Chepu

Day 81 – There was smoke, but thankfully no fire.

The next morning, after stocking up on supplies for the next few days in the pouring rain, we caught a minibus to Chepu for our stay at eco accommodation Chepu Adventures (link) about 25km outside of Ancud.  The bus ride was not without disaster, the cabin filling up with exhaust fumes on more than one occasion with everyone having to get out, once the haze had become too strong, so the bus driver could pour water on the engine!  After the fourth or so stop, we were becoming a bit anxious as we had organised the owner of Chepu Adventures, Fernando, to pick us up off the highway and drive us the last 15km into Chepu.  We weren’t sure how long he would wait and didn’t fancy walking the 15km in the rain with all of our stuff and 3 days worth of food.  We eventually made it to kilometre marker 25 on the highway, where Fernando and his ute were waiting faithfully for us. 

The haze in the bus!

We arrived at Chepu to find a collection of little cabins and a simply designed common area over looking a sprawling view of the Sunken Valley, a natural phenomenon that had formed after an earthquake in 1960 caused a large area of land to sink 2m and flood.

The cabins and common area taken from our tent site.

The common area had a plastic see-through roof so that campers didn’t need lights during the day.

The view from the deck of the common area over the Sunken Valley.

   
Indoor camping – luxury!  (Taken by Fernando)

Given the rain and the fact that there was little else other than an internet connection and a wind turbine creating some electricity, we spent the afternoon blogging, catching up on email and waiting for a break in the weather to set up our tent.  That night we cooked up a big pot of pasta and ended up sharing with some of the other campers who hadn’t realised there were no shops out here.

 

Day 82 – The day Matt saw a sea otter…. and then didn’t shut up about it.

Today we arranged to go and see the local penguin colony.  This involved taking a boat to where we could pick up part of the Sendero de Chiloe walking track and walking 7km across private property and then into the Parque National de Chiloe to where the penguins were nesting at the end of a spit of land.

A guy playing soccer with his very young son.  We wondered how many times they had to get in the boat to go get the ball.

A waterbird.

The track started rather innocuously across some farm land with our guide, Alberto, taking us over and under various barbed wire fences and gaps in the bushes making sure we took as many short cuts as possible.  The track then opened up onto a beautiful misty grey beach which we followed for about 2km, listening to the blue jellyfish pop as we squished them under our feet (they were unavoidable) and watching a big red ship-wrecked barge grow larger in the distance. 

 

A fisherman with the barge in the distance.

 

Then it was up into the scrub again and deeper into the forest, where the MUD began.     

 

Whilst the four boys gracefully tiptoed around the ankle and sometimes deeper patches, I resigned to getting dirty early and just trudged through – mostly to keep up!   The last part of the walk down the spit of land to where the penguin viewing hut was, involved two sections of up to thigh deep wading.  The boys stripped down to their jocks and exchanged shoes and socks for sandals.  Meanwhile, not being able to get any muddier, I waded in shoes and all for a clean up!

Muddy again in five minutes after crawling up the vertical mud slope to the viewing hut, we crouched in the little hut and took turns at using Alberto’s binoculars to spy on the penguins.      

 

 

We also saw some kelp goose, a dead seal and…. a sea otter!  Matt managed a quick snapshot and we watched and watched to see more, but he didn’t seem to have any friends or family, much to little boy Matt’s disappointment.

So we waded back to dry land…

And back through the mud toward toward the beach…

 
A whale scull we saw on the beach on the way back.

We saw this little guy on the way back – alone and far far away from his mum and dad!  O-oh…

The wind had created an interesting effect on the beach, the sand being blown out from around the shells.

When we got back to the pier, our boat driver was waiting for us and we took the 20 minute trip back to Chepu.  When we got back, Alberto had decided the first thing I needed to do was be hosed off before I was allowed in to get a change of clothes!

That night we chatted with an English girl, Natalie, who I had actually met before, but didn’t remember.  About half way through our conversation we got to the name exchanging part and when I said my name was “Erin” she says “I met another Erin in Torres del Paine.  I remember her because she’d lost a sock and she only had one pair.”  When I pissed myself laughing, she realised it was me and I had to apologise that I didn’t remember her either, because I must have interviewed the entire campground when it went missing – eventually found by Andrew outside Natalie’s tent! 

