We’ve been quite enchanted with Chiles Lakes Region, a series of mountain ranges and volcanoes surrounding large dark bodies of water, but in the Spring it’s not warm enough to swim for people like us so it’s been a spectator sport.
We camped above the town of Frutillar for a couple of nights repacking our clothes and stowing our summer clothes for the next few weeks. We are entering in the coldest stretch of our trip trying to reach Ushuaia before the official start of summer when Argentina goes on vacation and reportedly floods the place.
We slithered down the very steep hill from the campground and landed in the arms of a cake lady selling “küchen” a German word imported by immigrants 160 years ago and retained by modern Chileans.
Rusty wanted to explore more than baked goods.
She bakes it all herself and when I complained my wife loves to cook not bake, she laughed and said no one’s perfect. My raspberry cheesecake slice was pretty close all the same.
Frutillar is dedicated to preserving its waterfront architecture and we drove it all to find the German museum.
Some of it is more modern.
Bernardo Phillipi was a German who decided in 1842 to explore and map the Lake District, an area where indigenous tribes had fought off Spanish and later Chilean settlers for two hundred years. He was born in Prussia in 1811, grew up in Switzerland and after several visits to South America he settled in Chile in 1838.
The German Colonial Museum in Frutillar was our goal to see how those early settlers from the German state of Hesse learned to cope with life on the frontier.
They brought their German technology with them and they also brought artisans to make tools, repair machinery and build water mills for power.
Philippi led the drive to give Germans a new home in southern Chile and he became enough of a public figure he was made governor of the southern region of the country. But he died young, 41 years old murdered while trying to peacefully settle a dispute among locals in the town of Punta Arenas.
He left his mark around here though and even though he had to double tradesmen’s wages to convince them to come to the new world they built a flourishing community here.
They had a fire department founded in 1911 and they struggled to bring new equipment into a town that was still quite isolated:
And to this day they celebrate the founding of the city’s fire brigade called “Germania.”
The climate in these parts id do miserable they built threshing barns in this peculiar shape:
During harvest they would bring the wheat in, thresh it and store it in here out of the rain. They also garaged their machines inside, away from the weather.
When I was a child my family in Italy used one of these stationary threshing machines. Layne was astounded I could explain to her how it worked.
There was some discussion also of the settlers bringing native plants from Germany to mix it up with local ornamentals and the formal gardens they built in the European style.
I guess they needed some distraction as life wasn’t easy, dawn to dusk chores and jobs done by hand.
I have seen a lot of interest among people who think they want to go back to the land and live off their own labor but I am not one of them.
Layne remarked our bed in the van is a full sized queen unlike the settlers here.
It reminded me a lot of the Amish technophobe societies I’ve seen back home.
And the smithy. They had a motion sensor that set off a tape recording of a hammer on an anvil to give the younger generation some understanding of a blacksmith’s work.
“Path suitable for the elderly”
I doubt I’d have been tough enough to be a pioneer.
The interior of the roof of the waterfront gazebo:
One person was actually swimming but he was young and we must forgive him his impetuosity. There was a sign up the street saying it was safe to bathe off the black volcanic beach but the season starts next month of course. Too cold for me in any event as it was barely 60 degrees as we walked around.
The cathedral-like building in the background is a waterfront playhouse. Chile is very civilized.
If you need a brainteaser on your constitutional you could set yourself to learn sign language I suppose. Chile is also slightly weird.
City hall proudly flying the German flag.
We deftly parked right next to a sign saying “No RV parking” which Layne photographed with much glee. I ignored it hoping it would go away. I had read in iOverlander of people sleeping on the waterfront while others noted that was illegal. I had no idea they didn’t want us parking there even during the day. I bet it’s enforced during summer tourist madness. As it was a van from Argentina was parked a couple of blocks away like us.
And the day ended as nearly all do, here in almost Patagonia.
