Between Extremes

by Brian Keenan

  During our long incarceration we had built many boats, precisely working out every meticulous detail. Although neither of us had any knowledge of seamanship whatsoever, we imagined ourselves master craftsmen. Confronted by the reality, I was amazed that the keel and ribs of these vessels were still hand-hewn out of naturally bent timber.

  On the road to Quellón, we see oxen drawing sleds loaded with logs, driven by ancient-looking men. Surprisingly we have hardly seen a horse, nor as many sheep as expected. There must be a lot somewhere to make all the hats, jerseys and ponchos that we saw at the market.

  The old, weathered wood, plank and shingle farmsteads are strangely complemented by the many brightly coloured houses and churches that appear out in the wilds as well as in the towns. These have a Caribbean flavour to them and perhaps the colours lighten the spirits on dark days.

  We come up behind an old truck lurching along with a load of rough planks. An old fellow snoozes on top of the pile, blissfully immune to the jolting. The road is quite good but there are many treacherous potholes which Brian slaloms through with gusto.

  Sancho Panza’s perfidious ponderings are finding an outlet. He darts a knowing eye at the ill-composed Don and smiles quietly to himself.

  In Quellón, the unpainted corrugated-iron roofs blink blinding bright in the late afternoon sun as we drive down to the front. On the beach and in the shallows are a motley collection of fishing boats, many very Heath Robinson-looking with strange little cuddies. We watch a small boy struggling to get his minute rowing boat off the mud. Brian is angry for him.

  ‘Why don’t those other guys help him?’ he says pointing at some other kids in a bigger boat. ‘They should be ashamed.’

  He is delighted when the boy eventually frees himself of the ooze and rows off with panache.

  For once, Brian is looking at a guidebook. ‘Mish mahoul!’ (‘That’s amazing’ in Arabic.) ‘What do you say, tomorrow we ride horses in the Pacific surf?’ he asks, turning the pages.

  ‘Yes! How, where?’

  ‘At Cucao. You can rent them by the hour, according to this book, and ride along miles of sandy beach as the waves pound the shore.’

  ‘Wonderful, let’s do it.’

  Looking at the map I realize that Quellón marks the very end of Ruta 5, the Pan American Highway. We have followed, crissed and crossed it all the way from Arica.

  Like our expectations, I suppose, mythic highways always end in some backwater somewhere. But we were pursuing a dream bigger than the route ways of American imperialism. We had had enough of that hydra and its hideous tentacles in another life and we intended travelling beyond its confining grasp.

  We look out at the channel, the Golfo de Corcovado, where we will be sailing in a couple of days. We have heard tales of furious storms making this passage perilous. Although it has been a hot, mainly sunny day, dark clouds have hedged the horizon all the time. The weather is volatile here so I just hope it holds.

  In the near distance we see the low islands of the great Chilean archipelago and, farther off to the east, the Andes. The sky at sunset is a confection of yellows, blues and pinks unlike anything I have seen before. These hues blend into a reflection on the water that is pure burnished copper. As the sun sinks further to the west the water turns black and the clouds, a palette of gold, copper and silver, take on a thunderous, menacing edge of charcoal. The islands in the channel begin to blur in the fading light so that they appear to be floating, like low clouds. Above these miasmas, on the mainland far to the east, the snow-capped mountains shine bright in the sun’s last rays. One of Chiloé’s many myths tells of the lost city of the Caesars: a place of fabulous wealth, of streets paved with gold and silver. The story goes that mists and sacred rivers protect the city from the sight of man but that all will be revealed at the end of time. Watching now it is easy to understand the genesis of such a tale.

  The next day we leave the main road for Cucao, a long drive over a rutted track and a continual crunching of metal on stone as the car tries to cope with the terrain. The track threads through forest which opens up now and then around a lonely habitation in a patch of cleared land. This part of Chiloé has only recently been colonized and certainly the A-frame houses look basic. We pass women and children carrying home buckets of water. A tough life, clearing the forest for a vegetable patch and some pasture for the sheep and cattle. But what a beautiful place to hide away in, with the perfect Lago Huillinco always glistening deep blue through the trees.

  The track to Cucao was never a road, though it was the only means of reaching the village. It had never been levelled or reinforced against flooding which was a constant hazard. In many places the ‘road’ ceased to exist because of this problem. Instead one was forced to negotiate holes, mudbanks, huge boulders and fallen trees. Sancho Panza’s simple mathematics declared that the quickest way between two points on a map was straight ahead! The road had to end at Cucao – or else Cucao would not exist. Anything in the way was an obstacle or a tedious hindrance to be negotiated, bulldozed or slewed round accordingly. To turn back would only mean doubling the hardship already endured, whereas reaching Cucao would mean dancing and prancing on horseback then galloping into the sunlight with the Pacific heaving and rolling beside you. I had this weird but very real dream of becoming a horseman in liquid mercury. At least reaching Cucao and doing the business would make the horrendous return drive all the more bearable.

  Apart from this fantasy, it really was possible to emigrate here with a gift of land and some grants. Perhaps you could even set up a yak farm. The fact that Cucao and many small settlements along the coast had been completely obliterated by tidal waves several times in the past hundred years made the place and my fantasy ride all the more challenging. After all, what was a tidal wave to a mule-brained Irishman?

  Cucao is just a collection of houses, stores and a church around the outlet of the lake to the ocean but it has a special atmosphere. We sit in warm sunshine outside a little restaurant across the river from the settlement. It is very peaceful, the soothing sound of the ocean breakers brought to us by a gentle breeze across the dunes. A man and boy play chess on the verandah as they wait for their lunch.

  We hear the clip-clop of hooves on wood and turn to see two horses being led over the long suspension bridge from the village. There are horses grazing just beside us, but Bri has commented on their being ‘too small’. The ones coming now are slightly bigger. They all look pretty careworn. We head off to find the ‘bigger’ horses, still happily anticipating trotting along the beach. We find another place where we hire two mangy nags, no bigger than the others we have seen and with the worst saddles and gear you could imagine. The stirrups are barely held together with raffia. We are attended by a man of indeterminate age. He gives us a bit of old stick with imprecations to hit the beasts: ‘Fuerte! Fuerte!’

  We try this but to no effect, they want only to walk, so we lead them across the suspension bridge, a hundred yards long and quite narrow. We have planned on a two-hour expedition and there is a picnic in my rucksack.

  We kick and hit the horses but to no avail. Mine starts bucking so I pull its face round to mine and scream at it. Presumably it speaks only Spanish but it seems to get the tone and trots for a hundred yards before easing back into a stroll. After a while we decide that the frustration and sweat are not worth the candle and head back. Even if we had been able to master them I would have been loath to gallop with tackle like that – too dangerous. We take them back, pay for one hour and go and find a pleasant spot on a bluff looking out across the wide beach to the ocean.

  ‘I’m really disappointed,’ I say. ‘It would have been wonderful.’

  ‘Look, John, the horses hadn’t been trained right – it’s just the farmers trying to make a few quid. I don’t reckon even Mauricio or Nigel could have done much better.’

  As he finishes the sentence a little girl trots past on a horse as easy as anything; she is riding bareback. Butch and Sundance munch mood
ily on their cheese and tomato sandwiches.

  Ancud, Chiloé’s second city, is not as smart as Castro but still has bustling streets and a museum that gives some insight into the life of the colonizers. The next day we talk to a friendly old man making boats and learning English. He points out the replica of the Ancud, the little sailing ship that ventured through the islands and fjords to reach the Magellan Straits to reaffirm Chile’s ownership of the region in 1833. There had been concerns in Santiago that one of the European powers might try to gain a foothold on the straits, in those days a vital stopping-off point on the trade routes. He tells us that he sailed in a similar vessel from Puerto Montt to the south in his youth. The passage, in boats that were often no more than 25 feet long, was very arduous, the weather conditions frequently terrible. Talking to him I feel close to the pioneering age and share a sense of conquest.

  In the museum’s lower courtyard I discover statues of Chiloé’s mythological creatures and of a brujo, a witch doctor. There are craft shops in turrets around the courtyard. From the most remote stall, one easily overlooked, a mad little man appears, jabbering at me. I tell him I do not speak Spanish so he scuttles back into his cave and returns with a Spanish/English booklet on Chilote myths. In his grotto, with his light but raspy voice, he could be a brujo himself. The booklet tells me the brujería is a brotherhood of male witches that may still function, despite persecution. The initiation rites sound grim and the powers unclear but it seems likely that this underground group also worked as a force for resistance against the Spanish.

  Brian buys a very fine saddle for 500 US dollars from a stall in Ancud market. He negotiates well and gets botas, bridle, stirrups and reins thrown in – very impressive. I would have agreed a much higher price. This goes a long way to compensate for the riding disaster at Cucao yesterday.

  I had searched everywhere on our journey to find one keepsake that would sum up and be a receptacle of memory for our epic journey. John, I knew, was fed up to the eye teeth with me dragging him into every craft and curio shop my eyes lit on. The problem was I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but I knew that when I found it I would know. I had found it and was going to enjoy the pleasure of bargaining to obtain it. I think it adds to the ownership of the thing. Bargaining makes the buying part of the experience rather than simply a purchase! Somehow I knew this saddle was mine. It had been made and placed there for me to come for it. I could do no other thing than take it away with me. It was part of myself. It was not a matter of having to have it, it was rather a matter of being incapable of not having it. For me it encapsulated more than all this trip was about.

  For me this saddle designed

  like a heavy rose in silver and leather,

  gently sloped, smooth and durable.

  Every cut is a hand, every

  stitch a life in which the unity

  of forest lives, a chain of eyes

  and horses, lives on.

  Grains of wheat shaped it,

  woodland and water hardened it,

  the opulent harvest gave it pride,

  metal and wrought morocco leather:

  and so from misfortune and dominion,

  this throne set forth through the meadowlands.

  As we leave Ancud for the ferry back to the mainland we notice that the Costanera, the coastal road, has been renamed Avenida Dr S. Allende. It is the first time we have seen his name among the litany of Chile’s heroes mapped out on street signs.

  Part Three

  Puerto Montt

  •

  Patagonia

  •

  Tierra del Fuego

  Chapter Eleven

  Chiloé had softened us. I liked the place. It was as though we were on holiday from the compulsion of the compass, a place apart. Leaving meant knuckling down to the journey, but I didn’t mind so much: I had my saddle, and the weight of it would keep me on track. It was to be my throne even if I had to carry it to the ends of the earth and back.

  We arrived at the ferry port of Puerto Montt at 8 p.m. and the darkness had already fallen. Why we had to be in the terminal four hours before our boat left was never explained. The other voyagers were already there, all European, in their thirties, every one looking the epitome of the seasoned traveller with expertly packed rucksacks, stout walking boots and brightly coloured raingear. We made an odd accompaniment to our fellow passengers and I noticed one or two of them eyeing our appearance with more than a little curiosity, followed by sniggers.

  It was to be a four-day, 1,000-mile run down to Puerto Natales. The boat was a relatively small ferry plying the Chilean archipelago with its odd cargo of misfits, eccentrics and dreamers, all disguised as travellers. Joseph Conrad would have loved this boat.

  Brian and I are wearing our usual travelling outfits: jeans, light sportscoats and reasonably stout shoes – and of course our Chilean trilbies. Preoccupied with finding the check-in desk, we realize after a few minutes that people are standing around openly laughing at us. We look hard at them. They are all wearing Antarctic gear, their luggage made for mountains and ice-fields, with odd pieces of kit, vicious-looking little axes and so forth, hanging from their belts. I have a kitbag and Bri his haphazardly packed trolley. We must look as though we are heading off for a weekend in the Cotswolds rather than the end of the world. After sloping into the gents and donning a thick jersey and anorak I feel more appropriate. I try to keep a distance between me and Bri’s ridiculous luggage.

  When the desk eventually opens we confirm our cabin and, bizarrely, surrender our passports. This is, I guess, just another element of Chilean bureaucracy – after all we will not be leaving the country and there is only one scheduled stop, at the romantically named Puerto Eden, which, being a tiny village on an otherwise uninhabited island, with no airstrip, let alone road or rail connections, seems an unlikely place for anyone to want to jump ship.

  Neither of us was too bothered by the glances of our fellow travellers; we were more anxious about whether we could get some food when we boarded the MV Eden. A few enquiries of the terminal staff informed us that there would be no food until breakfast. John and I decided to search the waterfront to see what we could find.

  One of the other travellers, an American called Fred, offered to join us. His family was Argentinian, so he had excellent Spanish. He asked us to wait while he collected his cycle. He did not want to leave it unattended in the dockyard. Fred quickly arrived back wheeling his machine. It was loaded to the gills with baggage and equipment and with the added eccentricity of an attached trailer, equally laden. Our amazement turned into subdued laughter as Fred informed us that he intended cycling through southern Patagonia on this juggernaut. As we explored the back streets in search of food, I pondered this seemingly foolhardy quest; in many areas of his intended journey, roads were non-existent.

  After some minutes we found a small but sadly decrepit waterfront café. A chalk sign read ‘Polio con fritas’. John offered to stand guard on the fantastical contraption as the demon cyclist and I went to negotiate our chicken and chips.

  The proprietor of the ramshackle restaurant informed us that, yes, he had chicken and chips but could only serve it on the premises. Although we explained that we had to be back on the boat, he was adamant he could not sell us chicken and chips to take away. However, if we wanted steak and chips, he could oblige. We agreed. The proprietor smiled widely. As he turned to go and prepare our supper, Fred called out in Spanish for two bottles of wine. ‘Si, si,’ the café owner called back. But when we asked him to prepare the food in separate portions he suddenly stopped in his tracks, turned and came back. ‘Impossible, cannot be done,’ he informed us. His face was marked with urgent apology, but he could not explain why such a simple task was so difficult. Frustrated and hungry, we left.

  John’s laughter at our story did not relieve the necessity of finding some food. Persistence won out and eventually we found a supermarket where we stocked up.

  I stand alone outsi
de a supermarket. Somehow the place seems rougher than in daytime. Not that I am worried about being mugged so much as being ridiculed. I am happy to guard Fred’s bike, it is the trailer that goes with it that bothers me. This two-wheeled device, loaded with bags, looks to me as if it would be more trouble than it’s worth. So many of Chile’s roads are little more than tracks that it seems likely one would spend the greater part of any day at a standstill, putting the thing straight again. There is also the matter of the US flag which flutters over it on a whippy metal mast, as a result of which I am receiving some very strange looks. This is not unusual: we are gringos after all and have drawn stares before, so I am used to that. It feels much worse appearing to be responsible for a bit of kit that is not mine and that looks faintly ridiculous and imperialistic to boot. I stand close enough to the machine to make sure no-one tampers with it but far enough away, I hope, to convey the idea that I am in its vicinity purely by chance.

  Eventually, having bought some supplies, we return just in time and sweat our bags across the deck area where there are a variety of trucks and cars chained down. One truck is obviously transporting cattle; both the noise and the smell are powerful. A small, smiling steward greets us in the saloon, checks our tickets and gives us a key to our cabin. We lumber up another steep flight of stairs and find our quarters for the next four nights. The cabin is quite small but, with its own tiny bathroom and a porthole, will suffice. Few cabins seem occupied, most of the passengers having taken berths in the dormitories in the depths of the vessel.

  As the ferry slips out of port, we meet up with Fred to eat. He is tall and skinny with dark, thinning hair and a beard. His eyes shine brightly behind metal-rimmed spectacles. He is one of those very eager, enthusiastic Americans. We talk over our plans.