Penultimate Installment

Summer break is over here in Eugene, and I am still writing about summer break starting in Chile in January! The drive back to Valparaíso was uneventful. The high point of the drive was when we took some photos of a giant copper smelting plant which took about 5 minutes to drive through. Copper is used for all kinds of stuff from medicine to space shuttles according to the billboards along the road, and is one of the most lucrative industries in Chile.


Getting close to Valp'o, the traffic became pretty thick. When we had left there was almost none, but summer vacation was gearing up into full swing for the New Year! Charles and Reida showed up at Kate and John's, and we started a new segment of the trip together. First we explored the Casablanca Valley wine region for a day since we still had the car. Kate and John had to work so we were on our own for navigation, but there is only one big road out of Valp'o east towards Santiago, and that's the Casablanca Valley, so we did OK. We ate lunch at a vineyard calledIndomita . The architecture of the building was too much in my opinion, but the food, wine, service and setting were fabulous.



After lunch we had a bit of trouble getting across the highway to our other vineyard, Emiliana, and missed our tour reservation, but they still did a wonderful tasting for us. It was very civilized--sitting at a table with a bi-lingual hostess who poured us hearty tastes of their delicious bio-dynamic wines and told us about the discovery of the Carmenere varietal which had been thought extinct (and was in Europe), but which some visiting European vintner found among the Merlot vines in Chile. It's a delicious varietal; try it if you ever find it. It has more oomph than Merlot, but is easier to take than a big Cabernet or Pinot Noir. This was a lovely vineyard with guinea hens and chickens running about and flowers everywhere; I quite liked their building as well!



Another day while Kate and John were busy dealing with their real lives, Charles, Reida, Seth and I went traipsing about Valparaíso. The city is made of steep watersheds running down to the sea, which create a succession of hills. Each hill is a neighborhood with it's own particular flavor. The famous Chileno poet Pablo Neruda had one of his several houses/wives/mistresses in Valp'o, at the very top of the road system on one of these hills and it is now a museum. It is called La Sebastiana, and you can only take pictures through the windows to the outside (the views are quite lovely), but you really should patiently check out this website: http://www.fundacionneruda.org/imagenes_sebastiana.htm as he was one goofy quirky collector of a man. His houses and belongings were all partially destroyed/stolen by the Pinochet regime (they didn't like people speaking for the common man, and that was what he did) but this foundation retrieved/restored several of his houses around the country.

One day, as Reida and Kate are both very horse-y types (and Charles holds his own) we went on a little trail ride through the hills East of Valp'o at a place called Caballo Puro. They had some awesomely expensive horses there (not the ones people like us got to ride) and one of the hands told us (Kate) about them and all the security they have to have as horse theft is crazy-common. It was a pretty nice place with a nice restaurant and all, but they were a little disorganized, and maybe trying to rip us off the tiniest bit (that's just how things work some places), so Kate had to pull out her "Crazy (yet entirely fluent in Castellano) Gringa personality" to get things straightened out. It was awesome to sit back and watch her "negotiate." I had the nicest horse in the world (Mariposa --means butterfly, and also a kind of Lily), but I could barely move afterwards--oh my achin' knees! I did it though, and we did get a nice view of the landscape. Somehow John managed to slip out of this one. Hmmm.










Each day brought a new mini adventure it seems. On yet another day we headed down for a day trip to the quaint little fishing village of Quintay (notice it has all the letter of quaint right in its name!) which used to have a whaling station but since that is not so legal anymore, one of the universities in Santiago has turned it into a marine science research facility. That is where Kate was about to have her special summer course, which Charles was down there to teach part of, which led to this whole trip we all took to Chile in the first place. Being guests of Kate we got a nice long tour. Their main focus it seems is to help create methods of raising nursery stock of commercially important fish which can be released into their real habitats, thus helping maintain fisheries without the problems that come with many fish farming operations. They had pretty much figured out the conger eel (which is delicious and hearty and a favorite there, and which is not really an eel) and are now working on sea urchins! We saw tiny baby ones which I could barely even photograph they were so small (but they looked just the same!).

We just spent the afternoon in Quintay, but Charles and Reida went back after we left for the course of course and reported that the little restaurant on the beach was most excellent!

Then we headed back to Valp'o for New Year's weekend, when things really get going down there!

