Lake Calafquén

A year ago I turned 66 in El Salvador with a tropical storm coming ashore. This year I’m sitting on the shore of a lake surrounded by mountains in southern Chile. I find retirement to my liking. 

I am fond of Thanksgiving and shall be sorry to not be home for it again this year but being born on Halloween requires one to acrept everybody will plan to dress up for the day. I used to go to work in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts and say I was a Key West tourist. Even here Halloween has its adherents.

“My earnings from my work are buried here.”

She reversed the usual trick or treat program and surprised me by giving a delicious marshmallow to the birthday boy. 

This is a lovely spot to have a birthday.  A local pizza was as good as I’ve had anywhere and a bottle of Chilean champagne washed it down. And the chocolate cake. A good day.

And thank you for the birthday wishes. I was indeed born on Halloween almost exactly on the Greenwich meridian in Rose Hill Cottage Hospital in Dorking in England. My mother was Italian and I grew up bilingual which influences my Spanish. 

The lake front walk. 

The two brothers who appear to own the campground. The one with the cane met us yesterday after we entered the empty lot with no one in it and we took a space before he hobbled out to let us know he has prostate cancer and was napping when we arrived. We murmured our sympathy not a little taken aback. That was a fairly robust introduction and all we had to offer in return was Layne’s modest little skin cancer, dismissed with a change of subject by our host. 

His brother told us they have another brother who married Up North and lives in the US but keeps a house down here for vacations. You can see why. 

A cold breeze blows off the lake as the sun warms the land and its bracing. 

Chile’s Lake District. 

A new world to explore. 



I don’t doubt in summer, January to March, it’s packed. 

“Look after the water” and you’ll notice there is no trash. 

No camping and no camp fires. That’s why we pay $20 a night for hot showers clean toilets and electricity… and because we are rule followers. The fine for transgressors is between one half and five times the minimum monthly wage. That’s normal Latin American practice for setting fines, a multiplication of the minimum wage. 

In a straight line it’s 1600 miles to get to the bottom of the continent. We don’t drive straight lines so it will be further. Probably much further even though it feels close. 

And as Webb Chiles noted to me it requires crossing the Straits of Magellan. Doubtless a rough ferry ride to come. 

Mountains and lakes. 

I think the nod to an indigenous tongue is Mapuche, long since practically exterminated and now revered in the modern style of tipping the hat to those who came before. 

The town of Coñaripe:



Home sweet home. 

Not a bad place to spend a birthday. 

Homes for rent too if you don’t have your own home on wheels. Not a bad escape from winter Up North. 

Pucón

We were at the travel agent’s office in the lakeside town of Pucón organizing car insurance for Argentina (six months coverage $120) and we incautiously told the very nice lady owner of the shop we liked the area so much we’d like to drop back in during the summer. The border is barely fifty miles away in the Andes.

A look of horror crossed her face. “Summer?” she said. “Oh no. Summers are awful here. The place is packed. This is the best possible time of year.” Which rang some bells for us as former residents of high traffic tourist destinations.

A spring day mid week in the little town of Pucón seemed quite pleasant to our tourist eyes. The street dogs are well fed and cared for sleeping in their thick fur coats in the flower beds. Our own formerly stray dog enjoyed strutting his leash around town enough that by dark he was laid out on his bed filling GANNET2 with deep long reverberating snores. 

I am told people come here to enjoy frozen water and cold mountain air in the winter, aberrations that we happily avoided in our working life by hiding in Key West but this alpine theme is visible everywhere around town. 

In summer water sports are the theme and there are outfitters everywhere selling high end name brand clothing and fashionable equipment that you would see anywhere in the most fashionable gathering spots in the world. 

Just in case you were wondering we got excellent fruits and vegetables and local cheeses on the street like you might in any South American street scene but Chile is clean tidy and orderly. And I like it. 

We checked out a liquor store with embarrassingly inexpensive Chilean wines, between $3 and $10 a bottle mostly and some “American cut” chips. Perhaps that means rippled. The US is still the trend setter I guess, speaking as someone who wouldn’t know a trend if it bit him in the backside. 

They also sell pickles in a bag. My Jewish wife pounced. 

The Chilean peso is about a thousand to one against the US dollar. 

I can see why European travelers are so keen to reach Peru and Bolivia as they come from a continent of strangulating order and conformity mirrored by these countries in the southern tip of South America. For them the dust and colorful chaos of poverty and indigenous costumes and street markets and stuff is exciting and exotic. For us, who have trudged in the opposite direction for more than a year the calm orderly cleanliness of Chile is a refreshing change, a breath of fresh clean air. We filled our tank yesterday with clean potable water from a hose. Imagine that…

You can see for yourselves why the lakes of Chile might put one in mind of Aspen or Switzerland. And we had a $100 lunch in a Spanish restaurant. Chile comes at a price. 

I am strongly reminded of Europe, various countries at various times and this site was Spain through and through. Chileans aren’t necessarily clothes horses or fashionistas  like you might imagine. In most countries the wearing of shorts by adults is frowned upon and reveals you to be a tourist. Here Chileans wear shorts and jeans and can be as scruffy as the scruffiest overlander even if their clothes labels may be high end for the discerning. Down here puffy jackets and boots are a kind of fashion accessory required by the climate so I expect their tastes run to expensive peasant wear. 

I am told the food is of interest. Here we shared an appetizer of shrimp and calamari rings with lemon garlic and parsley. It is a dish from Galicia we were told. 

Layne had lamb chops that she savaged and Rusty got the leftovers when we returned to GANNET2. I had a Spanish steak smothered in sweet red peppers and garlic. The potatoes are sliced thin, apparently a Spanish style and very good, crisp but not overly salty. Oh and sangria to wash it all down. 

And then we shared a dulce de leche mousse, a sea of it in a glass chalice fit to drown in.  Two coffees and we didn’t need dinner. 

A memorable meal before my birthday. 

We could have sat on the sidewalk but frankly it was a bit too brisk for us at 65 degrees on a partly cloudy afternoon. The fireplace was quite lovely and the heat it radiated was welcome for us tropically inclined people. 

Time to walk off some of lunch around town. 

We also discovered Jack Daniel’s and Coke in a can. I wanted to try one because advertising works. As you can see we park our 21 foot van most places and sticking out a bit isn’t the end of the world. Low garage roofs defeat and annoy us. 

Pick your favorite resort town anywhere and it might look like this: 

Lake Villarica: 

And on to our next lake through gorgeous Spring countryside. 

My sister called me from Italy for my birthday (67) and I asked how her grumpy husband was doing as they are ten years older than me. It turns out he thinks I live a life of luxury which isn’t the compliment it sounds like. Luxury could easily be interpreted as lazy, or not working. 

Either way he could be right. The biggest luxury of all is no regrets.