although Laurie was able to read and
interpret most of what I was interested in. There was a display on hydro power
and judging by the age of the display the effort to put dams in on the Baker is
not a new one. The display text said
that the dams would supply 35% of the electricity for all of Chile. Later on a
wiki page I saw a number of 25%. If you
remember from the last post that one of the main messages of the outfit that
wants to build the dam is that they have the interests of the locals in mind and
the people who oppose it are all from out of the area. Well that math doesn’t
hold up if only 5% of the population lives in Patagonia then that means that at
least 30% of the power would get shipped out or be used for some industrial
purpose. The wiki page said that the the
power was actually slated to go to Santiago and some mining operations. So anyway the power company posters are
clearly manipulative and dishonest. This info is relavant to Cochrane because
the dams will be going in near it.
A large part of the Patagonian’s would never have access to
the hydro power as it would be way too expensive to get it out to them. Micro hydro would probably make more sense or
in the case of Coihaique wind power. For the first time yesterday we were
seeing small solar panels on some of the little ranch houses. In the early days of solar electric in the US
the cost of running power lines out to rural homes drove the industry. It was
just not cost effective if you were on the grid already. For the price of the
damn and running power lines I bet they could put fairly large arrays on most
of the rural homes here.
The save the Rio Baker backers are not above deception as
well. There is a huge environmental picture book you see in many places here
that it is my understanding was in a large part due to the efforts of Doug
Tompkins mentioned in a previous post. I
believe the title is Sin Represas which means something like without dams.
There are quite a few bumper stickers around with those same words. The book has quite a few photo montage
pictures of how the mountains would look with huge power lines in front of
them. The only thing is it would be
nearly impossible in reality to make powerlines dominate the view like they do
with the pictures doctored in photoshop. Power companies do GIS studies to route power
lines in the least objectionable places and would try to avoid supper scenic
places if they could. The picture they
use in their billboard was the same old historic photo of a rural sheep herder
drinking mate that they had in the museum not that life style has changed much
but still. The guy did look more like a sheep herding local than the plump pale
people in the hydro asyen billboards at least. The anti damn folks have also
done a good job of hyping the beauty of the Baker in the area that they want to
put the damn. Pretty much all the
cyclists were talking about the Baker as this must see place coming up. The kayak guides from Futa were also talking
it up. Well that river is pretty but the white water is not all that great from
what I saw and was told, especially if the one outfit that is running it
commercially is taking neophytes down it in sea kayaks. One of the cyclist
couples from Kansas who has been doing river trips when they can, said they
were disappointed by the lack of white water and did not do the excursion. The
mountains in the area of one of the dams are nice but nothing like other
mountains in the area. The other dam is
proposed to go in by some very scenic mountains and a national park. The Baker is Chile’s largest river by volume.
It is unusual in that most rivers have the most scenic mountains at the head of
the river but the Baker runs into some magnificent mountains quite always
downstream. I can’t think of any other
rivers in the US that do that. Anyway it
is kind of sad that both sides have to resort to psychological tricks and photo
deception or similar tactics to meet their objective. The five dam project was
approved in May of 2011 by a panel of appointed staff of the new conservative
president but is being appealed. Chile imports all of its petro chemical
energy.
On the subject of modernization we were talking about how
the last three towns of any size only had one internet café and a lot of the
locals relied on them. Plus there was no WiFi in these towns either. Laurie’s
comment was that she felt a bit miss led buy all the claims of how “flat” the
world is because most of the world has cell phones and internet. No doubt much of the world is gaining access
to the internet like say the Chinese but, Chile considers itself to be a first world
country and universal internet is far from a reality. Locals here are not buying and selling things
from Amazon or Ebay. Here in Tortel there is a lot of communication done on
walkie talkie. The Swiss guy Martin that we are sharing a cabin with says it is
like face book because all the people are tuned into the same channel.
In Cochrane after we got a couple of day’s supplies of food
from the market we headed out of town for an evening ride as the weather was
perfect for touring. It was a good thing as the scenery out about twenty
kilometres was yet again the most beautiful we had ever seen including a big
fifty foot waterfall that was part of it.
