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Patagonia International Kayak Safari - Chile & Argentina

by Laura & Kirk Eddlemon

Heaven must be somewhere in the Andes. I covered a lot of ground there, and I don’t think I saw it, but often there was this sense that it was nearby. The periphery of Heaven; I think that was the route we traveled. I highly recommend it. If it was Heaven, then it is true that it isn’t easy to get there.

My husband, Kirk, and I started from home around eleven a.m. on a Thursday. We drove to Atlanta where we left our car with Kirk’s sister and brother-in-law and, after a nice dinner, hopped on an overnight flight to Santiago de Chile. We arrived in Santiago at about eight a.m. at which point we got shuffled into a taxi and ultimately ripped off for an 80 dollar 15 minute cab ride to the bus station. Lesson #1 learned. We had twelve hours to kill in Santiago before we could take an overnight bus to Puerto Montt to meet our guides from Expediciones Chile. Twelve hours is a long time when you don’t speak the language, have four large bags full of gear, and are afraid to eat or drink anything lest you might start your trip paying 150 pesos every 30 seconds to use the bus station bathroom. Finally we decided to trust the shirtless tattooed man behind the counter and gave him money to watch our bags while we walked directionless for miles along the rancid smelling graffiti covered streets of Santiago. We were nowhere near Heaven at this point. We did however get an excellent and refreshing view of the entire city atop a steep hill in the city center. It must be the biggest city I have ever been to. Standing atop the hill we could see city in every direction as far as we could see.
When we finally made it through this day we ended up on the crappiest bus money could buy for our 13 hour overnight ride to Puerto Montt. Puerto Montt. We were pretty sure we were there though we couldn’t understand the signs or the bus attendant, so we got off the bus. We waited for an hour before calling Expediciones Chile and finding out they had been there to get us earlier and then decided to go and wait for us at a local hostel. So, we hopped in a cab and hoped the driver understood where we needed to go. When we got out of the cab a women approached and asked, “Expediciones Chile?” We said yes, and were promptly welcomed into the home with a kiss on the cheek. We were then introduced to one of our guides, Bernardo, who immediately hooked us up with a shower and some food. I thought at this point I was in Heaven, but I’m pretty sure that was just desperation. For the remainder of the day we met the rest of our guides, crew, and fellow travelers. For the first week we would be traveling with John, a 20 year old student from Oregon, Kira, a 19 year old student from Idaho, Jeanine, a 50 year old epidemiologist from Alaska, Milos, a middle aged engineer from
Switzerland and member of the Swiss Slalom Team, and Charlie, a middle aged guy from Canada whose profession I am unaware of. Everyone was very nice and all were excited for the adventure ahead. We also met Chris Spelius, owner of Expediciones Chile and head guide for our first week, Sebastian, our photographer, and Pato, our driver. We would come to know the wonderful staff as our friends in the days ahead and we miss them dearly now. When everything was in order we all hopped in the Safari van and headed for our first destination, a little town called Pangipulli.

The drive to Pangipulli was beautiful. We gradually traded graffiti ridden shacks for mountains and fields. After turning the corner on the top of a hill we descended into a small lakeside valley into the charming village of Pangipulli. We checked into a hostel run by a very friendly Chilean man and then we headed off for a nice dinner of steak topped with cheese, egg, tomato, and avocado, and some Chilean Wine. After dinner we worked on our boat outfitting to make sure we were ready for our first day of paddling on the Rio San Pedro. After breakfast we drove away from Pangipulli and talked about what a lovely place to live it would be. We talked about the arbitrary nature of a “high standard of living,” and about whether we would trade our possessions to exist in a community like this; surrounding by beauty and simplicity. This is one of my favorite parts of traveling. I love opening my mind to other ways of life. I love the way travel just kind of forces you out of the box and affords you the opportunity to really think about how you live your life. I settled back in my seat on the ride to the San Pedro and imagined myself living the life of a Chilean woman in the town of Panguipulli. The bridge over the San Pedro gave us our first glimpse of the water we would be paddling in for the next two weeks. Crystal clear and brilliantly blue, this water was my first indication that I was somewhere close to Heaven. This was the water that had captured my heart when I saw it on a paddling video and vowed that I would someday make this trip. The first rapid on the San Pedro, though merely class two, almost flipped me over because I became mesmerized by the water and simply stopped paddling to gaze at it and smile.