Mission Impossible

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: narrow down 535 photos to a manageable amount for your blog without putting the readers who aren't your mother to sleep:


Well, the Andes are too big to leave out, so I'll start there. This is as much as we saw them, but even from an airplane they were quite impressive. This was taken on a flight to Chiloé, which is the first big chunk that has gotten detached down where Chile starts to turn into an archipelago on the South-West coast. How did we ever choose where to spend our limited time in this diverse country, you ask? John and his sister Joan grew up in Chile, so Joan and her husband, Dan, decided to purchase a vacation home down there near a little town called Dalcahue (which means the place where dalca--traditional boats--are made), where one of the members of one of their oldest and closest "family friends family" lives with her Chilean husband and their family. It was nice to have such a fine reason to choose this attractive, yet mellow region, which may be easily overlooked by most tourists.

Kate and John arranged for us all to fly down to Puerto Montt where we rented a car and drove to the ferry to Chiloé. John informed us that for years there has been a huge political debate about building a bridge across this channel. The Pan-American Highway goes across on the ferries (see the semi?), but the water is swift, shifty and very deep, so that's basically impossible and would wreck the marine environment/cost a ton to build, but they have to talk about it every few years. Political wrangling over boondoggles is alive and well everywhere I guess.
Anyhow, Seth and I love ferries and had a great time on our crossing. We saw PENGUINS swimming along nearby and humongous pelicans and some sea lions and it was sunny and it was our second full day in Chile and it was sunny and we were happy. Well, we were happy except that by now I had realized I didn't have my binoculars and I wanted to beat my head against hard stationary objects in self-chastisement every time I saw anything cool a bit far away. [When we made it home to Eugene after 3 weeks of this feeling, it turns out that we think maybe they were stolen from my bag while it was lost for a day on our way there. Still a bummer, but at least not my fault!]




One of the larger towns on the north side of the island is called Ancud. We had a great time exploring the market, buying cheese, and machas (clam-like deliciousness). Although it looked really cool, we did not buy any dried shellfish or dried kelp. Unfortunately I did not take any pictures at our first feria artesenal. It had the best knit wear and woven items of all the places we eventually visited there. When we got out of the car, I thought we were just looking for a cake for the niece's birthday. That taught me not to carry my camera everywhere! The yarn was all quickly spun singles of rough wool (very rainy down there, not good for fine fiber sheep), but the designs were quite creative. Here I am just now modeling some of my purchases.
That incredible hand-woven, bi-color shawl with elegant crocheted edging cost under $20!! The socks were $3!

In general we found the things that were only for tourists, such as hotels, to be a bit spendy for what you got, but all the things intended mostly for regular Chileans, such as socks and food, to be relatively affordable.





Dan and Joan's house is like summer camp, one big room with a kitchen, dining and sitting area at one end, than a bunch of twin beds separated by big window blinds in between. I was so excited because I never got to go to summer camp. Ok, so maybe their house is a little spiffier than most camp cabins. Still, I had fun living my little fantasy. This is a tidal channel and when the tide goes out dozens of birds swim or fly in to do their bird things on the mudflats. Nifty gulls, a big hawkish thing called a caracara, parrots, black neck swans, and many more. Mom would love sitting with her morning coffee and bird watching out the big front window. I know I did. People who know me well will laugh to hear I was always among the first 3 people up while I was down there! Didn't want to miss a second of summer camp.

One of our field trips was to go with the up the hill neighbor, Michael to the mussel farm that he helps manage. It was huge. We learned all about the life cycle of the mussel and the mechanics of farming them. Each of these rows of floats has TEN kilometers of line attached up and down in loops 10 meters deep.We saw all sorts of groovy gooey squirmy sea creatures/plants among the mussels. Quite a few folks sampled the mussels raw with lemon juice and declared them delicious. I'll have to take their words for it!Nothing like a bright orange P.F.D. to make one look one's best.

After we got off the little boat we wandered up the little hill in the little hamlet and looked at the little old church. The shingles all over Chiloé are amazing. There are several profiles, but this is the only place I took close up photos. The shingles are made of a type of wood that is from a slow growing tree (whose name I've forgotten..Kate?) which can live for 3,000 years. It is of course quite rare now, and it's use is supposed to be tightly regulated, but there are loopholes (surprise, surprise). The shingles really do last a long time. What a patina. The churches all have this beautifully simple yet graceful aspect to them.

