—Aaron Sachs, The Humboldt Current
A/ Heading East
Valdivia from the bridge to Isla Teja.NOTE: Click on photos to enlarge. Use back arrow to return to text.
I’m a slow traveler. I like to take the time to immerse myself in a place and pay attention to details. So, after a few days in Santiago, we settled into a hostal in Valdivia, our home base on this trip, for several weeks, and explored Pacific beaches, markets, rivers, libraries, a historical museum, the aboretum, our favorite bakery, and a book store. But I was also excited, anxious, and curious to return to the lake district, this time with Jane, Lucy, and Eduardo.
After much discussion and poring over maps, we headed east toward Lago Ranco and Lago Maihue. Our route describes a geological and cultural cross section of the narrow dimension of Chile.Driving southeast out of Valdivia on highway 207 (the connecting highway to the Pan American, Ruta 5), we skirted the edge of a dramatically horizontal landscape, the valley of Río Angchilla that was inundated after the 1960 earthquake:
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake or Great Chilean Earthquake (in Spanish, Gran terremoto de Valdivia) of 22 May 1960 is the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, rating 9.5 on the moment magnitude scale…. Its resulting tsunami affected southern Chile, Hawaii, Japan, eastern New Zealand, south east Australia and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska….
At Corral, the main port of Valdivia, the water level rose 4 meters before it began to recede…. An eight-meter wave struck the Chilean coast, mainly between Concepción and Chiloe. Ten minutes later, another wave measuring 10 meters was reported.
Hundreds of people were already reported dead by the time the tsunami struck. Ships, like the El Canelo, that were at the mouth of Valdivia River sank after being moved 1.5 km backward and forward in the river. The mast of the Canelo is still visible from the road to Niebla.
A number of Spanish-colonial forts around Valdivia were completely destroyed. Soil subsidence also destroyed buildings, deepened local rivers, and created wetlands.
—Wikipedia. “Great Chilean Earthquake.”
The valley floors around Valdivia sank up to twenty feet. The lowlands were rapidly filled by the inrushing ocean and the flooding rivers. Nearly forty years later, the wetlands still look oddly empty—no waterfowl are visible across the acres and acres of flat, reedy marshes.
Soon, or not so soon, depending on the timing of inevitable construction delays, the road ascends a series of low, steep, forested mountains. Most of the trees are laid out in rectangular patterns over a profoundly ungeometric landscape of plantations of imported Monterey pine (from California) and eucalyptus (from Australia). These trees have been selected for their rapid growth and planted by lumber and pulp companies, turning the mountains into a succession of tree farms. I find it disturbing to see the land farmed from ridge to valley in this way. The alien species growing in clear, straight, unnatural rows are totally unlike the rich tangles of native trees and undergrowth that we saw in rejuvenating forests in Parque Oncol, a forest preserve that is returning to a wild state.
Leaving the mountains, the highway snakes back down onto a flat, straight stretch of road, probably an old lakebed from the glacial era, and we turn north on Ruta 5, the transportation backbone of the country. From this spine, smaller roads branch off to the west or the east—the ribs connecting the cities, farms, forests, and orchards to markets and ultimately to Santiago. One of these ribs, a slim, paved, two-lane road, leads easily over a rich pastureland filled with cattle and on toward the restless Andes. After some time, over the tops of the pastures, we glimpse the snowy Andes in the distance. 
We suddenly arrive at an edge above a left-to-right valley backed by a skyline of volcanic cones and a long ridge. Another volcano rises from the valley floor. The movement of the glaciers that melted away thousands of years ago carved all these valleys. 
The grinding of these glaciers when they advanced across the land created steep-sided, U-shaped valleys and left deep lakes behind.We descend the western wall of the valley toward the south for a swim in Lago Ranco at Coique. This lake, at this beach in particular, has rare transparent waters. Its clarity is only rivaled by Lake Superior among large lakes in the eastern U.S. The pale sand on the beach is coarse and hard. On both visits to Coique, we collected dark green, jewel-like stones at the shoreline: Anna thinks they are green jasper.