There is a snapshot of the water in that exact spot burned into my brain; beautifully blue and green and aerated with tiny little bubbles dancing on the surface. The San Pedro was our “easy, warm-up run.” Though later we were able to see it as such, the first rapid caught us off guard as it was bigger in volume than anything we had ever run! This day helped us to acclimate ourselves to the sheer volume, speed, and size of the rivers we would be running.I knew I was in for a fun ride as we headed from the San Pedro to the little town of Choshuenco where we would stay for the next four nights. The drive to Choshuenco was absolutely amazing. We drove through the majestic Andes along Lake Panguipulli in the direction of the volcano the town was named for. This was about a two hour drive on rutted our dirt roads. These road conditions would become very familiar to us over the next week.

Choshuenco was my favorite town. It consisted of about five dirt streets with tiny little houses and tiny little shops. Our cabins were situated where the town dead ends at an enchanting mountain lake with a long sand beach. If this place existed in the U.S. it would certainly be littered with resort hotels and t-shirt shops. Thank goodness it is, instead, in Choshuenco, where it has thus far remained untarnished. For four days we enjoyed the treasures of this place, our little cabanas, and our gracious host Sylvia who seemed to always be cooking for us, cleaning for us, and smiling at us. There were also several dogs, who typically in Chile are more relaxed and happier than our dogs here, perhaps a suggestion of the social differences between the two places as well. In Choshuenco we got lots of practice speaking Spanish and particularly enjoyed a chat with two little Chilean children who were amused at our lack of skill in their language. We ate well and ate too much, and I struggled as my low fat, low cholesterol diet became a thing of the past but then was able to let it go and just enjoy it; after all it was my honeymoon! Choshuenco was our base for the upper, middle, and lower Rio Fuy as well as the Enco. The Enco was beautiful but a very easy and short stretch of whitewater which required a three mile lake paddle in.
The Fuy, on the other hand, was awesome! We started with the Lower Fuy, which from the bridge scared the living daylights out of me it was so huge. The river was higher than normal and was a little more intense than our guides were hoping it would be. I was gripped when I put on and was in ultra-serious mode. Once we got going, it became more manageable and I loved the sensation of being thrown around by crashing waves and curlers that appeared and disappeared. This was the most dynamic water I had ever paddled. It was a white out through many of the rapids and there was no choice but to be completely immersed in the present moment and rely on your senses to get you through. I loved it! The following day the group headed up to the Upper Fuy and I decided to let them do a run first and report back to me on the difficulty before I decided to run it. I hiked in and watched the rapids I could see and then met them at the bottom of the run. The bottom of this section is Las Leonas falls. The first fall is about 25 feet and then after a short pool there is a 10 foot drop followed by a few more rapids that did not look desirable at the current water level. Kirk, Milos, John, and Chris decided to run the falls and the 10 footer below. They set up safety and all had clean lines. Kirk ran it several times and it was fun to watch him stick his lines exactly as he planned them on every run. The group enjoyed the upper Fuy and Kirk and Chris both thought I would be fine on it, so we headed back the next day for another run. The upper Fuy was more technical and less pushy than the lower. The drops were more defined and there were more moves to make. The rapids on this stretch were challenging for me but fun. I had a swim on this stretch that caused me to go into a confidence shattering funk about rolling the boat I had chosen for the trip. We continued down to the falls, which were not an option for me regardless of the swim, and the group ran the falls several times again.
This time, Kira decided she wanted to attempt the falls. She had a marginal line and decided to try again. Though some of us had the feeling that this was not a good idea, we made the mistake of not speaking up, and the second run of the falls turned out to be somewhat disastrous. Kira came off the drop somewhat sideways and right in the fall line. The veil blew her spray skirt off and she stayed in the boat trying to roll it despite its sinking. She finally jettisoned and immediately began getting sucked back into the waterfall. Kirk paddled out to get her and she grabbed his boat. If Kira had let go of her boat they may have been able to paddle back to the eddy but she held her boat longer than needed and the increased drag quickly pulled them both back under the falls. The veil fell on Kirk and ripped the boat off of his body. They both swam into the falls and were fortunately spit out before being sent into the middle part of the hole which was not a good place to be. Kirk’s helmet was ripped off his head, though the liner plastered itself to the front of his face. Both Kira and Kirk got to shore and over the next five minutes or so pieces of gear would emerge from the falls. Kira’s boat never came out though and Chris had to rope in and swim behind the falls to retrieve it. Kirk’s helmet never appeared but Kira did the honorable thing and bought him a new one from an internet café later in the trip. Nevertheless, Kirk needed a helmet for the rest of the trip and was forced to wear Chris’s PINK helmet, which he was less than enthusiastic about. Milos Chris and John went on that day to run the middle Fuy and the rest of us opted out.
