Feb.24th

Going with the flow and letting things just happen has worked for our unplanned trip to Chile. We finished our Gaucho trip yesterday and are feeling so fortunate that we got to experience it. Now we have been able to connect with a friend from the 90’s decade of NOLS. He lives on a ranch about an hour away by boat from the town of Puerto Bertrand. Patty will drop us off in Puerto Bertrand and John will pick us up tomorrow. We haven’t made any reservations, but Patty has a friend who lives in town that rents rooms. We are hoping that is the case. We park outside of the house and Patty goes in and returns with a thumbs up , we have a place to stay.

Patty wants to start the long drive back so we say our good bye and thank her once again for this opportunity,

The owner of the house serves us tea, home made bread with jam and cheese. She shows us our room and we settle in. We are both tired and a nap is going to be most welcome. After the nap, we explore the town which doesn’t take much time as it is quite small. We are glad we bought some supplies in Cochrane. There is a small restaurant that will open later. We check out the lake which is a beautiful blue color.

This is Lago Bertrand , famous for fly fishing and it is the headwaters for the Rio Baker which is known for rafting. In the summer time it is quite the busy tourist place.

The restaurant is small with only a couple of tables. We are told what is on the menu tonight and wait for the delicious smelling food. It is a short walk back to our lodging and we quickly fall into a deep sleep.

The next morning, after breakfast we pack up and head to the dock where we will meet John.

John lives at the very end of Lago Plomo.

By mid morning we see a boat coming towards the dock and quickly recognize our friend John. We haven’t seen him for several decades so we will have some catching up to do. He is dropping off a couple of clients that spent a week at his ranch doing a horse back trip. After John left NOLS, he started an Outdoor Program in this area called Patagonia Frontiers. He was able to buy several large ranches and runs some of his programs on the ranch that he owns. We are looking forward to seeing his place, but first we need to travel the hour and half by boat to get there.

We are glad that the wind is not blowing, if it was we would have to delay our travel.

When we reach the ranch, John gives us a quick tour and shows us where we will be staying.

It is a beautiful cabin nestled in the trees with views of the surrounding mountains.

With a small kitchen for making our hot drinks in the morning

John shows us his house which was the original ranch house. He lives here and this is where we will also be eating our meals.

In the kitchen is the wood stove, which is not only used for cooking, but adds quite a bit of warmth in the winter.

In the summer there are students, visitors and ranchers that live up the valley stopping to see John, but the winter is time for solitude. This summer, however, due to the Covid virus(,Chile has only recently opened her borders) John has only had 3 students. Fortunately there are more courses in the near future,
We meet Michael and his two daughters Ignacia and Kimberly. Michael has worked for John in past years. He is from Tanzania and met John there. He is now going to dental school and brought his girls down for a visit.

Ignacia shows us the green house. Michael had worked hard to get the soil good for growing plants.

John needs to go back to work so Don and I check out the area with a walk down the beach.

And the Magellanic male and female woodpecker

We are looking forward to exploring this place and spending time with John and his crew.

Feb. 26

After breakfast we decided to do a hike with John, Michael and the the Girls. We will be doing a little climbing to get a better view of the valley.

The girls show us the way. Rose bushes are taking over the land and it is challenging to keep the trails open. The only way to get rid of them is to dig them out which is almost an impossible task.

We meet some of John’s horses.

They are quite friendly and approach us.

The views are magnificent and to know that there are no plans of development makes this hike even more enjoyable.

There is a storm developing so tomorrow may be a stay in the cabin type of day.

Feb. 27 The rain and wind started falling during the night. No need to head out anywhere today. We had a breakfast of pancakes at noon and enjoyed the warmth of the stove. It was a good day to hang out at the cabin with some good books to read. The plan if the weather permits is to do an overnight hike tomorrow.

Feb.28

Yesterday we decided to do an overnight hike today. It looks like the weather has cooperated so we pack our packs and head out with Michael and the girls. There are a couple of interns and an employee that are working with John this summer. With no courses they are also able to go with us.Their names are Henry, Oliver and Jeremy. Before we start up the trail, we take notice of the firewood they have been working on for the upcoming colder months It is impressive.

