The Resilience of Mountain Life

Written by Mike Siggins (Westminster College)

All of us came to Patagonia because we love mountains. We love looking at mountains, climbing mountains, and learning about the life that lives in their snows and forests. We brought with us to Patagonia a well-propagated misconception of this wild and mysterious region: that it is untrammeled by man. In our research here on the Round River program, we do immerse ourselves into such unexplored places, but in our classes here, we also delve into debate about the local cultures, impacts and futures for the people of Patagonia.

Now, we would truly see it for ourselves.

 

 

We set out to stay with people who’ve lived in these mountains their whole lives – not just for a few short months, a few flashy adventures. In Round River’s first-ever home stay, Team Guanaco spread amongst four different campos in the Rio Maitén region of Aysén, Chile (located about an hour and a half northwest of Cochrane). We were to spend four days living and working the campos, and I must admit, that of all of the edge-exploring things we have done throughout this semester, this homestay was the only thing that I can say I was actually truly nervous about.

Nonetheless I was looking forward to this new and challenging experience and was excited to see what lay ahead for me.

We headed west up the Carretera Austral until we approached the banks of the Baker River up to a rickety suspension bridge. We proceeded, hesitantly, crossing the car-width bridge over the roaring, glacial flour-infused, torrent of the Rio Baker below us.

 

 

We went up the hill on the other side to a quaint little campo on the banks of the Baker, leaving Colin and Katrina in the hands of the lovely Luis and Sandra – of course not without enjoying a couple of customary rounds of maté and meeting a baby goat!

 

 

After parting ways we drove to the banks of the Maitén River, where we were greeted by a man on horseback, wearing a homemade pair of cowhide chaps and a wool poncho in the driving rain. This man, Nano – as he introduced himself – might be the most representative gaucho I’ve ever met. He debated with us if our truck, Blanquita, could ford the swollen Maitén River, but we declined and so we left Alex, Charlie and Julia to cross the river on horseback, saying goodbye and continuing up the hill to the next campo.

 

 

Our next stop was for Will and Alana at the campo of Tato and Rene. The rain began to fall heavier as we drove up to their campo, becoming only colder and colder as we gained elevation. Mateo, Round River’s Latin America Program Director, asked about the status of the road farther up from here after the past three days of steady rains. Tato’s answer, as I understood, meant, “Not so good.” We parted ways yet again and continued farther and farther up the mountain along the increasingly narrower and muddier road.

Mateo switched to four-wheel-drive, and Blanquita powered up a 15% grade through axle-deep mud. Driving up the hill, Becca and I caught our first glimpse of our host, Gavirón, on horseback, wearing a neon orange hooded North Face rain jacket with a wool poncho, and hand-made cowhide chaps. We loaded our stuff onto the extra pack horse Gavirón had brought for us, trying not to fall into the ankle deep mud, doing our futile best to stay dry in the rain.

We were ready to part our ways with Mateo and Kyla yet we had one huge problem: the road we had driven was far too narrow to turn Blanquita around, so we cleared a path in the dense Lenga forest to get the truck turned around. Mateo tried to get the truck reversed with the help of all of us as spotters for around an hour as we moved different sections of downed trees at a time – but the forest just wouldn’t let the truck go. We ended up having to pass through a very thick mess of a mud bog to get a to a pasture downhill, where Mateo turned around and climbed up the gnarly, heavily-rutted, muddy, and narrow single-track four-by-four road. Gavirón followed right behind the truck as it climbed it up and out of sight and we assumed the truck was gone for good. Then Gavirón appeared at the top of the road on horseback yelling for us to come help; Blanquita had gotten herself stuck yet again.

We ran up the hill and saw Kyla struggling with the tire chains along the rear axle and Mateo working to create a wooden track upon which Blanquita could then hopefully gain traction up the hill in the axle-deep mud. Our prescription: brute force. With me, Kyla, and Becca at the back we told Mateo to “GIVE’R!” and he pinned it as we ran behind Blanquita pushing the beast up the hill. Luckily this was the key to victory and Blanquita scrapped her way up the hill. We said our final goodbyes and our homestay had finally begun; it’s not easy to get home when you live at the top of these mountains.

We followed Gavirón and his horses along the remainder of the impassable road, down through a valley and up the trail established by generations of Gavirón’s family members traveling over a pass and down into the valley where Gavirón has lived almost his entire life. We descended to the house, where a lovely, elderly woman named Norma came running out to meet us.

 

 

Gaucho hospitality as it is, Gavirón and Norma immediately offered us maté and food, but the only thing Becca and I had on our minds was to change out of mud-caked and water-laden clothes. Gavirón showed us where to set up our tents inside the horse barn and we quickly made our homes. With warm, and dry clothes, we joined our hosts to have some maté. The weather worsened, so we sheltered in the house for the remainder of the day eating delicious lamb, potatoes, and tortas (fried bread). After a late lunch, an early dinner, and many maté sessions with ample chit-chat of our broken Spanish and their difficult-to-understand “Chilenese,” we realized time had the best of us and it was time to go to bed. “Buenas noches mis amigos!” they yelled to us as we walked out the door towards our humble homes in the horse barn.

 

 

The next morning we awoke early to a nice dusting of snow. Luckily it was a beautiful day with blue skies and temperatures rising. The snow highlighted the beauty surrounding us. We ate a delicious breakfast of eggs from chickens raised on the property, and again shared maté around the warm wood stove.

 

 

I asked how I could help out around the campo and Gavilón told me to cut some wood, directing me to his woodpile and handing me the axe. He grabbed the chainsaw to buck a large tree he somehow drug over to the woodpile, but upon the first pull of the starter chord the saw immediately seized up. The primary gear driving the chain had imploded. In most circumstances this would be a mere inconvenience, but we clearly weren’t able to make a run to the neighborhood hardwood store for the broken parts. Furthermore, as we depended on a wood-burning stove as the primary heating and cooking source, the situation could easily become very serious: no saw, no wood, no warmth (and most importantly) no food.

Nevertheless, Gavirón – in the face of this adversity – took to the problem with his country ingenuity and split the full-size tree into usable pieces using a series of wedges and a hand axe. With enough wood to heat the house for the rest of the day he took to the radio and called up his nearby neighbor, and asked to see if he the piece that he needed for the repair.

Luckily he did. So we mounted up the horses and Becca, Gavirón, and I set out for his neighbor’s campo. Turns out – it’s his brother who lives down the hill. We rode for about a kilometer, crossing rivers up to our horses’ chests and passing waterfalls 30 feet high, using the trails Gavirón and his family have used for multiple generations.

 

 

We continued past Gavirón’s brother’s property until we reached his mother’s house. We stopped to borrow her chainsaw and to feed an orphan baby calf, mixing up some powdered milk into a lukewarm concoction that the orphan ternero suckled down from an empty wine bottle – complete with an artificial teat created from the sheath of a knife. Then we got the part from Gavirón’s brother and headed home.

 

 

By the time we got back to the campo it was time for my favorite part of the day: lunch and the customary siesta that follows. We ate more lamb, potatoes, and red salsa, then had some maté and were off for a short siesta. We awoke to start digging up the lawn to create an outdoor garden for Norma and Gavirón to use in the warmer months that follow.

 

 

On our last full day at the campo we awoke early to a chilly morning and frozen ground, making it far more difficult for us to begin tilling the soil, so I moved onto my other primary task on the campo, chopping firewood and stacking it indoors. Soon the ground thawed and Becca and I finished tilling the soil for their new garden. Norma also wanted to check in on the sheep, which entailed giving the flock a bunch of salt sprinkled on logs whilst they licked up and approached us so that they were close enough for inspection.

After working outside, Norma made us tortas, a type of fried dough. We watched in awe as she turned the thick mass of dough over and over with her wrinkled 67 year old hands like it was nothing. Then we let the dough rise for an hour or so and Becca helped to turn the dough into the proper shapes and consistency for frying. With a couple of tortas in the bucket of lamb lard heating on the stove it was time to begin preparing the small house to eat another delicious meal.

 

 

I was moving the few seats in the house around to make seating for all members of the house to be present at the table when Norma started to collapse – luckily I caught her before she hit the floor. I asked if she was ok, but received only a blank stare, until slowly, eventually, she seemed to understand what had happened. She said she was okay, but her look of confusion continued to haunt the endless seconds.

I’ve seen family members endure a similar event; I believed Norma was having a minor stroke. I got her some water and she proceeded to recover, but I noticed that she kept rubbing her left arm, and said she couldn’t feel it. We truly didn’t know what to do: we only had limited medical experience and were so far from medical help. So we monitored Norma’s condition, but nonetheless we were still shaken to consider that our only potential option if her condition worsened would be to ride out on horseback over a mountain pass in the pitch dark of night at least 6km to a neighbor that might be have a vehicle.

Norma seemed to recover after a while, and we went to bed hoping for the best when we woke up next morning.

Luckily that’s exactly what we awoke to, Norma was stable and functional, enough to get her Cochrane and see a doctor. Gavirón was still in good spirits and his joyous attitude and the wonderful weather kept the mood light considering what unfolded the night prior. Sadly it was time to leave this wonderful place.

The one thing I could think about as I left this place was the ruggedness of the land and the people that live here. From breaking a simple piece of machinery necessary for warmth and food to medical emergencies that might require trained assistance, these folks know they have one thing in the mountains they can always rely on: themselves.

 

Top photo: Gavirón looks over his lands, south of Cerro Negro behind him. Photo by Adam Spencer