Tuesday, April 3, 2007

Trekking where Darwin once trod

I returned to Castro, the defacto capital of Chiloe, this evening. The previous two nights were spent in Parque Nacional de Chiloe. This park is located on a rugged and very scarcely populated section of Pacific coast, about a 1.5 hour bus ride west from Castro. I shared my time there with Alex, a 28 year old from Taiwan. I hadn´t thought of it until I met him, but he was the first (and will probably be the only) traveller I have met from Asia during this trip. I got a huge reaction from him when I showed off my very limited Mandarin vocabulary. He turned out to be a really nice guy and I enjoyed the 25 miles of costal trekking that much more because of his company.

The trek itself was a mix of broad beaches, dunes, and costal rainforest. We camped along a crecent shaped beach that received a constant flow of 6-8 foot breaking waves. The resulting roar had a rather pleasent quality to it and when mixed with a nice sunset and full moon, it make for a memorable camp spot.

In an interesting side note, Chiloe is one of the places Darwin describes as part of the second journey of the HMS Beagle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_voyage_of_HMS_Beagle Actually, almost all of the Patagonian locales I have visited during this trip were also visited by Darwin during this trip, and I hope to read his journal of these travels when I return home. In one exhibit at the park visitor center there is an excerpt from his journal where he states something akin to ¨I doubt there are many other places on earth that recieve more rain than the Pacific coast of Chiloe.¨ Before arriving in Chiloe I had read and heard the same thing, you will get rained on and most likely it will be for every day of your visit there. Well, beginning with the great sunset ferry arrival into Quellon, the weather has held steady and there has been no rain at all. On the contrary, most of my 3-4 days here has been under warm and clear skies. If only Mr. Darwin could have seen these green hills and coasts with the warming sun at his back!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

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