This is a photo from 2007, after Lucy and Eduardo's wedding, at Coique. If you click to make the photo larger, you might be able to see me at the edge of the water. I was rock picking when a little Chilean girl who was also gathering rocks came over. “¿Cómo se llama?” the girl piped, in musical Spanish. “Esperanza. ¿Y tú?” (I sometimes use Esperanza [Hope] as my name in Spanish with people who don't speak English.) “Laetitia,” she answered. Laetitia showed her collection of white quartz, I showed my handful of green jasper, and we walked together for a while along the shore: my first Spanish conversation with a child.—Jane
Swimming in Lago Ranco on a sunny day is an extraordinary visual experience. The sunlit patterns on the lake bottom are brilliant—interlocking hexagonal forms undulating on the sand. I swam face down, absorbing as much of the changing pattern as possible, imprinting it in memory. The clear water and the sun patterns remind Jane of swimming in Ottertail Lake in Minnesota as a girl, learning to hold her breath for as long as possible in order to stay underwater where that beautiful light danced on the sandy bottom.
After reluctantly leaving Coique behind, we drove on to Futrono, stopping at a hilltop restaurant that afforded beautiful vistas across the lake. 
—Photo by anonymous restaurant worker.We ducked into the dining room to look at a menu. It was an expensive place in the German meat-and-potatoes style with seafood options and lots of wines. But we weren’t looking for a long sit-down meal, as we wanted to get to Llifén before dark. So it was on to Futrono. But on a Sunday afternoon, during siesta time, not much was open. Trolling the main drag, we did eventually locate a small café and order roast chicken and avocado sandwiches on big round buns. Our table was tiny and the whole place fairly grimy-looking. Most of the food for sale was candy, pop, and helados (ice cream popsicles), but we could see a cook back in the kitchen. A gangly, odd-looking young man got up from a card game with a young woman to serve us. He laid out the cheap silverware and water glasses and tiny bowl of pebre with the same polite care and attention that we would have expected at an expensive restaurant.
As we continued eastward on our way to Llifén, the afternoon sun illuminated a vertical, green, and rocky landscape. Just out of Futrono the road drops rapidly into a broad valley at the general level of the lake and moves inland into a side valley gouged out by a tongue of glacier, giving us a close look at the rocky front we first saw from the other side of the valley. 
The volcanic bedrock slopes are extremely steep because of glacial erosion. Dark chunks of rock protrude from the ground. The road circles behind a volcanic cone, then crosses a bridge over Río Caunahue as the river emerges from a glaciated side valley. The bridge takes advantage of a very narrow canyon to span the river before the valley widens dramatically on its way toward the delta in Lanco Ranco. Beyond the bridge the road clings to the side of the slope heading into Llifén. The highway is squeezed between a towering, truncated volcanic core and the lake. 
At the foot of the slope down to the lake is Playa Bonita, where we headquartered for two nights on the way east and another night on our way west again.
We stayed at a beachfront cabaña, Huequecura, right on the bay. We were hot and dry, and our first task was to swim again, beside massive pillows of dark-brown basalt that seem to flow into the water. The dark, smooth lava is frozen in time and space, as if someone hit a pause button in the middle of the event. The contact point between the lava and water creates a palpable tension: hit the play button and the action will resume, the hot lava hissing as it enters the cool lake water. 
Swimming at this spot is exciting. The water here is just as clear as at Coique but a darker color, reflecting gray sand between the large rocks on the bottom. 
Walking on the basalt after our swim, we discovered a dozen or so white orchid spikes growing right out of the rock—nearly the only vegetation there. It seemed like a surprising place for orchids or any tender plant life.
