Struan and Anna in Chile: Good times in the Chilean heartlands (Part 2)

After a couple of days at our fab cabaña in Parque Radial Siete Tazas we got back on the buses to travel a little further south down to another park, Parque Tricahue, where we stayed at the excellent Refugio Tricahue. Refugios are literally "refuges", but they vary hugely from places that are essentially very comfortable hostels to a hut in the middle of nowhere occasionally administered by the local park rangers. Refugio Tricahue is of the comfortable variety.

lounging on the deck

The refuge is run by a very amiable Belgian called Dimitri with his family and amazing dog called Bacán (which is Chilean dialect for - roughly speaking - "the best" (of a group/ at something) and it can also be used like "cool!").

Struan giving Bacán a tummy rub

The refugio is named after Parque Tricahue, which it sits just outside. Parque Tricahue is a privately-owned nature reserve, known for its preservation of many indigenous species of Chilean trees.

The refuge sleeps about 12 people in all, but when we arrived there was only one other guest - a Chilean guy called Nelson who we got to know, and it turned out that he lives near us in Santiago, so we're all firm friends now! This was really lucky, because - as well as being a good guy - Nelson was a great guide for us, and it was nice to have the refugio almost completely to ourselves. The best room in the place went to Rob and Nomi - the "star room", a room with a glass ceiling so you can lie in bed and see the stars in the super-clear Chilean sky.

the Sauna!

We had another fantastic walk here, this time guided by Nelson (who lives in Santiago but knows this area quite well - or at least can read a map), and Bacán, who came on the full 8 hour round trip with us happily exploring and leading the way.

the path...

Bacán resting

a handsome hound

humans resting

back on the road

a tarantula!

lipo having another rest

Anna looking glamorous on a log

Bácan sniffing around

The ultimate prize on this walk was something called the "motor", which nobody, including Nelson, Dimitri, nor Bácan could adequately explain - it was this steam engine, which was actually used as a generator for logging equipment. It all came clear when we saw it.

The photo above isn't very clear, but the motor was shipped from England, and was manufactured by Clayton and Shuttleworth, a major 19th century engineering company from Lincoln, which turned these portable steam engines out in thousands. So a bonus of the trek was finding another part of Chile's British history.

On the way up to the motor we had a fairly clear path all the way. The way back down was a narrower path, steep drop on one side, and periods where we walked through close woodland.

Nelson, well his back

heading towards an amazing view

Once we reached ground level again, we came across this tree packed with yellow plums. Nelson said they were good for eating so we all tucked in!

sweet sweet plums

Anna tucks in

Someone noticed that neither Nelson nor Bácan had touched a single plum, we realised we'd only just met these guys... suddenly Anna doubled over with stomach cramps, Lipo started foaming at the mouth... ok, not really, they were just yellow, sweet, sweet plums after all.

The rest of the walk back to the Refuge was along a dried river bed with epic sized pebbles, and past some nice colourful bee hives.

dried river bed

colourful bee hives - be kind to bees

We've included a few of our photos of the park in this post, but there are some more in this gallery if you want to have a quick look.

We spent three nights at the refugio and we should describe a bit about what we did for food. The cabañas in Parque Siete Tazas had essentially been part of a campsite in the middle of nowhere so we knew we needed to take everything we would need with us - so, as we said in our previous post, we stocked up at the supermarket on the way. Our understanding was that the refugio however was just outside a village, with various shops and even a restaurant, so we didn't bother to stock up this time.

When we arrived we went with Nelson up to the nearest shop to get some supplies for breakfast and packed lunch. The shop was pretty much as poorly stocked as the ones in Villa O'Higgins, the tiny last settlement before the southern ice field in the south of Chile that we visited in January. It's odd because Parque Tricahue, while admittedly quite far into the mountains, is geographically not that isolated - we were basically just east of the agricultural heartlands of Chile where the most amazing produce is grown. We never quite got to the bottom of that, but we were anyway able to get some stuff like bread, eggs, cheese, tomatoes etc that meant we were well fed anyway.

the inanity of the subject - "lipo walking to the shop, a portrait" - is offset by the composition

One of our favourite points of the trip was when we went to the other local shop (about 20 minutes walk in the opposite direction) to see if they had any meat and any vegetables other than tomatoes. The sign outside claimed a bounty of goods was inside - the conversation we had is fairly illustrative of quite a few we've had here, which make you occasionally question your sanity. Along these lines, but in Spanish obvs:

Struan: Hello, good afternoon, do you have any meat?

Señora: No.

Struan: Ok, are there any vegetables?

Señora: Yes.

Struan: Good, which kinds do you have?

Señora: Which do you want?

Struan: Er, beans?

Señora: What kind of beans?

Struan: Green beans please.

Señora: I don't have those.

Struan: okay, so what kind do you have?

Señora: None.

Struan: But... [frantically tries to see what is in the shop]

Señora: I have garlic.

Struan: We don't need garlic, we already have some.

Señora: [stares]

Struan: Look, you have cookies - I can see them - can we have some cookies... [continues until we came away with some dried pasta, cookies, and the sweetest red wine ever (the only wine we've not liked here), and ... tomatoes...].

Anyway, we found out on the first day that the first shop (both shops were basically booths at the front of the owner's house) was also the restaurant. It was fortunate that we'd gone down earlier in the day, because they needed a couple of hours prior warning that they would have diners on any given night. So not really a restaurant, more a table in part of the house. The food however was awesome. Salmon from the river outside, baked with chopped onions and tomatoes, with the tastiest rice ever one night, then lovely mashed potato the next, and excellent salad. They obviously kept the best stuff for the dinner table. It was wonderfully cheap as well!

The place was called El Fosforito - the little match, there's actually a giant match hanging in the dining room:

a giant match

The self-styled Maitre d' was the 81 year old Mr Fosforito (not really, we just called him that) - deaf and drunk, but a lovely old boy.

He took a shine to Nomi, here's the scene when they met:

Mr F: Que linda!

Nomi: Hello!

Mr F: Oooh linda!

Nomi: [ahem] Why is he calling me Linda?

Anna: He's not, it means beautiful..

Nomi: Oh right, can we sit down? Can I sit by the wall?

Mr F: LINDA!

Struan: [Spanish] Mr Fosforito do you have anything to drink, like wine?

Mr F: [shuffles off]

A living legend. The second night Mr Fosforito was too drunk to serve us, so we were served instead by two children, who he'd told us the night before were the son and daughter of his niece. This has been a fairly recurrent theme on our travels - often in remote places there will be kids living with grandparents etc, either during school holidays, or actually being schooled locally, while the parents live in say Santiago for work. Anyway, these two came to serve after they'd finished tormenting a goat that was lying strapped into the trailer of a truck in the drive. If we'd gone back the third night it probably would have been goat on the menu.

a lovely walk back by moonlight - only mildly haunted by the distant bleating

On our last night we thought we'd keep it simple and cook up our pasta and tomatoes in the refugio.

Struan and Lipo cooking

Next day we, Lipo, and Nelson headed back to Santiago, while Rob and Nomi left us to head south down to Puerto Montt from where they embarked on a fab week long horse trek into the Chilean rainforest!

Lipo spent his last couple of days before heading back to the UK with us in Santiago. Here's a few photos: