WWOOFing and North: El Bolsón, AR – Arica, CL

-Originally composed Wed, March 30-
Denis the French Canadian and I spent a night at a hostel in El Bolsón and contacted a few WWOOF farms in the area. The next day we made plans to work at an organic garden with a woman named Kathy. Kathy is originally from Michigan but moved her life and her two children down to Argentina seven years ago. She writes for lonely planet and other travel agencies, which sounds like a cool gig because she gets paid to fly around and see the world. 

Our job at the property was to help her boyfriend, Diego build their home. Diego has spent most of his career in natural construction, but is taking time off now to design and build his own home. He’s a skateboarder, snowboarder, and likes hiking and climbing. He also has a badass old Chevy. 

 They bought a property near the Perito Merino ski area two years ago and have been building a home using natural construction practices. What this means in South America is a lot of 2×4’s, a lot of hay, and Adobe.  

    
    
 Being that the house is under construction, the family had a tiny home to live in, and we were camping and cooking outside under a small rain shack.  

 When we arrived there were six other WWOOFers there, and each day would consist of six hours of work. We worked from 9-12ish and then 5-8ish, with a long siesta in between. During siesta we generally cooked, cleaned, wood-worked or slept. Or skateboarded with Diego on the first floor of the house using sheets of plywood as ramps. 

 Work consisted of building the second floor. Frame by frame we built the walls and then stuffed them with a hay-clay mixture that acts as insulation. The house design is super efficient and uses a lot of passive heating with big windows facing the NE. The entire thing will be heated by two wood burning stoves that are somehow interconnected.  

 Then one day Art and Katie (other NOLS student) walked in the door during a siesta. They said they saw a message from me and decided to stop by for a few days.  There was also a battle between these guys and blackberries again.

   
The next weekend the other six WWOOFers were leaving, so in honor of them, we had a massive asado.  Honorable mentions included woodfire apple pie.

   
    
   
    
That Saturday Katie, Art, Denis the French Canadian, and I went backpacking. Diego recommended a cool peak called Cerro Dedo Gordo (fat thumb peak) that we could climb. And another neat thing about Diego and Kathy’s property is that they are located down the road from a hub where a bunch of refugio hikes are. We walked down the road, signed out with the park service, started hiking and a few hours later landed at Refugio Dedo Gordo. To keep things cheap we wanted to sleep outside and the woman running the Refugio was happy to loan us a tarp to sleep under (we were just up there for one night so we didn’t bring tents).

The next morning we broke camp, cached some gear and started up the mountain. We had no information on the route, and when we saw the fat thumb we were all kind of dazed.  

   
The thing is a huge vertical face! We spitballed ideas and then started traversing to the north of the peak to look for a gully. Eventually we found one but it was getting late in the day. We scrambled up to a point where we thought we’d get a better idea of the route, but it ended up being a sharp ridge that dropped off in both directions. It was after 12 in the afternoon at this point and we had about an 8 hour hike back to camp, so we called it good and had a maté. We figured we were still a few hours from the summit, but we were surrounded by spires and really had no clue. 

After making it back to camp, Katie and Art made plans to leave El Bolsón to travel north through Chile. Denis and I made plans to leave that Tuesday.  

 We worked Monday and then left Tuesday for El Bolsón. In Bolsón we checked in at a popular hostel and got cleaned up and relaxed. 

The next day Denis the French Canadian and I grabbed a bus two hours north to Bariloche. It was there we split, as he wanted to go back to Chile and I wanted to hitchhike north to Mendoza, AR. 

I started walking and caught a ride to the next town, and during that ride we also picked up another traveler. We got to talking and this guy, Juus from Holland, was heading to work at a surf hostel in Pichilemu, Chile. He told me the place has its own deserted beach as it’s located 15km south of the town. I had heard of Pichilemu before but never thought I’d want to leave the mountains for long enough to surf. We got dropped off at a small town near the Chile-Argentina border right after that. Juus told me to grab his contact info incase I changed my mind and then he started hitching. It was raining pretty hard so I wandered the little town searching for free wifi. As I walked around I started considering a drastic change of scenery. Mendoza seems cool, but it only has mountains, meat and wine. I’ve been doing that for quite a while. 

So I made up a quick plan. I went to a grocery store and used up all of my Argentine pesos and bought grains and pasta incase I couldn’t find a ride for a couple days. I made a big sign with “OSORNO” (Chile) on it, and then I left and started walking towards the border with all of my rain gear.  

After about 15 minutes I got a ride from some guys who were heading north. They told me they could drop me off at a crossroad 32km from the border. After that I kept hiking and the rain kept falling. A few cars passed and after 30 minutes a truck pulled over.

The pickup was loaded with a family of 5 and they were headed back home to Osorno where they live. The father was a pastor for the Catholic Church and the kids were all very interested in hearing why a Gringo like myself would be down in this area.

The ride lasted about 4 hours and the family offered for me to use their dryer to dry all of my stuff. I thanked them for the offer but told them I had plans to catch a night bus to Santiago. Oh also at the border, the father insisted that stopped in the pouring rain to capture photos of me. The outcome was pretty remarkable. 

    
    
       
They dropped me off at the terminal and I started looking at overnight buses. After a few minutes I saw there was one leaving at 8:30, and it was 8:21 when I bought the ticket ($15). I quickly unpacked some things for the 12-hour ride, loaded up and then caught some sleep. 

The next morning I arrived at the Santiago bus terminal and I was able to grab a bus, leaving immediately to Pichilemu. After another 3.5 hours of bussing I made it to Pichilemu and caught a minibus south 10km, then hitched my way the last few km to the surfer hostel. 

I spent the next four days hanging out and surfing. The waves never stop and it became obvious that the town is the surf capital of Chile. My interest in baking bread is also rising. I baked something new everyday.   

    
   

   The hostel was pretty quiet with only a few other travelers throughout the week, but the place itself was super cool. Besides being right on the ocean, it had a mini half pipe for skateboarding, a slackline, hammocks everywhere, and a wood-stove heated hottub. I threw up my tent to save on lodging too. It was an amazing getaway with minimal distractions and a lot of big waves.  

    
    
 I left on Tuesday the 5th to head to northern Chile. After about 30 hours on buses I made it to Iquique, Chile. By Thursday, Denis the Canadian stumbled his way into the same hostel I was at. Art spent the last week WWOOFing at a farm north of Santiago, but also just made a long bus trip up here as well. 

The three of us are situated in Arica now, the northernmost city of Chile. Tomorrow we’re gonna grab cheap colectivo to the border and then there’s a bus terminal in Peru. The idea is to get to Arequipa tomorrow night. There’s loads to do in Arequipa and the city sits at (2800m?), and should be a good place to get acclimated for treks in higher altitudes. 

Stay tuned for my “Photos from Phil the German” post, I will need to find a desktop before I can extract the files from the SD card.