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Chicago Tribune,
March 8, 1998
Chile by horseback
Cochamo, Chile- Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid had it easy. When they
drove their fat cattle to market a century ago, over these trails cut
deep into the alerce forests of southern Chile, the outlaws may have
kept an eye out for the Pinkertons but they surely did not have to
contend with El Nino.
This Southern Hemisphere summer, the dreaded Pacific weather system has
turned sections of these 300-year-old Patagonian trails to slop. Condors
may soar overhead, and trees older than California´s redwoods tower on
all sides, but our eyes are firmly on the vilest mud we have ever seen,
great seething trenches of mud, mud just waiting to suck your shoes off.
Our 10-day "Butch and Sundance Trail" horseback tour, which traces the
famed fugitives´route over the Andes Mountains, was never supposed to be
easy. The trip "has nothing in common with a Sunday stroll in the park",
our outfitter noted right up front.
But the ride, despite its hardships and largely because of them, is also
one of the best thrills in South America, a chance not just to see
mountain scenery far removed from the well-trampled tourist track and
romp through a bit of history but also to ride back to an earlier age, a
time of hand-hewn log cabins and crystal streams and partnership with a
horse to whom you trust your life.
As a quick shapeup program, the rigorous ride also wins high marks, as
long as you don´t mind baths in cold mountains lakes and a diet centered
on roast goat.
The tour, which runs once a month during Chile´s summer- November to
March -starts from Campo Aventura, a ranch just outside the Pacific
coastal fishing village of Cochamo, once a major meat-packing center for
much of the southern Andean region of Chile and Argentina.
At the turn of the century, when Butch, Sundance and Sundance´s wife,
Etta Place, managed a ranch in Argentina´s Cholila Valley, coastal
Cochamo was where their cattle met their end, after an arduous drive
over the Andes.
Today the trail, which the American fugitives knew as the Cochamo Road,
remains much as it was a century ago. In the dark rain forest hung with
brilliant purple and red fuchsia it is a deep french cut into the forest
floor by generations of cloven hooves. The trail scrambles over boulder
fields, beneath stunning granite peaks and the snow-capped Andes,
climbing wind-robbing passes and then plunging down again across clear
rivers and green alpine valleys.
We set out to traverse it the same way the outlaws did- on sturdy
criollo mountain horses. These are animals that, we quickly find out,
think nothing of plunging 15 feet off a ravine ledge, hauling a rider
and 40 pounds of gear up a near-vertical trail or tiptoeing over a
skinny pair of shaking logs to cross a roaring stream.
"Organic tanks," admiringly observes Jeb Barton, a longtime rider from
Bend, Ore., and one of the five paying menbers of our outfit, quickly
dubbed "The Hole in the Sky Gang" in honor of Butch, Sundance and the
ozone hole looming over much of Patagonia.
Then again, as Jeb observes later, maybe our steeds are just crosses-
between goats and 19-hand warmblood sport horses. Another participant,
Barbara Banks, calls them, simply, "mythical creatures".
At any rate we´re deeply impressed, particularly after we find out no
one has suffered, any kind of major injury in the five years the ride
has operated, thanks largely to the carful work of the guides. That´s
good news because Clark Stede, the German owner of Campo Aventura and
Outsider travel agency, which organizes the trips, helpfully notes that
there are only two points on the entire trail where we might be rescued
by helicopter if something went wrong.
He´s exaggerating. Still, the ride is more than adventure enough for
four wandering gringos and our Swiss sidekick. And that´s even before we
got to the mud.
DAY 1: Campo Aventura to La Junta
We´ve been warned in advance to pack light but just how light we learn
only as we begin to staff our paltry gear into our even more paltry red
waterproof saddle rolls.
After jamming in our tents, coldweather sleeping bags, insulation mats,
flashlights, camp mugs, soap, toothbrushes, bandages, towals, sunscreen,
camp sandals, waterproof pants, lightweight ponchos and long underwear
for sleeping we discover we have room left for exactly one change of
underwear.
Actually we all manage to fit in one spare pair of pants and a shirt as
well, not a lot for 10-day-ride- but if it doesn´t fit it´s not going.
Fortunately we´ve already discovered that the huge orange-and-black
horseflies buzzing in clouds around the camp- January -only visitors,
we´re told- prefer dark-colored and plush fabrics, so half of our
clothing has already been chucked. Even so there´s a lot of croaning and
huffing and sitting on bags before they´ll close.
Soon, however, we´re mounted up and on our way out of camp, trailing
Ernesto, our young Chilean gaucho guide, and with Manuela, Stede´s
quietly competent head hand from Vienna, riding sweep.
We ride beside the crystal Cochamo River toward the Andes, passing
stands of blooming pink foxglove and fuchsia shrubs covered in red and
purple droplets that Ernesto pops into his mouth from time to time.
Manuela warns us not to try similiar orange ones, used as a hallucinogen
by the Mapuche Indians who once roamed the area.