The floor of the bay is covered with smooth, rounded rocks, some as large as basketballs, that reminded us of the rocks in Old Woman Bay on the northeast shore of Superior—a magical spot from our earlier lake expedition to Ontario (but minus the fearsome grinding sound, thankfully). The curving bay and open lake extending east from the front of the cabaña add a strong counterpoint to the volcanic cliff looming behind.
We all practically cringed away from the wall of rock at first; it looked as if it might just fall down on top of us at any moment. We slept with the tall window onto the patio open all night, comforted by the rhythmic sound of the lake waves. It reassured us that the rock wall would not fall just yet, neither would the volcanoes erupt and spew forth hot lava, nor the lake water rise and inundate the cabaña. Still, during our stay at Huequecura, we watched news reports of a volcano erupting near Temuco, a few hours to the north.Huequecura sits on a long narrow lot running down to the lake. The resort consists of four small, attached cabañas, a row of old fruit trees, and a large, well-equipped quincho (community kitchen/dining room) up the hill. Here we prepared our meals with the owner Silvia, a retired schoolteacher, for company. It was only January, not February, and the summer migration of Chileans to the lake district had not yet begun, so we were the only customers.
The main insect pest—the large horseflies called tábanos—provided some entertainment during the sunny hours of the day when we lazed on the patio between swims. They are gorgeous, fat, inch-long black flies with bright orange hairy strips on their sides but irritating as hell, landing repeatedly on arms, legs, hands, noses. Fortunately, they are also stupid and move slowly enough to be killed with a swift hand. Only when they congregate in numbers do they reach the pestilential level. We discovered that they much prefer dark colors. If you wish to avoid the tábano, wear light-colored clothing!
We took a day trip up the Río Caunahue, stopping wherever we saw something of interest. The road was gravel and the traffic very light. The valley floor was mainly pastureland. Here and there a few small eucalyptus plantations punctuated the view with their strange, elongated trunks and silvery leaves. 
Some way up the valley we spotted a bibliomóvil coming toward us. This little white van is sponsored the foundation Eduardo works for, Fundación La Fuente. The bibliomóvil travels to isolated rural areas, delivering books. The driver doubles as storyteller and book reader in the small schools. 
—Photo by Eduardo Rioseco.Eduardo also takes a puppet show, sometimes along with his friend, neighbor, and fellow musician, Felipe, to these schools to entertain the children. One story they perform is a version of an old Mapuche tale, La Niña de la Calavera (The Skull Maiden), updated to La Niña de las Trenzas (The Girl with the Braids). We wanted to flag the van down and talk, figuring that the driver would know Eduardo. But Eduardo had stayed back in Llifén to practice guitar that day. And we were a little shy, so we just waved.
As we continued upstream the valley narrowed and the river split into two branches. We tried the road to the left across a long one-lane bridge. We stopped in the middle of the bridge. I hopped out to have a look around. The wind was blowing steadily and hard. Here it was, summertime, and the wind was cold. For a moment I imagined we were in Alaska where each spring, flooding from melting ice and snow races downhill, stripping vegetation, and leaving rocks and debris askew in the wide streambed. The place felt remote.
On the other side of the bridge, the road narrowed into a rutted mess. We backtracked to take the other fork. A little further on, a very small hand-painted sign advertised termas (hot springs) with an arrow pointing up a side road. We followed the track, not much more than a cowpath, really, up through fields to a group of unfinished cabañas where a few locals stood around talking. A small, wiry man led us up the hill to three cast-iron bathtubs sitting in a creeklet of steaming water. Nearby a primitive shed covered another small pool of hot water. Large flocks of geese with goslings, ducks with ducklings, and chickens with baby chicks all foraged freely. The grass had been nibbled so short, the whole area looked like a gigantic putting green. But we didn’t have bathing suits along, and I wasn’t in the mood to skinny dip for an audience. It was time to head back to Llifén.