The graveyard was the most amazing jumble of a place I'd ever been. One of my 5th graders described it this way: "It looks like they just did it themselves!" This was a pretty shocking idea to an American kid, and it describes it perfectly.



Other nifty things in Chiloé were the giant gunnera plants

and the seaweed that looked like plastic which people would collect to sell for agar production.




Such a rich environment. Too bad the ozone hole is right down there. Put on that sunscreen.
Oh, and don't forget the neighbors' sheep who wander about the adjoining property! Like I said, they aren't the finest wool, but they are apparently quite sturdy and yield plenty of wool for the ferias arteseñales (artisan craft markets) to be quite well stocked with woolen items.


They also use various local plants to make woven animals and trivets--which retain their lovely naturally grassy scent.

It was nice to see so many things that were clearly locally made. It always makes me sad when I travel and see that Chinese made trinkets have replaced local handcraft. There's some of that in Chile of course, but it seemed much less common than in Mexico. Also there are mostly just regular stores. There are big groceries and department stores, but they haven't taken over every community like the big red-T or the bigger W-mart chains have here.

Wake up! There's plenty more where this came from. Go make yourself a cup of nice strong fair-trade organic shade-grown coffee, and gird yourself for the next installment!

Fiber Dreamland--Picture Heavy Post!

Another highlight of my summer was our local spinning group's (The Ewes) annual summer retreat with the incredible Judith MacKenzie McCuin. We hire her to come be our teacher for a very small retreat of her and 11 students.  We spent 4 nights at the idyllic Siltcoos Station, which is owned by Lane Community College and which you can rent for educational purposes.
Siltcoos is a big lake (complete with a Lake Monster named Silly--though some think it's Nessie come halfway around the world through secretive means)

We each cooked only a meal or two which left plenty of time for fiber exploration.
Our theme this year was "Yarn Design." Judith helped each of us with individual questions, and in her amazing way taught us so much without it ever feeling like a "class." 

We learned about different plying techniques, techniques for spinning different types of fiber, matching commercial or previously spun yarns, sampling to get the yarn you want instead of the one you make by default, and a lot about dying with Judith's pretty much non-toxic Mother MacKenzie's Miracle Dyes.
She was so much fun to work with! She sprinkles in all kinds of stories, tales and historical/anthropological information as she teaches. Nothing seems to phase her. I can do things with her nearby that seem impossible on my own (though I know theoretically that they're not since I DID manage them at least once). "Be calm," she says if things go awry, because she always can find a way out of the trouble. This was my first time being able to attend (note the 11 person limit) and I now see why so many Ewes plan their summers around this event!

 

One of the neatest things we did was learn about the renaissance of sericulture (silk production) in Kenya. One of the Ewes, Gwen (that's not her), has been making long visits to Kenya for many years now, and she brought back pictures of the sericulture revival as well as a whole bunch of "seconds" cocoons. 

We cut the silk worms (who were done in through non-toxic baking in big clay ovens) out of cocoons and de-gummed them (the cocoons that is--I took the crunchy worms to my friends' chickens later that week) in a bath of hot water and baking soda. At first the smell was a bit nasty, but after awhile it kind of grew on me.  A few we spread out as an experimental silk hankie. 

The rest we dyed with Judith's dyes 

and learned how to spin straight from the cocoons on our wheels.

It makes thread-like "yarn," and I doubt I will ever have the patience to spin enough to actually make a useful item from them, but it certainly is beautiful. 

I think mine (which I wrapped around a nostepinde and is only about an inch tall but must have at least 25  yards of "yarn")

 looks like a hummingbird nest.

My other favorite activity was using the enormous electric carders which Judith's husband Nick makes.
They are about two feet wide and have motors

 strong enough to run an outboard boat engine. I joked to one of the Ewes, Renee, whose husband loves to fish, that they could run their boat with her carder so they would both have something they loved to do out on the water!  

As the carders are so sturdy and big, they are pretty durned expensive, but I got so much fleece carded that I don't think I'll need to card for quite awhile longer.

Hempsy-Woolsy and Rugby-Bear both accompanied me to the retreat and had a lovely time. We saw bear scat in the driveway, but luckily they were the only bears we met in "person."  They're still napping a lot to recover from all the excitement.

So, if you want me to come visit you next summer, it had better not be in the second half of July, because I'll be planning my summers differently now myself! 

Be calm.