We also enjoy some of the ripe plums that are growing outside of the main ranch house.

It is time to go hiking and within 10 minutes we need to do a water crossing. The water is glacier fed so it is quite chilly. Kimberly gets a ride across the river.

We had to do several more crossings as we head up the valley.

The hiking was easy as we followed the river valley up towards the mountains.

At one point we looked across the river valley and saw a little ranch tucked into the trees. Most of the ranches in the area do not have people living their year round. The ranchers will spend some of the year in the towns that we had visited. It is quite the undertaking to travel back and forth by way of horses then boat.

We make it to the confluence of two rivers and find an area to set up camp. The interns make us a delicious pasta meal. The planned campfire activity is aborted as the rain begins falling shortly after we eat dinner. Tomorrow John, Michael and the girls will head back to the homestead., Don and I along with Henry and Jeremy will head up the valley to another ranch that John has purchased.

We will be continuing up this valley in the morning.

March 1

The sun came out in the morning and by the time we had breakfast our tents were dry.

Henry and Jeremy lead us up the river valley. This is Henry’s third year at the ranch. In the North America summer he works at an organic farm in the state of Washington. This is Jeremy’s first season here. With no students they have been doing a lot of projects around the ranch. They are both looking forward to the upcoming courses.

The hike up the valley continued with beautiful views.

The ranch that John purchased butts up against National Parkland of Chile.

John’s crew has been working on the buildings to enable them to be used as a basecamp for his clients. There are no longer bears in the area, but we are wary of the bulls. We hear one in the distance and give him a wide berth. They have been known to be aggressive and should be avoided.

After a lunch at the new ranch, we head back down the valley to the homestead. Tomorrow we will be leaving the ranch and going to Cochrane. Originally John was just going to take us to Puerto Bertrand and we could catch a bus for the 20 miles to Cochrane, but then John decided that he needed to do some shopping so he will drive us there.

March 2

It is quite peaceful this morning, with horses grazing in front of our cabin.

It has been a good week of being relaxed after our trip with the Gauchos. We have a better understanding of how this area has been so impactful to John’s life.

We wave goodby to our new friends and head down the lake with John at the stern.

We are treated to a rainbow as we depart.

The lake is quite calm today, but if the wind blows large waves are formed.

On the way to Cochrane we once again pass the Rio Baker.

We had hiked down to the river with Patty and her nieces before the Gaucho trip so today we just take a photo at an overlook.

When we arrive to town, we stop at a couple of hostels only to find they are full. John knows of one more that he has used in the past and they had a room. We plan to stay here for a couple of days before heading up to the National Parque de Patagonia.

We found a business that will do our laundry and we can pick it up tomorrow. We also walked to the bus station to figure out the logistics to get to a town south of here called Tortel and then return back to Cochrane and catch a bus back to Coyhaique. It dosent seem that we will have any problems with bus tickets so we are going to wait until our plans are more firm. Meanwhile we need to figure out how to get to theNational Park day after tomorrow. As we were walking some of the side streets we see Marcio, the taxi driver who took us to Villa O’Higgins. We ask him if he would be able to drive us to the park day after tomorrow and he says yes. We give him the address and he will pick us up at 11:00 am. There are two grocery stores in this town. the smaller has the most usable items for us, so we stock up on food for our 5 day trip. We have dinner in town followed by some ice cream at the ice cream store. Tomorrow will be a day of rest and organization.

It has been enjoyable to just walk around town and get a feel for the area. Having driven here from Coyhaique we get a feel for the isolation of these small towns. There are many miles of dirt roads between these towns.

March 3

Today was indeed a day of rest.. We picked up our laundry and were able to convey to our hosts that we were going to be gone for 4 nights and would like to leave some of our luggage here. We will spend another couple of nights here when we return. We like this town and glad that we got to spend some time her.