Parque Pumalin

I spent the past two days exploring Parque Pumalin, located only a few miles north of Chaiten. This park was founded by an American named Doug Thompkins, the founder of the North Face and Esprit clothing mega companies. He decided to cash in his savings and start buying up large tracts of land in this area, spurred on by his belief in deep ecology http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology Once the Chilean nationalists discovered what he was doing they began to freak out and claim that Thompkins was a threat to Chile, trying to divide the country, etc. Turns out Thompkins knew what he was doing and the public has for the most part accepted his plan, once they realized that preserving some of their natural resources might actually be a good idea in the big scheme of things. The park gets a lot of pub about being the first private national park in the world, though it is gradually coming under more of the Chilean park services control.

The few trails I walked were quite short, none more than a couple hours but they were quite nice. Being so close to the ocean, the climate is quite different here from further south, creating a temperate rain forest. I walked past some impressive water falls, some over 100 feet in height, and camped at a small lake surrounded on all sides by 500 foot walls completely covered by what my trekking guide describes as luxuriant rain forest. While waiting a few hours for a ride back to Chaiten I witnessed a tiny hummingbird wipping from flower to flower, literally only a few feet above my head.

Today is a nothing day in Chaiten, doing laundry for the first time in forever and just reading and lazing about. I am waiting for the ferry that leaves tomorrow for they town of Quellion, on the island of Chiloe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilo%C3%A9_Island , the 2nd largest island of Chile. I plan on exploring this huge rainforest type island for 4 to 5 days and then I will make my way up to Puerto Montt where I will rendevous with my dad for a couple weeks.