Chile Forum

Vicki Lansen wrote:. . . . Not that anyone is considering spending the winter here! . . . .

Not even you?

Vicki, it is just like every cold place on Earth. It is those glorious summers that make you stupid and forget about how cold the winter is. Being from MN, it seems that all I can recall after all these years is the the late spring, summers, and early fall weather. Somehow, I forget what -50 F, when your eye lashes would freeze shut that I some how can not remember clearly. At least Futa is a bit more pleasant, even with the volcano.

For all of the recent freak weather stuff, for all of the shocking realities when my rose-colored corneas were burned off by the frozen wind and volcanic dust, when (as is now) all my books are read, and dirty dishes wait in the greasy sink with ice-water to wash them in, when there is no gas to be bought, and chicken costs a fortune...there is NO WHERE ON EARTH I would rather be than right here in Futa. Nowhere Else! In fact, I am sick at heart that this is the last week I have to make my reservations for our trip back to see family (who I love but....) and I just keep putting it off. I don't want to leave. I am a bug in a rug. Fat, dumb and happy. Today was a beautiful day. I took my empty backpack and traipsed around town paying a couple bills, buying supplies and running from the geese that still expect me to toss out corn. The sky was blue, my ears burned even under my wool cap and it snowed with the sun shinning. For all my P&Ming....It's a place I where I would love to spend my last days!



Vicki

yea, Futa is addictive that way. We are always sad when we leave Futa. I never get the sense of relief to be leaving it like I do for example leaving Santiago.

Gasoline is available in Futa. 1,000 pesos per liter.

Charles, any idea how things are getting to Futa now that Chaiten is gone, for all purposes? I know things will get to the ports further south, but the roads are hideous...do they just bite the bullet and ship north to Futa? That must add a lot of extra frieght expense. And via Argentina would be a nightmare with paperwork, I suppose. I'm thinking of ordering some furniture from a store in Temuco, or Puerto Montt, but it might just be too expensive to ship here.

Thoughts?

Vicki

Puerto Cisnes is the next ferry landing I believe, so they got to be driving them up through there. That is like a 21 hour boat ride from PM, and then another 4-6 hours of bad dirt roads back north. Dirt roads that I think are getting more traffic than they use to, because Chaiten is no longer a destination.

We spent a couple of nights out in Azul at our unfinished home. The rain subsided enough to go rescue the foam mattress down the path in the cabin by the Desague, but by the time I picked my way back up under fallen trees, over sunken cow track, the rain was relentless again, and it took three hours to dry it out. The river Azul ran deafening and the rain never stopped. It was warm inside without blowing a foggy breath by the second day. Almost all of the Azul and Futa around Futaleufu is fairly ash-free. I don't know where the cattle are getting in, and wouldn't mind but for Max, the psycho dog who goes nuts over them.

Through the grapevine, I am told that shipments are coming sealed from Central Chile through Argentina back into Futa. Prices aren't much higher except on chicken.

I wish for my water to be working right...I can light candles and cook on a gas or wood stove. But I can't again go wandering in the woods with a shovel and roll of paper. I miss Nono, and sitting with her around the stove, pulling wool, making fun of me, pouring chicha (hers is really nothing more than apple jack) and sharing time stumbling through our spang-engl-spang. She has four new little newborn lambs, two white, two black, flittering around with long tails. She's got the bulk of my order for wool socks done and tells me she's charging me so much that I might have to take a job come season! I made her another willow basket and she sent me on with some "apple jack" and homemade bread and jam.

I've never been somewhere that made me this sad to leave, even if I know it's not forever. The Tres Monjas were moonlit the other night and I thought I'd fall over looking at them. Ismael's brother is in bad shape with stomach cancer, and neither Greg or I match his blood type...they are trying transfusions (?). I would gladly do it though if I matched.

Driver's License renewals are Friday in La Junta. First timers are on Saturday. I ran into Valentina, the woman who processed our one-year visas, on Tuesday. She is from Chaiten. She had to buy all new appliances and furniture...everything was ruined in her home there. So, I'm not really bitching about my electric and water. But it would be nice.....

From something i wrote awhile ago on Patagonia...

"..were it for an accident in any other place where blood is cleaned up from the ground, in Patagonia the trauma of death is simply rubbed into the earth or better, left alone to make its own way to where it must go..."

p out

Don't know how to put it myself, but that's just how it feels. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's lonely, but it's alway good, and seemingly - just exactly the way it should be .
and as I said in a post somewhere else, there is no where else I'd rather spend the last of my days. And I meant that because all the days leading up, are just about the best that anyone could hope for.

Last night was a home visit by the visiting vet to give Max his vaccinations (she is renting just up the street). She is so very grateful to Charles and Zandra for the medicines they so graciously donated, thank you thank you thank you. She loves Futa, and is working on ways to make this her permanent home. She is so busy, she is training some young volunteers and hopes to start a clinic and work on a program for people in el campo so they can have a calendar for vaccinating their animals on a proper time table. She reports that the Chaiten dog who was so badly mangled in an accident (yet healed on it's own and was found wandering there during the emergency) was adopted by a young doctor at the hospital.

Rental houses in Futa are now scarce and a simple, unfurnished place runs 150,000 CLP not including utitlities.

