Senderismo

I finally got my boots muddy.

Well, the trip to the Valdivian Coastal Reserve turned out to be tremendously cool. Apparently the Reserve doesn't host many backpackers. When we stopped by the Nature Conservancy's office in Valdivia, the lady there reacted as if it were the most novel thing she had ever heard. "I have a couple of people here who want to go to the Reserve!" She explained to the park ranger over the phone.* It also took a while to communicate to the rangers that we didn't want a cabin, or a campsite, or bathrooms, or a firepit, or a two-mile loop trail. "We really just need a map please," we told them. Eventually we did get the idea across and a bus schedule although they didn't have any maps for us.

About three eighths of the fun was just getting to the trailhead. Early in the morning (8:30 is early for me here), we caught a bus from the end of our neighborhood towards a little town on the coast called Niebla. From Niebla we boarded a lancha, kind of like a floating bus, for the half hour trip to Corral on the other side of the bay.

I snapped this picture of some fishing boats from deck of the lancha. In the background is the Island of Mancera, home of a small fishing village and an old Spanish fort.

Jessie was my partner in crime for the weekend. Behind her you can see the town of Corral.

We had an hour to explore Corral and to find bleach to treat our water with, and then we boarded a rural bus headed towards Chaihuin. It was about an hour ride along a pot-hole filled gravel road past some beautiful coastline. Chaihuin is a small fishing/farming/tourism community that for some reason doesn't appear on most maps of the area. There we found the headquarters for the rangers of the Coastal reserve. They were very helpful in providing information about where to visit in the reserve and where to find food, lodging, and guides in Chaihuin. Apparently there are some amazing stands of alerce, "the sequoias of Chile" in the reserve. One particular tree there is well over 2,000 years old. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the alerces because they were too far from our intended destination,

a beach called Playa Colun.

Much to my dismay, the headquarters didn't have any topographical maps except for a 4'x8' wooden model of the park, so we pretty much had to rely on verbal directions as far as navigation goes. Over the phone I had been led to believe that the reserve had trails for trekking and areas marked out for backcountry camping. This turned out not be the case; camping within the reserve is actually not allowed. However, once we explained again at length that we really only needed a flat place to put our tent, it was indicated to us that the rangers typically turn a blind eye to this sort of thing and that you can probably find a good spot to pitch a tent here, or here...

We ended up having to hire a pickup truck and driver (for about twenty bucks) to g

et to the trailhead, which was another twelve miles inside the reserve. The driver, Eduardo, was a cool guy, a commercial fisherman in-between boats. He got his four wheel drive truck stuck in the mud about two miles from the trailhead, but he walked the rest of the way with us to make sure we didn't get lost. We arranged to meet him at the nearest gravel road in two days time and made our way down towards the beach.

It was glorious with sun and a clear blue sky (the weather forecast had called for rain all day). The beach was huge, and, apart from a couple of huasos on horseback we passed before getting there, we didn't see another soul.

Playa Colun is huge, about six and a half miles of sand backed by dunes and cliffs. We hiked along the dunes sometimes, under the cliffs sometimes, and sometimes right next to the ocean.

The dunes were beautiful and full of cows. Every mile or so we would come across another group of bovines peacefully grazing in the sand.

We found a couple of waterfalls, a cave, a shipwreck (well... more of a boatwreck really), and a lagoon on our first day of hiking.

Some of the dunes are really big: the trees on the left side of the photo above are about 70 ft tall and are being slowly eaten by the dune.

We decided to camp in the saddle between two dunes the first night. From our campsite, we had a view of the rainforest, the ocean, a lagoon, and the dunes all at the same time. The second day was spent exploring the dunes and the lagoons.

Beach Cows!

An overlook of one of the lagoons.

On the third day we hiked the back up the length of the beach and found an incredible trail over the cliffs on the other end. I forgot to take my camera, but there are some incredible pics of a giant rock arch over the ocean on Jessie's point and shoot. I'll try to steal some when I can.

Here we go.

We also stopped for an incredibly cold yet invigorating shower in a waterfall. The water was so frigid and was pounding down so hard that it was hard to keep my balance. I was sent reeling and nearly fell a couple of times while trying to rinse the soap out of my hair.

My trusty boots, after well over a thousand miles of service, finally gave out on this trip. Miles of wet sand split the soles. I may have to wait until I get back to the States to replace them though. It's damned expensive buying wilderness gear in Chile.

After getting back to Chaihuin, we found little restaurant at the bus stop. You had to enter through the kitchen, and the menu was whatever the lady happened to be cooking at the time, which turned out to be empanadas de loquito (fried shellfish pasties). It was quite tasty.

For whatever reason, the bus to Corral never showed up. According to various sources around town, either the owner/driver was sick or he was in Santiago or the bus was broken. Everyone agreed, however, that since it hadn't arrived by now, it definitely wasn't going to. Luckily, our friend Eduardo offered to give us a lift for another 10,000 pesos, so we were able to get back to Valdivia more or less on time.

En fin, the Coastal Reserve is a great wilderness for backpacking for its combination of fantastic scenery and near-complete isolation. We'll have to go back sometime to see those ancient trees.

*All quotations are translated (poorly) by me.