B/ Onward to Lago Maihue
—Photo by Lucy Engle.It seemed as if we could stay at Playa Bonita forever, listening to Eduardo practice guitar by the hour for his upcoming final exam at the university, but we decided to drive further east to Lago Maihue. The Río Calcurrupe links the two lakes, flowing down in a broad, smooth stream from Maihue into Ranco. It was clouding up as we turned off the pavement from the main street of Llifén onto the gravel road to Maihue. The route runs in a straight line up the valley parallel to the river, framed by steep ridges on either side.
—Photo by Lucy Engle.Along the way, we stopped at bridges over side streams to look for birds in the bamboo-tangled undergrowth and admire cascading waterfalls of melted snow descending from the cirques near ridgeline.
Some kilometers along, we veered off the main road on a short side trip to Puerto Llolles, a collection of three or four homesteads located around the foot of Lago Maihue. Here is where a current appears in the water, and the lake narrows into the Río Calcurrupe. The foot of the lake is rich in waterfowl: black-necked swans, snowy egrets, kingfishers, pintail ducks. (We will have more to say about the rich birdlife of this area in an upcoming birding post.)
Across the river, a woman was hanging long, loose strands of raw wool to dry on a clothesline at a house under a striped bluff. She was the only person we saw in the hour or so we were there. We took a short walk up the sandy road that dead-ended at a ferry landing, a shortcut to the top of the lake or a route to the opposite shore, I never found out which.The weather turned gray and showery as we returned to the main gravel road and rolled past broad, peaceful acres of cattle ranches. Many miles later, the road drops abruptly again into the valley of the Río Blanco. Just as we started the steep downhill plunge, two fully-loaded log trucks crept up the narrow road in their lowest gear. We waited, parked precariously on the edge of the road, thankful we hadn’t encountered them in the middle of the downhill grade. The road then makes a sweeping curve across the Río Blanco bridge and follows the valley south toward the lake. Here we again encountered the bibliomóvil. Eduardo was with us this time, so we all stopped and he introduced us to the warm, energetic driver, Emiliano, known to the schoolchildren as “Don Nano.” He recognized our car from passing us the day before up the Río Caunahue.
The road eventually climbs up the far side of the Río Blanco valley and then drops down again into the Lago Maihue basin. Lago Maihue is the last major lake beyond Lago Ranco before the border into Argentina; this area was the easternmost point of our journey. There are many stories in Chilean history about secret escapes and infiltrations over the narrow roads and trails and through the remote Andean passes. Eduardo told us about Pablo Neruda following the Río Curringue (a tributary of Río Blanco) to Argentina on horseback in 1949 to escape political repression during the presidency of Gabriel González Videla. We started telling ourselves a story, then, making it up as we drove along, about escaping into Argentina with a trunk full of pesos. We would start a new life there, we imagined, if only we could make it through the mountains, if our car would hold out, if the roads were passable…. Well short of the Argentine border, though, we were tired and hungry and stopped at a set of cabañas that Eduardo remembered from a previous visit with his traveling puppet theater. 
The three or four modern, wooden cabañas stood below a small private school and were fronted by a lawn overlooking the lake. Here we could spend the night. The weather was very showery now, and dark clouds ran low in the sky as we arrived. I was glad for a dry place to stay, inside, with heat from a small wood stove and a kitchen to cook some dinner.In the evening as it drew toward dusk, the rain clouds lifted slightly, and Jane and I walked eastward along the shoreline toward the head of the lake. The beach is gravelly and stony there, with isolated stretches of pale, rough sand. Small streams emerge from the trees and run out over the beach to the water. Here the rocks are sharp, as if freshly broken and recently washed down from the mountains. But the beach showed no signs of erosion from these vigorous streams, which suggested that the lake level was lower than usual.
A succession of parallel wave benches along the rocky beach also pointed to higher water levels in the recent past. Last winter was abnormally dry in Chile, due to La Niña: the presence of cooler than normal water temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean along the Chilean coast. I think the water level in Lago Maihue indicates how La Niña affected this area.
