Vero's Adventures in Chile and Argentina

8 marzio 2006
Saludos desde Pucon, the adventure capital of the Lakes district! I'm writing from a hostel in Pucon I have spent the past few days in (and am thoroughly smitten with) called Ecole. For 16 dollars a night, you get a really comfy bed, sleep above their fantastic vegetarian restaurant (you have no idea what a feat it is to have a good spinach salad in Chile), and spend many evenings with fellow travelers enjoying vino tinto and conversation about everything from Pinochet to glaciers and the movie Old School.

Today was another rainy day in Pucon. For most of the travelers here, that translated to another day that the volcano couldn't be ascended (Pucon's star attraction is a live volcano you can spend the day climbing to enjoy its constantly spewing bubbly brew.) Fortunately rainy days provide a great excuse for other kinds of excursions--in my case, a sorely needed trip to the laundromat, and a 2 hour day trip to Temuco, the biggest city in the Lakes region. Temuco is not really a popular tourist destination--and for good reason. It's pretty much a relatively boring medium-sized town, not terribly pretty or impressive. But it caught my fancy because it is known for its Mapuche markets and crafts. The Mapuche are Chile's largest indigenous population (Microsoft released a Mapudungun version of Windows in 2004), known for successfully resisting the Spanish conquistadors. They are also known for their beautiful crafts, especially their textiles and silver jewelry they made from Spanish coins. Some of the techniques were actually adopted based on knowledge they gleaned from Spanish prisoners.

In the little travel i have done in my life, I have enjoyed seeking out local craft traditions. One of the higlights of my Habitat trip to Warsaw last summer was traveling to a teeny tiny town with my friend, Barbara Measelle, in pursuit of a small museum dedicated to Polish paper cut-outs and traditional clothes that blew us both away.

When I arrived in Temuco at around 2, I headed to a small shop run by a collective of Mapuche women. Although it should have been open according to every guidebook I consulted, metal shutters indicated otherwise. I ventured towards the university area where there was purportedly a great small market dedicated to Mapuche crafts. After being passed by a stream of kids in uniform being let out of school, I came upon the right address. All I found, alas, was a guard who said something to me in Spanish that I mostly didn't understand but the part about being closed forever came through. Ditto for my luck with the local museum (under restoration, of course.) At this point, it was nearing 4 pm and I was beginning to think that I really didn't need to have spent four hours on a bus in order to have some good empanadas.

My last hope was foundation I had read about just outside the city. (Foundation Chol-Chol; www.chochol.org) I hailed a cab, prayed he would know where it was and that I wouldn't pay an arm and a leg to visit yet another "cerrado" sign. It was in his taxi, with a blue and yellow Patagonia flag dangling from the mirror, that my luck started to change. Romeo not only knew where the foundation was, but called it to make sure it was open, and seemed tickled that a San Franciscan would want to pay it a visit. He rattled off questions about my impressions of Chile the whole ride there (fortunately I have learned the verb gustar and could string a few basic sentences together, like "I like the meat." "I like the nature." "I like the Torres del Paine National Park." I didn't catch half of what he told me but I did catch that he loves Patagonia, and particularly Punta Arenas (the penguin city), he doesn't love Temuco but prefers it to the fast pace of Santiago. And he definitely is a big fan of the new president, Michelle Bachelet.

When we arrived at the foundation, Romeo offered to wait as long as I needed to bring me back and i decided to take him up on his offer. A woman came out of the main office who was about my age to escort me to a building fillled with all the textiles. Lucky for me, it turned out that she was French (from Nantes) so we spent the next 15 minutes talking in French. Serendipity, because I could actually ask questions other than, "you like--yes or no?" or "what price?" She told me that she was a volunteers at the foundation, had just moved to Temuco, didn't love the city but loved the people she has met here. She told me that she had been to SF for a fe months and couldn't get over that I grew up there. She also said that individuals rarely visit the Foundation, and especially not foreigners. Most of their business comes from selling at local markets and group visits. I also learned that they do a lot more than sell beautiful crafts. They have started a literacy program and have many initiatives that encourage personal and entrepreneurial skills, particularly among local indigenous women.

I enlisted her help picking out Mapuche earrings to give as presents to friends with imminent birthdays. She got a kick out of the name Hilary (I guess its not common in Spanish or French.) The textiles were absolutely amazing and really not expensive when you consider the time spent making them and their quality. I suspect that I actually found much nicer things than I would have found in all the shops that were closed. Sometimes rainy days and cerrado signs are a good thing afterall.