The following day we headed to Argentina where we would stay in Bariloche and run the Rio Manso. Border crossings in Chile and Argentina are, well……… interesting probably isn’t a descriptive enough word for it. As Chris said, the border officials must go to the Colombo school of investigations. In South America, you must go through one checkpoint to leave the country you are in and then drive through a stretch of what I suppose to be no mans land to another checkpoint where you go through a procedure to enter the country you are going to. Each border; each official in fact, seemed to want something different than the other. We were stranded at one border for four hours trying to correct a slight error in paperwork only to find that this paperwork was not even needed at the following border. We were searched by Argentinean border guards at one crossing and were forced to play charades, due to our less than adequate skills in the Spanish language, to try to explain the medications in our bags. They took themselves quite seriously and we tried to do the same, particularly because we had found out that a guide with another kayak company had recently been busted with drugs at the border. All in all the crossings were a valuable experience and we made it from Chile to Argentina and back into Chile again without too much trouble. We never worried much, because Chris had an amazing ability to solve problems and we always trusted that things would work out. The drive between the countries was wrought with natural lake after natural lake nestled into majestic mountains and blessed by occasional sightings of volcanoes and glaciers. You almost begin to take it for granted when you realize you have been driving for hours and have seen nothing but unspoiled wilderness, and what an incredible gift that is! Our journey in Argentina was brief. We stayed one night in Bariloche, ran the Rio Manso the next day, stayed another night in El Bolson, and then headed back to Chile and on to the Futaleufu river valley. Bariloche is a great city and we would have loved to stay here longer. We enjoyed our evening there with a walk around the very hilly city and an exquisite Argentinean steak dinner.
The next day was spent on the most beautiful river we experienced on the trip, the Rio Manso. The run started under a foot bridge next to a beautiful sand beach. The water here was the most brilliant bluish green I have ever seen. As we carried on downstream we were delighted by mini gorges and fun rapids. We almost missed the takeout which is interesting for two reasons. One, there is an unrunnable waterfall section below the takeout, and two, we crossed the border into Chile on the river. We hiked out up a steep hill and into a beautiful field where we saw horses and Argentinean cowboys. There is a small pole at the takeout signifying the border between the two countries. Here we had a nice lunch of sandwiches, fruit, juice, and chocolates. That night we stayed in the artist community of El Bolson. We had a chance to do a little hanging out and a little shopping. We picked up our only souvenir of the trip, a yerba mate mug. Yerba Mate is an herbal tea that is traditionally drunk out of a decorative gourd through a metal straw with a filter on the end. The drink is passed around and shared, each person adding a mug of hot water to the tea for the next person. This ritual occurs three times per day. The mate is believed to have healing properties, and some believe that the mate is what keeps peoples cholesterol low despite their fatty diet. I liked the tradition of the mate and so we picked up a mug to bring home with us. We had a nice dinner in El Bolson, slept well in our little Cabaña, and woke up the next morning ready for our trek to the Futaleufu river valley.
The drive to Futa took us through the Parque Nacional de Alerces. Again, we grew so accustomed to being surrounded by beauty that we had to occasionally remind ourselves how unbelievably special this place was. Though the rutted out roads and the inhalation of dust was wearing on me after all these days of travel, I thoroughly enjoyed this drive. If I had the words to capture what I saw there I would surely share them, but the imagery that lives on in my mind is beyond any words I know. It just kept getting better and better and eventually there we were…. Five years we dreamed of this place, and there we were; the Futaleufu River Valley. The first time we glimpsed the river through the trees my heart missed a beat. Suddenly this realization set in; this was a dream and now it is a reality; we did this; how amazing! And I settled into my seat and smiled through and through knowing that I had the next seven days to fall in love with this place and to make it a part of myself. After a brief stop at Expediciones Chile’s Office in the tiny little village of Futaleufu, we made our way to camp. We traveled the dirt road, hiked down a hill, boarded a raft, crossed the Rio Azul, and set foot for the first time on the soil of the Campo Tres Monjas. There, where the Rio Azul and the Rio Futaleufu join as one and where the mountain named three nuns looks on, exists the most magical place I know. A white sand beach, sandy trails to private tents, a shower nestled into boulders and trees, a little cabin with a sauna and massage room, two little outhouses, one drying shed for wet gear, and a little house where Pedro cooks the most amazing meals each with homemade warm bread and honey! All of this surrounded by snow capped mountains, pastoral lands with wild horses, and two of the most beautiful rivers in the world.
After settling in to our honeymoon tent and having our first meal, we sat on the sand beach under moonlight and met the Fu. She was powerful; more than I imagined. The moon reflected little white tips of waves and we listened to roar of the voluminous water jetting downstream. Quietly we sat and reflected on the journey thus far. The emotion building in my heart, my mind opening to my senses, the belief growing within that this moment was the closest yet to Heaven. The tent was comfortable and sleep came easy. With the anticipation of our first day here waking came easily as well. The mornings were cold at Campo and we bundled up and walked to breakfast. Here we talked over plans for the day. My swim on the Fuy and my new awareness of what it means to swim big water had sent me into a bad head trip that had shattered my confidence. I was less than enthusiastic about putting on this massive river as of yet. I headed out with Fergus, one of our wonderful guides, to the Rio Espolon to work on my roll and my technique. It was a bit agonizing being in this place and running class two rapids and flipping intentionally like a beginner to practice rolling, but I found it necessary and Fergus was a good and patient teacher. We decided that the Diesel was too big of a boat for me and we outfitted the EZG 42 for the next day. I was much more comfortable rolling the smaller boat but I was nervous about running this huge water in something so tiny. Fergus assured me it would be ok. Kirk and the rest of the crew ran several sections of the Futa and had an awesome day! I was impressed that Kirk hopped right on the terminator section of the Futa and ran all the way down through El Macal on his first day on the river. That night at dinner we planned for day two.