Lago Maihue is deep and glacially formed like the Great Lakes and the Finger Lakes. The underlying rock is volcanic. The feel of the place is intense and primitive like the experience of wildness on the long northwestern and northern shores of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Ontario. Superior, too, juxtaposes two geologies, the igneous rock of the mid-continental rift zone and the glacially formed lake. 
The surrounding mountains at Maihue were partially veiled while we were there, which heightened the similarity to Superior, as did the palpable feeling of remoteness.There is also this difference: agriculture thrives in the lake district and the faldas (foothills) of the Andes. During the nineteenth century, the valley bottoms were colonized by German immigrants, "sponsored by the Chilean government with aims of colonising the southern region. Though comprised only by an estimated 8,000, these Germans (some were Swiss) influenced the cultural composition of the southern provinces of Valdivia, Llanquihue and Osorno. They settled lands opened by the Chilean government in order to populate the region." (Wikipedia. “Demographics of Chile.”) Of course the region was already populated with Mapuches who presumably were pushed up the hillsides. Today, the indigenous Mapuches maintain the fields and pastures that climb the volcanic slopes and ridges while the flat land is dominated by large ranches. Agriculture is possible on the mountainsides in the lake district because of the rich volcanic soil (it is perhaps only some thousands of years old—the volcanism around Superior is 1.1 billion years old), and because it is eight degrees closer to the equator (40 degrees south vs. 48 degrees north latitude for the North Shore area).
The cultivation of the volcanic slopes is a remarkable sight in a region that gets a great deal of rain in a normal winter. The soil looks very deep, yet I saw no evidence of major soil erosion on the hillsides. The steeply inclined potato fields growing in dark purple-brown soil are a beautiful sight. It’s a landscape worked almost entirely by hand. Most of the wide footpaths that criss-cross from one level to another across the slopes are too rough and tumble to be accessible by motor vehicles.All the recent geological activity—volcánes y termas, terremotos y maremotos (earthquakes and tsunamis), the glacial moraines and U-shaped glacial valleys—have produced a landscape with immensely more motion and intensity than the subdued glaciated areas of our home, the northeastern U.S. Here in New York state, there is erosion of the glacial remnants and active gorge cutting going on. There are some very active slopes on Six Mile Creek in our neighborhood. But the scale in Chile is immense. The incredible steepness and the youth of the Andean slopes are visible in the streambeds draining the Andes. They are choked with milky glacial debris, washed rock, stone, and gravel.
—Photo by Lucy Engle. You can maybe see Michael walking the beach.The next morning we drove just a little further east to Playa Maqueo and walked the beach there. The beach fans out into Lago Maihue in a massive delta of rock and sand deposited by a stream that hardly seems up to the task. But it was the dry season of the year. The playa is also the site of a ferry landing. The small, one-car ferry was just loading up—one person raced up, parked, and climbed aboard—for the trip across to the indigenous villages at the head of the lake. Eduardo told us about a recent ferry disaster on Lago Maihue. About a year ago, the old ferry sank, killing all aboard, which prompted the purchase of the newer, sturdier-looking boat we saw. Like “The Death of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in Lake Superior, the story reminds us that these are deep, fearsome lakes.
After our walk, we drove the first stretch of the road beyond Maqueo that was very recently extended to a Mapuche village, Hueanihue. The road is still very raw, tentative, vulnerable, unstable, and cut into a very steep slope above the lake, like the last stretch of a Forest Service road high in the Oregon Cascades up the North Santiam River toward Gold Creek and Opal Creek, but ever so much more so. I dearly wanted to press on toward Hueanihue, but it wasn’t really possible. Eduardo needed to start back, the rain was intensifying, and the possibility of getting the borrowed car stuck up there all ruled against it. For now at any rate.
C/ Return to the West
Returning the way we came, we treated ourselves to a nice, long soak in the termas at Llifén while the rain showers continued outside. A cloth roof stretched over a frame high above the hot springs protected us from the rain and the occasional burst of sun. At this particular terma, they also serve meals, scheduled when you like. So, we decided to request a lunch after our soak. The meal was served at a very slow pace, in sync with our now languid state, in a second-floor dining room above the more expensive “private” soaking rooms.