We clamber over boulders, across rivers, through a magnificent temperate
rain forest thick with green moss and tiny ferns, and onto remnants of
what once was a log road, built in the 1800s to keep the cattle out of
the worst of the mud. Unfortunately, Chile´s government quickly realized
the paved trail also provided an ideal invasion route for nearby
Argentina´s army, and so destroyed much of it.
At times the trail, cut into the soft soil, becomes a trench as deep as
a mounted rider, and we peer eye-level at the forest floor.
Before nightfall, after passing the remnants of an old Butch and
Sundance cabin set in a sunny field of purple yarrow and daisies, we
cross the Rio Cochamo and climb to La Junta, Campo Aventura´s mountain
camp, set beneath a granite face nearly identical to Yosemite´s Half
Dome. We´re tired but revived by a dinner of roast lamb, cooked on a
spit around a pit fire, and the prospect of a bunk in the camp´s
charming guest house.
DAY 2: La Junta to El Arco
After a breakfast of fried sopapillas smothered in blackberry jam, we
load our own horses for the first time- and consequently spend much of
the morning stopping to reposition our listing gear.
Eliane Kunzle, who teaches riding to the handicapped in Switzerland,
quietly opts to put her foam sleeping mat under the seat of her
Chilenean saddle, a deep-seated contraption topped with a
sheepskinpadded seat and leather overgirths. She is, of course, teased
for being, well, not exactly a tenderfoot.
Soon the grunting horses are plunging over drops in the trail. A hearty
"Oh my God!" wafts back from time to time.
Barbara, in imperfect Spanish, tells Ernesto she´s a little worried
about her horse´s left hind avocado(palta) rather than foot (pata).
Ernesto smiles.
We dismount to let the horses scramble through huge bolder rockfalls and
trenches of hockdeep mud. We climb over the mud, our feet firmly braced
on either side of the trench, a comical display of half-splits in midair.
Barbara, an experienced trekker from Berkeley-based Wilderness Travel,
assures us this is an accepted hiking technique. We look doubtful.
As we climb higher, back in the saddle once again, we spot a condor
circling overhead. The trees turn slowly to alerces, ancient cousins of
the redwoods and a species that has nearly vanished in most of Chile.
Here there are dozens, some more than 2000 years old.
We camp at El Arco, a stone arch vaulted over a waterfall. In the
distance high granite walls rise on all sides, the snow-capped Andes
towering beyond.
DAY 3: The mud
In the advance literature, Clark Stede had noted that "Chilean summer
weather is on the average dry.". However, "should it rain, it rains
heavily."
Overnight it rains. Heavily. We emerge from our tents in ponchos, down
our morning bread, cheese and sausage in silence under a rough shelter
of thick alerce planks, shove our soggy tents into our formerly dry
packs and prepare to ride.
We don´t ride far. Old Rainrot, as we´ve christened Barbara´s horse, a
grouchy dark bay officially known as Flashlight, whacks his hoof on a
protruding tree root and goes hopping along three-legged for a few
strides.
I wince but breathe a sigh of relief. Surely we´ll now camp an extra day
here and wait for the horse to feel better and for the trails ahead to
dry out. No such luck. Old Rainrot, as it turns out, quickly gets over
it. Soon we´re on the move again.
And soon we dismount. The mud´s too deep for the horses to carry us,
Manuela says, so we´ll walk a little.
We do walk- for nearly the rest of the seven -hour day, through some of
the muddiest hellholes from your worst nightmares- great sucking,
seething vats of mud. We sit down to lunch in the steady rain, a
cheerless meal improved only by the timely emergence from Manuela´s
saddlebag of a warming bottle of pisco sour, Chile´s national cocktail.
Even Jeb, generally a teetotaler, silently accepts a sip- and then a
slug.
With the bottle nearly gone we´re on our way again, sliping and sliding,
our sadly lightweight ponchos shredded- until we reach the point where
the trail divides into two horrifying choices: a steep climb through a
thick forest of bamboo or a slog through a long vat of mud plunging away
out of sight.
I´m exhausted, and on a happy pisco glow. As my teammates sigh and turn
to climb, I give up. I plunge in and become One With the Mud.
As its turn out, the mud is far faster and lots more fun. I slide along
on the stuff, occasionally falling into the glop. I relive my childhood.
Finally, just a half-hour from our destination, we mount our soggy
horses again, ride out of the mud onto flat farmland at the edge of
stunning Lake Vidal, pitch our tents in the rain, throw our clothes into
an agreeable farmer´s smokehouse to dry and collapse.
DAY 4: Lake Vidal
Fortunately, today has been scheduled as a rest day. My knees feel as if
they will never bend again. An even more pressing problem, however, is
the general odor in the tent. I emerge early in the morning in nothing
but my bikini and Tevas and soap myself by the farmer´s water barrel,
tossing mugfuls of freezing water over my body as the steam from my
breath rises in the misty air.
The chicken watch in amazement.