Kirk and I would be heading to the El Macal section of the Futa for my first taste of this water. El Macal was beautiful. In fact, though it was the easiest section we ran on the Fu, most everyone agreed it was the most beautiful. El Macal is the best spot on the river to see Condor and we were blessed with their presence on one trip down this stretch. Though Fergus and Kirk felt I had a good run on this section, I felt like I had wobbled and bobbled my way down it like a class II boater. The skills I had amassed over the past five years of boating were helpful, but there was some rudimentary big water skill set that I entirely lacked. I had to learn this from the beginning and this was humbling, frightening, and challenging for me. If I don’t feel in control in a rapid, I feel scared. I like to clean a rapid from top to bottom. I’m a whitewater perfectionist. Futaleufu is a difficult place to be a perfectionist. The water is so dynamic, it shifts and changes underneath you. You can’t have much of a plan and you certainly can’t be too rigid about your plan. It is more about reacting to what is there in the moment. So I struggled to get used to feeling that it wasn’t the end of the world if a boil stalled me out on an eddy line and I was forced to re-enter the current and take the eddy further down. I struggled to learn that a whirlpool will spit you out if you just relax and go with it, no matter how badly you wanted to get where you were going when it hit you. I struggled to learn that I could do this and that if I flipped here I could roll up just like I can in the Northern Hemisphere. It was challenging, but rewarding, as all good whitewater trips are.
The next several days were spent running different sections of the Futa as well as the glacier fed, milky blue, stunning Rio Azul which took us back to camp. We took a horseback ride one morning before paddling. It was fun to see Kirk on a horse for the first time. The ride took us to the entrance to Inferno Canyon and it was a beautiful ride though our butts paid for it for the next few days. On the Azul one day we saw a couple of mountain goats as we were heading back to camp, Kirk ran everything he planned to with the exception of Inferno Canyon which he felt he could certainly manage but did not want to risk such dire consequences on his honeymoon so far from home. It wasn’t an easy decision for him and I was proud of him and relieved when he made it. No one in the group ran Zeta while we were there and Throne Room was only run once by our guide Fergus who cleaned it. I ran El Macal, Terminator, and below Inferno through the Wild Mile. The bridge to bridge section proved too continuous for my taste and the swim too risky, so I passed on this one. Even Kirk felt a little gripped on Bridge to Bridge. It’s just non-stop and not a good place to swim. I think if we had been there for a few more weeks Kirk would have run Inferno and I would have run Bridge to Bridge, but we just didn’t’ have enough time to get used to the big water or for me to recover from my bad head trip about my roll. We were quite satisfied with what we did run there though. It was an unforgettable experience and a dream come true to be immersed in the water of the Futaleufu. Most of the runs were successful and uneventful. Kirk had a flip above Mundaca and got surfed fairly fiercely in the Nuclear Fission Wave there. I was on shore with a video camera and missed it entirely, which was pretty disappointing. I had a surf in the bottom wave hole at Himalaya which made for some good video and was actually pretty fun though it scared the crap out of me and I jettisoned from the boat and hated myself for doing so. I had one other flip on the trip on the Wild Mile and hit a solid roll in probably the most chaotic water I had experienced on the trip, and that brought my confidence back up some but unfortunately it was on the last day. The Wild Mile was my favorite part of the Futa. It has a few entrance rapids and then a mile long stretch of whitewater with huge waves, funky boil lines and whirlpools, and a couple good moves to make. One of the rapids in there is known as Chaos, and that is exactly what it is! Paddling up to that sand beach at Campo Tres Monjas after paddling the Wild Mile was the perfect finale for the trip.
We laid our gear in the sun to dry and got packed up for the journey home. After our last Pedro dinner we slept our last night in our tent and woke up early for an outside shower in the dark and a 6 a.m. breakfast before leaving the Campo. It was a sad morning. We weren’t ready to go and we knew we had a hard few days ahead. We ferried our bags across the Azul, hiked up the hill, and hopped in the 4x4 w/ Patito who would drive us the three hours to Chaiten Airport. We ran out of gas on the way but Patito had some in the back and funneled it in with a coke bottle. We made it to the airport and on board the 8 seat plan that would carry us to Puerto Montt. The flight was beautiful. We had 7 hours to kill in Puerto Montt until we could get on our overnight bus to Santiago, so we had a nice lunch and walked around town and spent a while at an internet café. This time around we knew a little more Spanish and knew the system a little better, so we were able to get on the Salon Cama bus which means it has seats that are basically like reclining lazy boys. We slept well on the bus and ended up at the bus station in Santiago around 8 am. We walked ourselves and our belongings then to another bus station and got a 9:30 bus to the airport. This was a lot cheaper than our 80 dollar cab ride on the way in! When we got to the airport we had 12 hours before our flight would leave. We checked our baggage into storage and successfully wasted time for hours and hours and hours. At least we weren’t walking around the stench of Santiago getting sunburned.