After some more cooking in inside luxury, closely watched by Amalie, Fernando’s wife, who found our improvised risotto combination of rice, dried mushrooms, onion, garlic and soup mix very interesting, we hit the sack early, ready for our 5.30am wake up call.

 

Day 83 – The mystic sunken valley… and more otters.

Yes, we didn’t wake up at 5.30am for no reason!  Early early this morning we set off in the dark on a kayaking trip through the mystic Sunken Valley.  The trip was recommended to be taken at dawn to watch the sun rise and also increase our chances of seeing wildlife.  We didn’t see much besides twisted dead trees, beautiful in themselves, until it became light.  But even then we didn’t see much as it was raining!  It had been raining when we woke up too, but Matt rightly pointed out that we definitely wouldn’t see anything from inside the tent. 

All geared up and ready to go!  Aus/Pom couple Dean and Zarah along for the ride.

  

Just as we had given up and turned around our kayak, we saw an otter crossing the river in front of us and swim into a clump of dead trees on the other side.  Matt was very pleased, as now he had seen a sea otter and a river otter in as many days.  We carefully watched out for others and saw one more, this one letting us get a bit closer before he disappeared into some reeds.      

All this otter stalking had meant that we were running out of time to get back for our curfew of 9.15am where breakfast, coffee and a warm wood fire would be waiting for us, so we paddled like solo men all the way back to Chepu!

  
Matt with all his locks plastered to his head!  For those of you missing out on this hair phenomenon, it’s bordering on Foxxy Cleopatra (of Austin Powers) status!  One shake and poof – it’s boof!

 
Me, searching for some dry clothes before stripping off in the middle of the common area.

The rain didn’t let up the whole day, so we were confined to the common area to do some more reading and planning and chat to the other campers confined by the weather.  It turns out that Fernando and his wife Amalie are quite the eco-activists in the area, trying to urge others in Chiloe to take advantage of the natural beauty of the area through things such as tourism and to ‘live lightly’ in accommodation such as theirs.  With logging and other such activities a popular past time in Chiloe, and Fernando being a tree-changer from Santiago and not from Chiloe, this does not make them very popular.  Up until earlier this week, Fernando and Amalie had lived off premises in town about 3km away, however it seems that someone disliked their ideals so much that their house was burnt to the ground.  Not being within the required distance from a  fire station meant that they could not obtain insurance either!  So part of the afternoon was also spent discussing alternate building materials to build a new house on-site, including the possibility of straw bale (a particular interest of mine) and plans for Chepu Adventures to maybe extend and hopefully beef up profits a little, now that funds are in need! 

It turns out that another passion of Fernando’s is taking sneaky photos of his campers to put on his website.  We were presented with the photos featuring us as we prepared to leave, including this early morning photo below!

 

One last photo back over Chepu Adventures and the Sunken Valley.

At 5.30pm we caught a local bus into Ancud and after a last meal of Curanto and Cerviche we took a further bus and ferry across to Puerto Montt on the mainland.  Arriving at 10pm with no accommodation booked, we said yes to one of the gaggle of middle-aged ladies at the bus station searching for backpackers to stay in their homes, mainly because she said she had hot water and we had not had a hot shower in 3 days!  We checked for bus times to Bariloche before leaving the station, but weren’t able to book tickets as the requisite bus companies were closed and the only one open was full.

My last Cerviche meal!  (And Kunstmann, a Chilean brew we had fallen for…. but with such a bad name!).

  
A sign in the restaurant in Ancud.   Ahhhh…. the real reason Matt was so keen on Curanto comes out: “Curanto, helping people to have great sex since 1826”.

We were lead the four blocks (up hill) to bus stop lady’s house.  Matt had a shower straight away (after the lady’s husband turned on the hot water) and me, needing to wash my hair, asked if the hot water would be available at 7am in the morning for a shower before our bus at 8.30, to which the reply was yes, yes of course!