Santiago > Puerto Montt > Balmaceda > Coyhaique

A two-day post here folks, written on 3/7 and 3/8, respectively: 

3/7: 

Today we toured a lovely vineyard on the edge of Santiago – I stayed up too late the night before, so I was pretty exhausted all day, but managed to pull it together to enjoy the last day with the other Fulbright folks. I talked with an older professor who is from Minnesota – he and his wife both received their graduate degrees from the University. I instantly fell in love with a tall Mediterranean-ish tree that I’ve seen in films of Italy and such (cypress?). The vineyard also had an excellent garden, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were hiring any garden staff…Aside from the lack of water, paradise! Despite having just met the other Fulbright students the day before, I felt a good deal of internal resistance upon departing that afternoon. Being around other students from the U.S. (trying to avoid the word ‘Americans’) instantly brought me back to my time in Venezuela, when we toured Latin America in a giant party bus and had a smashing good time. At the same time, I was ready to say goodbye to the smog and the traffic of Santiago, and head south!

I took an Uber to the airport (illegal in Chile, but very affordable compared to the taxi drivers, who charge foreigners extra), and then hopped on a plane to Puerto Montt. I arrived around midnight, with 11 hours until my flight to Balmaceda. So I did a super adult thing and found a nearby cabañita for $50 to sleep and not have to worry about someone stealing my weather stations – the gentleman picked me up from the airport for free and will drop me off in the morning! I was just a bit pleased when he guessed that my accent was from Brazil – so my Spanish is not quite Chilean, but it’s not quite gringo. After learning Spanish from Venezuelans who speak very slowly, it’s been pretty difficult keeping up with the Chileans, who speak so damn fast! I’ll figure it out – still lots of vocab to learn as well.

3/8: 

The hosts of the cabañita made an excellent breakfast of coffee, eggs, cheese, and toast! We had a nice chat, and then I headed back to the airport, flew to Balmaceda, and arrived around noon. I nearly wept on the bus ride from Balmaceda to Coyaique: unbelievably beautiful country, a foggy combination of Colorado and California, lofty peaks, golden meadows, dense green forests, sheep grazing on hillsides, more of the lovely tall (cypress?) trees.

In Coyhaique, I was welcomed by housemate Carén, and quickly came to love the place I’ll be staying: very simple space, no fridge/freezer, apple and peach orchard in back, views of mountains on all sides, shared food system, friendly cat, and unexpectedly, wi-fi! I strolled downtown and couldn’t help but notice the pervasiveness of the woodsmoke. Nearly every house in Coyhaique has a woodstove for both heating and cooking…I met up with my advisor, Dr. Brian Reid at the Universidad de Aysén, and when I brought up the woodsmoke, his response was, ‘wait until the winter, it’s like a forest fire. worst air quality in the western hemisphere’ (he lives 30 minutes outside of town). Needless to say, this experience has me a bit concerned about my ability to remain in Coyhaique for the next nine months. I’m going to start putting out some feelers for a space outside of town, but this would also require transportation… There are some other student researchers around who might be into a car-sharing scheme of some sort, and/or have leads on different housing. That said, maybe I can just minimize the time I spend in Coyhaique and try to be in the field as much as possible and camp frequently? But I hesitate to commit to a place where I don't really want to go outside. 

There are some traveling folk camping in the backyard and tonight, wine, beer, and jams made for a great welcome! I'm still pretty exhausted, so we'll see how the weekend goes, and figure it out from there -- I need to jump through a couple more bureaucratic hoops to register my visa on Monday, so it makes sense to be here for the time being. My advisor is in the field until March 20 (!), so I'm pretty much on my own to start working on the project we proposed....He left me a number of contacts so I'll just start chatting and see where this goes.