Luckily the mountains were totally visible. It would be really rare for
you to be able to see all the mountains visible from the road in a Patagonia
tour due to the nature of the weather here and the fact that mountains tend to
attract clouds everywhere but more so here because of the amount of moisture
coming in off the ocean. When Laurie was cleaning up after a yogurt container that
did not survive the shaking on the road I was taking in the sudden incredible
scenery and made a note of the reaction of the motorists passing by. Very few
even turned their heads to look at the scenery and none saw the falls. Most,
and they were tourists not locals, had their eyes on the road or where carrying
on a conversation. Seldom have we seen
tourists stop to take in view and some of the best are only momentary. It is fairly common to see the passenger
stick a camera out of the window to take a picture from a moving car. Even on a
bike I have to make an effort not to get too focused on the next town or
campground and making mileage.
The first nights camp out of Cochrane we found some field
near a firewood operation with a spring and a view of the mountains. Shortly
after we pitched the tent some dogs from a nearby cabin heard us and started
barking a lot so we spent the rest of the evening whispering. Usually the dogs
here seldom bark even if you are right in their yard.
The next morning touring about half way from Cochrane to
Tortel on the way down to the Rio de Los Nadis there was a steep long descent.
At the river there is a road to the Baker River with a couple of campgrounds
and Inns listed at the base of some of the grand mountains we were seeing the
evening before. It was raining and we did not know if the inns were full so we
elected to push on in the rain.
It rained off and on all day. The miracle of modern fabrics
is really apparent in those conditions as your sweat can evaporate between
showers. One of the storms was so windy we stopped to ask a rancher (think
sheep herder with a one room shack when I say rancher) if there were any rooms
to rent between Cochrane and Tortell the next town 120 kilometers away. The
answer was no but he invited us in for tea, pan cheese and jam which is a main
stay for the Chileans. His stove was of course going and the water was already
hot. We tried to carry on a conversation
with me asking questions and Laurie trying to interpret in Spanish. His living
quarters was about twelve by twelve and he had lived there for twenty five
years since when the road first came through. He had three kids all of whom
lived in Cochrane. One of his kids he
said travelled a lot and had mucho dinero or money. It is interesting that none of his kids
pitched in and helped him fix up his place that had to be worth all of two
hundred dollars in building materials.
He still had contact with them though as he had artwork from the kids on
the walls. It cleared up after tea so we thanked him l and pressed on.
After we left the gauchos’ place it kept raining off and on
and we were pretty focused on trying to find a room or some sort of shelter. About seven in the evening Laurie spotted a
shack by a river that looked unoccupied. I was doubtful but she walked over and
it was open and the report was it looked promising. It was a converted garage with a cement floor
and plywood covering the walls. There was a wooden platform for a wide bed,
stove, table and no trash. Plus there
was room for bikes which had chains that needed oiling. We were also able to
hang up wet clothes and the tent. It was
not exactly five star but we were grateful.
We noticed in the Coihaique newspaper where the local hospital had
opened up a hanta virus wing. This is probably not due the number of rats and
mice but more to do with how “breathable” the houses are. Only recently are have they been built using
plywood or insulation. House framers
might be interested to note that of the dozens of homes I have seen being
framed not one has anything like a header over a window opening. Not surprisingly it is common to see cracked
windows.
One “campground” we looked at a couple of hours before where
the herders wanted a fee had a building with a fire pit but it was full of
trash and the shack had lots of personal junk in it. It was pretty much a sheep
herders bachelor pad or somewhere they used to skin animals or something. The
owner was mean looking and hadn’t put much of any effort into the camping
facility so we passed on that. Although it is not raining this morning we are
probably going to make the twenty kilometre detour into Tortel as there are
apparently no other supplies to be had on the last 120 kilometre leg into
O’Higgins, not even little markets.