The view from the dining room windows looks out across a pasture and gardens into the ragged mountains beyond.
We spent the night back at Huequecura again but with no more swims this time. The waves on the now-dark, writhing lake tore into the rocky shore. Eduardo had to head back to Santiago, so Lucy taxied him to a bus in Futrono and picked up more fresh food for us.The next morning we continued our circumambulation of Lago Ranco. The road beyond Llifén is mostly unpaved. We encountered a few very steep stretches. Just past the Río Calcurrupe bridge, our Turistel guide counsels: “El camino asciende por un corta cuesta en el km 6, de difícil tránsito debido suelto; es mejor subirla en primera desde el comienzo y con decisión.” Roughly: “The road goes uphill at kilometer 6, difficult to surmount when it’s loose; it’s better to drive up it decisively and in first gear from the beginning.” Which proved to be good advice. We used the full width of the road and thankfully met no oncoming traffic at the crucial points in the ascent. There were a couple more of these short, steep, twisting, uphill stretches with loose gravel and impressive corrugations angling across the road surface. Working back and forth across the slope did the trick: a body memory from driving Ozark National Forest roads.
The clouds slowly lifted, and the weather improved as we went. We stopped to hike a mountain trail through a Mapuche agricultural area. To find the trailhead we drove down a side lane barely wide enough for our small sedan and parked at a Mapuche homestead. There was no charge for parking there, Lucy understood from the owners, but they hoped we might purchase some of their cheese on our return. The hike was, once again, very steep. The first part of the trail followed a community path that was rarely or never used by cars or trucks. Once when we missed a turn, the path took us out across the mountainside and just above a carefully hand-hoed field that fell away below us, forming a huge amphitheater: row after row of white-flowering potato plants curving around the slopes. Eventually, we reached a small collection of houses and a church no bigger than an Ozark chicken house. We had hoped to reach a series of small lakes, but amid the confusion of not-very-well-marked footpaths and finding shelter during rain showers, we saw only glowing green hillsides, simple Mapuche houses, cattle, sheep, and the Andes in the distance. 
—Photo by Lucy Engle.On our way back, a short, middle-aged-looking Mapuche woman appeared, carrying a sleeping baby in her arms and accompanied by a teenage girl. We let them pass with no clue that they would drop downhill at twice our speed. Lucy took off to try to keep up with them and discover their route, but they quickly passed out of our sight. It was a treacherous trail, rocky, muddy, and very steep. But they must have traveled up and down this route many times, hauling heavier loads than a baby, and could probably do it in the dark.
Back at the car, we purchased a round of rather pale, cow’s-milk cheese and continued around the lake. At one point, the pavement suddenly began again. I thought we were in for a smooth ride the rest of the way, but my hopes were dashed when, once past the village, the road reverted to its grizzly, gravelly self. There are advantages to the gravel, of course: it definitely keeps the tourist traffic down. Way down.
When we gained the south shore, the lake came into view again, and we drove parallel to a long volcanic peninsula, Illahuapi, that extends out into the lake. We stopped at a lookout point to eat lunch and admire the view.
Much of the south shore seems to be the province of private haciendas, with little crescent beaches and boats pulled up on the sand. It was sunny again. We hoped to swim once more, but we never found which unmarked side road led to the beach.Just outside the town of Lago Ranco, the pavement reappeared. The lakefront in town has been recently developed to accommodate many swimmers and sunbathers with wide cement stairways, plenty of parking, and a small playground.
But the water there was murky, so we didn’t swim. We headed for home, following another lovely two-lane road back to Ruta 5, then north and on to Valdivia on highway 207 again. Only on my bus ride in 2005 over the Andes from Santiago to Mendoza, Argentina, had I seen a geology as various and resplendent as on this trip. It is a highlight of my Chilean travels.
—Michael