After a rejuvenating breakfast of eggs, fresk milk and the absolutely
delectable local honey we´ve come to adore, we watch a wildeyed black
goat being dragged past our now-sunny camp. Soon a goat carcass is
hanging from a pole nearby and for dinner we have fresh goat soup,
served on the family´s dinner table in their snugly warm house.
DAY 5: Lake Vidal
Still stiff, horses and riders alike, we head off this morning along
windswept Lake Vidal, riding through a heavy mist that lifts as the day
passes. For a brief three hours we follow a trail that climbs and
plunges over hills edging the 11-mile-long lake, then pull in at a farm
at the other end, one of just three settlements along the huge brilliant
blue lake.
We pitch our tents in a sunny meadow spilling away to the water, enjoy a
swim and a deep drink of the clear water and relax. The farm is home to
our giude Ernesto´s mother-in-law and where his wife, Blanca, grew up,
so for dinner we have a treat with our goat dinner: fresh lettuce and
homemade cherry cake, baked in the wood stove with the family´s tiny
stock of sugar and white flour, brought on packhorses from a trading
post several days´ride away. In this world far beyond the reach of
electricity, running water and 24-hour corner markets, the warmth of the
hospitality is as moving as the scenery.
After dinner, we toss biots of goat fat to the family´s chickens and
soon are treated to a race: "There´s the white chicken in the lead," Jeb
calls it," and the speckled chicken coming up fast on the outside..."
Soon small pigs are galloping behind the chickens, who burst into short
flights when the pigs get too close. The family´s small children fall in
behind the pigs, and soon we´re all laughing too hard to breathe.
As we stroll to our tents, the sky is a blaze of stars scattered across
a rich Milky Way, the Southern Cross blazing just above the horizon.
DAY 6: Leaving Lake Vidal
This morning we heft our packs onto the hourses only to find our hosts
doing the same- they´re headed to Bariloche, the Vail of Argentina, for
a shopping trip that will take a week or so.
We nibble on tiny blue berries ripe on a low-lying shrub along the
trail, then follow the path as it dives steeply to the rushing Manso
River.
Here we leave our hosts, who follow the trail to Bariloche, while we
take the even older cattle trail through the Rio Manso Valley, a World
Heritage site designated for its remote beauty.
The near-vertical trail climbs the side of the Andean valley, affording
stunning views of the river pounding through the narrow canyon below.
The horses climb with hardly a pause to pant along a narrow trail edged
with yellow lillies and pink foxglove.
By late afternoon the rain has started again. We ride over the last
steep hills to a ramshackle farmhouse, where we race to get our tents up
in a field overlooking the roaring river far below.
I crawl into my sleeping bag, worried that the sole of my boot will not
survive another day of rain. Karla, who had made a sitting dismount from
her horse, Dakota, on one part of the steep trail, also had managed to
step in a hole and thrown her back out slightly. Eliane´s sleeping bag
stinks so badly she can hardly bear it. Jeb has repaired his ripped rain
poncho with the last of Barbara´s tent repair tape.
I look at my tattered poncho and will the rain to stop by morning.
DAY 7: Manso River Valley
Of course it doesn´t. Using green mint dental floss I sew up the front
of my poncho, put a plastic bag over my foot and trudge up the hill on a
boot now held together by a shoelace and two bits of rubber tubing.
The rain falls on and off all day, but thankfully the brutally steep
trail is rocky rather than muddy. In the afternoon, we ride into a broad
valley and come across a small country store. Sure enough, among the
bags of rice and bars of soap, there´s a pair of black rubber farm
boots, miraculously in just my size. The bill is $15. We all down sodas
and chocolate bars in celebration and buy a fourpack of toilet paper.
Before dusk, our poncho gathered about us in a cold rain, we arrive at a
ranch sprawled along a rocky stretch of the Manso River under the
snow-capped Andes looming overhead. Barbara and I decide to sleep in the
farmer´s toasty smokehouse on a pile of old sheepskins rather than brave
the soggy tent. Instead we´re invited into the family´s house and shown
to beds with thick wool mattresses topped with foot-thick, fluffed-down
comforters. We look at each other in guilty delight and dive in, blowing
out our candle as the rain pours down outside.
DAY 8: Lake Tagua - Tagua
This morning, a new adventure- a ferry ride across Lake Tagua-Tagua on a
wooden barge towed with a pair of ski ropes by an Evinrude-powered
speedboat.
The horses balk, and I´m a little suspicious myself. Soon, however we´ve
all been dragged onboard and are chugging down the lake, past rushing
waterfalls.
We camp at the far side of the lake on a black-sand beach near a grove
of trees. The lake is an inviting Caribbean blue-green and I go in for a
swim, emerging fresh and hypothermic.
DAY 9: Manso River Valley
We wake to sunshine and the bellowing of cows echoing off the walls of
the lake canyon. Hefting our red saddle rolls one last time, we mount up
and ride off alone the edge of the lake and the Puelo River below.
We pass a little church, its tin roof and cemetary crosses painted baby
blue, and a series of waterfalls. The road turns to gravel. |
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