Another thing that is interesting we found out in asking for
the locations of rural supermarkcados is that most of the locals do not know
how to read a map, maybe they just do not know how to read. We pulled out a map
at a highway construction camp yesterday that was only one kilometer from a
major road intersection. They could not find it on the map. We were hoping they
could tell us by looking on the map if there were any markets on the way to
O’Higgins. Like other Chileans they
would put their fingers on the map and follow the road lines around where ever
it lead them on the map hopping they would recognize the name of a town I
guess. We would have mercy on them and try to divert attention from the map at
that point.
In a previous post I said something about the lack of ethnic
restaurants that we take for granted in the US well that is probably because
there are no minorities or ethnic groups that I can see other than old German
immigrants in the lake district. For a glass of water in a restaurant we have
decided the easiest thing to do is to just bring in our water bottles for water
with a meal. The glass of water concept is just too foreign. Our little international steri pen has been
working well for when we think we need to sterilize water which is not very
often. Meat in the markets and elsewhere is often not refrigerated and so
nicely aged I guess. Many Americans would probably be horrified by this but the
animals are probably raised and slaughtered in much more sanitary conditions
than feed lots or giant slaughter houses. Even more natural and local than that is the
custom of cracking horse flys in half and squirting the juice in your
mouth. Some American cyclists saw a
guide do this. He called it Meil or honey.
I have a couple of other things I wanted to comment on but
can’t think of any way to Segway into them. One of them is the kind of hokey
tourism you see down here occasionally like signs for “canopy” well there is no tree canopy ecosystem here
to speak of like say in Costa Rica but what it means here is they have rigged
up a zip line. The quality of the gear they use is probably not at attorney
proof American standards.
The trees in Patagonia are mostly deciduous and those while
often big are nowhere near the size of the big conifers in the Pacific
Northwest. The climate seems very
similar so I am surprized they do not try to grow something like Douglas fir
here. When I come across little
plantations of what look like Scotch pine my senses tell me I am in the
mountains only I have been all along the trip.
Related to ropes and climbing in Cochrane we saw a couple with serious
glacier travel gear like small diameter ropes and ice axes. That made me think
how few people we have seen that looked like serious mountaineers. Mostly what we see are back packers most of
whom are just hitch hiking around with maybe an occasional hike probably done
without a pack.
We are getting a fair amount of comments that our loads are
the lightest that any of the other cyclists have seen. That appears to be true
only we do not feel like we are sacrificing much. I do have about six pounds of
electronic gear including the netbook. I
think one of the big items is that a lot of the folks are carrying much bigger
tents and pads. Ours can fit inside our panniers instead of in bags across the
rear panniers like most of the tourers have. So far we are happy with our gear
and choices although I did forget a chain tool which has me a bit worried and I
should have looked for one sooner.
Tortel is an interesting town in that it is at the mouth of
the Baker where it meets the sea. The Baker here is about the size of the
Columbia in Portland. The whole town is
connected by wooden walkways and the houses are all on posts because the area
is all granite. It takes more than half an hour to walk from where you can park
to the main plaza with many flights of stairs. It was good to get a work out in
after the day’s bike tour. I counted
five hundred stairs from where the cars park to the library with the internet
and one of the main supermarkets. There is a mountain behind the town with a
big glacier even though it can’t be much more than three thousand feet tall. We
rented a nice cabin with a kitchen and wood stove for about eighty dollars. It
sleeps five and a Swiss cycling couple we had camped with before showed up and
shared the cost. They were riding with an Australian hippy they met that day
who also shared the cost. We had a nice communal dinner and got to hear stories
of travels around the world. The Australian is headed off to India in a couple
of weeks to bike tour there. I did not ask about how he financed the whole
deal.
The library internet browsers in Tortel crashed whenever you
pasted anything so this post will have to wait.
The other day I was thinking Patagonia would be a good place
to find the Lord because when the weather is clear you want to praise one and
when the weather is bad you want to start praying for forgiveness. At dinner we commented on how many times we
had said something was the most beautiful view we had ever seen.