It is so cold today that we opened the fridge to warm the place up and the dirty clothes screamed when I filled up the washer with the biting cold water. Firewood continues to be difficult to find, and expensive. A combination of residual ash and freezing temperatures ensured that we could not unlock one of our car doors until we'd sufficiently warmed up the latches! Then it would not stayed closed. Temperatures range 1 to 3 C. But I think it's -10 F.

Again, you can't realize how grateful everyone is for the vaccines for the vet here!

Yea, I guess I forgot to tell the rest of that story.

Vicky passed along the word that the vet in Futa was in need of some vaccines and other supplies. We had a client donate some money to help Futa, and left it up to us to determine how best to use it. This one seemed like a good cause. So, we had the vet that works for us, call the vet in Futa (another long story. We have a vet on staff now). She sent us a list of stuff she was missing. Our Vet can buy wholesale in Santiago, and the company sent it direct to puerto montt to be shipped out to Futa. We managed to get everything she requested for 130,000 pesos including shipping to PM.

We have another client that has donated some more money that we can put together towards another shipment when needed.

I am not sure of all the details (someone else in our office handled it), but we got a call from the attorney for the none-profit organization that is sponsoring the vet in Futa. We started coordinating so that we are not duplicating work and donations. He asked if we could help cover the domestic animals in town (dogs, cats, so on), so they could focus on the livestock and the campo. Fine with us.

Another thread on Bachelet's performance segways into where Chaitenians might be relocated. Idealistically, I would say somewhere south, but still on the coast, as the town and it's people have been coastal folks, fisherman, and lives were centered on that for the most part. Charles mentions Santa Lucia, and that it has little infrastructure, yet, my lightbulb goes off. It is a cross-roads just waiting to be a town! Situated in a flat area surrounded by beautiful mountains, close to glaciers and abundant rivers, on the cross road to La Junta and Futaleufu, it stretches out in a wide, long grassy plain. There are several acres of 1960's army barracks and support buildings. It is a major cross road (again) for tourist heading south to regions XI and down.

Charles is also correct...there is virtually no industry here in Futa to support many more people. In Chaiten, as the provencial capitol, people worked for the province, and then there was the fishing industry, the navy, and the tourist industry for the area. The only industry that Futa would provide would be a brief burst in building, followed by a desparate grab for jobs in tourism during the very short season.

That all said, this region needs another safe port. By boat from Puerto Montt to Chaiten, it was 12 hours. Quellon to Chaiten was 5. Now it's Puerto Montt to where? Aisen?????????? Then to get back up here it's grueling roads on a trip at least a day long. A knuckle head could figure out that this area needs to be considered as a gem, and that the roads should be invested in and a port created to re-start the flow of commerce that doesn't involve a two-to-three day trip around a jumping monkeys ass!

Other than that...I have been diagnosed with todolistitis. It is a serious, potentially chronic condition often striking during harsh winters, exacerbated by extreme cold and frustration. Symptoms include repeated list making, and signs also include finding various "to-do" lists on scraps of papers, on backs of envelopes and small pieces of cardboard (especially if none of the "to-do" items are crossed off the list). In the later case, the condition may be considered SERIOUS, and intervention is required. All writing utensils must be taken away. The sufferer must be encouraged to take walks and get plenty of fresh air. Allow the sufferer to make only mental lists with two items "to-do" and praise them for any accomplishment. The ailment usually disappears with better weather and sunshine. The condition is closely related to (COFP) chronic obsessive forum posting and nose picking.

From the patagoniatimes.cl:

Disquieted by a recent increase in seismic activity, Chilean authorities fear that Region X’s Chaitén Volcano may be ready to “explode” once again. The volcano began erupting in early May – for the first time in recorded history – and has been smoking ever since (PT, May 2).
“There could be another major explosion,” Carmen Fernández, the director of Chile’s Director of Chile's National Emergency Office (ONEMI), told the Santiago Times. “The smoke column could possibly elevate with a major seismic activity and there could be pyroclastic emissions.”

Pyroclastic flows are rapid currents of hot gas and rock that can escape from a volcano crater and travel downhill toward surrounding areas, incinerating everything in their path.
The gas can reach speeds of up to 50mph and temperatures of nearly 1,800° F.

Authorities are particularly concerned about a recent wave of seismic activity, which has some experts hypothesizing that the volcano’s crater may be partially blocked. A constant buildup of pressure from below could eventually produce another major eruption, they fear.

Oh my bags are packed, and I'm ready to go.....(John Denver)

If this event were to occur, I figure if immediately notified, I would have about one hour and 20 minutes to beat it out of here before the poisonous gases trapped us. But considering I don't have a TV, I'm hoping that Charles will be monitoring the emergency channel and call me to give me the heads up!!!!!!!!!!

NOTE TO MOTHER: It's fine, just an attempt to make light of things...we're always ready to go, don't worry! Didn't work this hard to come this far to croak in a natural disaster...could have done that in the US.

Futa has more than a few mountains in between it and Chaiten. It would have to decimate half the Andies. It might drop a lot more ash if the column was at the wrong level like in the first days, but I doubt the explosion would get anywhere beyond the espolon valley.