I wake up and go to take my shower and there’s no hot water! I’m running the hot water tap hoping that the water will soon heat up. But there is a flood on the floor! Water is pouring out of the base boards and flooding the bathroom. There must be a leak behind the wall. Now there’s a nice start to the morning–no shower today. We have a pretty nice breakfast at the hotel but I wish I had those great home-made biscuits. Howard avoids Scott like the plague at meal time (and in the car). Karen and Bill sit with him at breakfast and she later tells me that Scott said he’d been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome as a child. Didn’t I tell you!! I try to get on the website for our cash account to find out if our account has been compromised but I’m not successful. So I bite the bullet and call Capital One (at $3.50/minute). After what seemed like 100 minutes the lady says that there’s no such account. So I hang up and put it out of my mind. We stop at the mercado in town and Bill and Karen find wines with a pretty bird label so they buy a few bottles (at about $5/bottle vs. the $15 or $20 we’ve been paying). I have the beginnings of a cold and happily I find throat losenges. Then we’re off to the Tamango Reserve looking for wildlife, interesting people photos and the waterfall on the Rio Salto. On the way we see workers along the side of the road picking rose hips from the ubiquitous wild rose bushes.
We stop and get pictures of them.
They say the rose hips will be used for Vitamin C and beauty products. When we get to the falls Jonathan talks up the old couple living in the ancient house on the property. He is a charmer and speaks Spanish with incredible ease. So then everyone is taking pictures of the toothless woman and the old man in a beret. It’s raining and the photos of the falls will not be great but everyone gives it a try. Our next stop is the estancia in Valle Chacabuco. This property is to be the future Patagonia National Park if all goes well with the Chilean government. I don’t have the full story on this but here’s what I know: Doug Tompkins, who created the companies Northface and Esprit (and sold them for big bucks, I guess), and his wife Kristine are big on South America habitat conservation. They have set up a nonprofit organization called “Conservacion Patagonica.” This organization purchased the estancia Valle Chacabuco to improve and then donate to the Chilean government IF the Chilean government will declare it a national park and preserve it. If the Chilean government follows through with this plan this property and two adjoining protected areas will total 380,000 hectares. Concervacion Patagonia is raising money to improve the property. The improvements include a lodge (hotel), welcome center with restaurant, workers quarters and energy saving equipment such as solar and a small hydroelectric project on the creek. Rex told us about this before we left the states. I got on the website for Conservacion Patagonicac and made a donation. We arrive to find an incredibly beautiful, luxurious lodge.
There are 6 guest rooms, a large living/community room with bar
, and well-equipped kitchen. The exterior of the lodge is made of local stone. The interior is is filled with gorgeous carved wood bookcases, closets cabinets and furnished like Ralph Lauren. We get settled and have a nice happy hour with Karen and Bill’s good wine. Before dinner the staff give us a overview of the project and expectations of the future. There has been at least one large contribution from a charitable foundation. That resulted in the completion of a private luxury residence to host big donors to the project. Projects to be completed in the future include solar electric equipment, all the trails within the estancia and connecting to the 2 other adjoining conservation areas, camp ground amenities and other projects to transform the estancia into a national park. Several of us cannot see the connection between the opulent, over-the-top lodgings that have been completed and the goal of a national park.
We discuss this with the woman who is our host. She says that Doug Tompkins has a love of aesthetics and that was his vision for the buildings. But after giving us the “company line” she confesses that she has a difficult time reconciling the two. I’m not sure we would have made a contribution if we had seen the property first. The goal of a national park is admirable and a high priority before this wilderness is destroyed. But the monetary resources could have been used for the required, more basis needs for the future park. And these gorgeous buildings eventually will be given to the government of Chile so that makes it all the more perplexing. The staff and volunteers prepare a wonderful dinner for us. We have a great hearts of palm salad, corn, wonderful potatoes and local beef. Dessert is a local-style pudding with fruit. The generator is turned off at 11 and we won’t have electricity until 8am tomorrow. I set up candles in the bathroom before we go to bed. Tomorrow I will shower by candlelight.