We ran into our Swiftwater Rescue Instructor in the airport. It is so strange to see someone you know so far away from home. At 10:40 pm the plane taxied to the runway and we were on our way home. We landed in Atlanta at 6:15 and made our way through customs and gathered our bags. It was striking to see the diversity of people in the airport and I realized how homogeneous Chile and Argentina had been. It was nice to hear English and I looked upon the non-English speaking visitors trying to get through the airport procedures with a new sense of empathy and respect. It’s not easy being somewhere you don’t speak the language; simple tasks can become quite challenging. One of my favorite parts about travel is this awareness you obtain of other peoples’ experiences. If we all traveled a little more I believe we would all get along a little better. I feel so fortunate and so blessed to have been afforded the opportunities that I have had to travel in my life. This trip was a gift. It was a wedding gift to Kirk and I from family and friends who understood that we don’t really like toasters and dishes, but we really love kayaking and traveling. Thanks to our family and our friends we were able to make a dream come true. I’m not sure it would have ever been possible for us without their generosity, and for this we are eternally and immensely thankful.

When we stepped out into Atlanta it was bitterly cold. Kirk’s brother in law picked us up at the airport and drove us to their house in Athens where our car was. He informed us that there had been a good bit of snow lately and that this was the coldest morning of the year. We grabbed the car and a caramel latte and made the drive home to Knoxville. We passed the Tallulah Gorge, which seems far from home when we go there to kayak but felt next door on this trek, and we headed through the snow filled mountains on I-40 back to familiar turf. Our house was warm and clean and the cats were happy to see us but had been well cared for by my wonderful cousin who stayed at our house while we were away. We settled back in, took care of business, got our pictures developed and then sat down to reflect on them and watch the video of the trip.

We are settling back in now and getting re-acquainted with the old routines. The trip came and went so fast that it almost doesn’t seem real at times. It is real though. It will always be real. We are changed. A little bit of Patagonia now lives within us. The wonderful people and their culture, the mountains, the rivers, they have changed who we are. Each step of the journey was more amazing than the one before. Each step brought me closer to that sense that I was in the presence of the divine. And within those steps there were moments where I am certain Heaven was near. Maybe Heaven is in South America. Maybe it is anywhere where you can open your heart, your mind, your senses, and connect with it. Where ever, and whatever, it is, I believe I sensed it. I believe it whispered to me that night on the beach under Tres Monjas. It whispered and gently invited me to know its presence.
http://www.kirkandlaura.blogspot.com/
 


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