Kayaking in Chile 2007!

Who's Your Daddy?

2007-02-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

Merle and Tren Long, making like tough guys at the Rio (Sur). Long's house near Pucon.

Head Shots and You Tubes

2007-02-19T03:59:00.000-08:00

Head shots from our crew.

You tubes too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_eXEHFvSGw KJ trying to flat spin (boring)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbb_35qVz8o Run through Pescador, (better)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-F5E782Ojw Dana left side of Pesky

No necessito Rachel Ray

2007-02-18T17:45:00.000-08:00

Who needs the Food Network when you have Mamacita making you lunch.
Today our traveling circus takes a day off and we drive to Valdivia, a seaport of the Chilean coast. We check out the farmers’ markets and then go to the Food Court Grande!
This is home to ‘Carne on a Stick’ , plus myriad ‘foods in a bowl’ that you eat and savor and go back for more. Meat rules including vicuna broiled and soups of the region, plus empanadas. This is a place where 40 or so vendors serve street food to the locals, and Tom Long has pronounced it OK for our gringo stomachs. We eat ourselves silly! Mostly we try the potato balls (con carne y queso) and some thing that is shepards pie with corn meal on top. Of course, there are kebobs galore and then whole hunking sides of beef. I buy a beef plate for six bucks and cannot even make Luke full! We overlooked the fish avenue and regretted it. Salmon, sierras and all kinds of fishes grilled, steamed, smoked and served to happy Chileans with tails intact! I was trying to telepathically ask for ‘tastes’ from a Chilean family that was enjoying Pescador Fritas, but no luck.
The back channel story continues to be interesting with the ‘kids’ stepping out last night for some fun in town. Sergeant Cooley et. al. came home quite drunk (at 4am), but of course the story is lithe Sara mixing it up with some snooty Santiago homegirl. Both of them almost coming to fisticuffs. Most of the guys had stiffies just wishing they could have been there to watch!

Been freezing. We’ve had days of rain. One of our group did the upper the other day, but we are happy to not paddle. The fire roars downstairs and are thrilled that Luke has the job of making sure the gear is dry in the bodega! Big job.
Back on the Lower and Upper tomorrow.
Hot springs were the highlight of the last few days. ! Huife. And Trancura (Termas). That blob in the foreground is a kid on the zip line at Trancura Termas. The Huife springs was warmer, though more expensive. We loved the drive up the Liucura (?) valley.

Summer? Right!

2007-02-15T11:49:00.000-08:00

Holy Mother of Rain Storms!

Skies opened last night and dumped about 2000 cfs down on our little chunk of the world. Out we went for kayak lessons, looked kinda like this! We ran the Lower Trancura and had some carnage at Pesky-dor. And then past the Liucura we went and then, blam past some mini riverlet that was throwing in another 500cfs and water the color of Mt St Helens ash flow. Actually, it was more purple than anything else. The photo on the left is Sara who works for the Longs. She's a very graceful boater, and usually looks much better than this. However, you can see how cool this spot is, that's Chad Long standing in the water, coaching and about to get his head sliced off!

Valpo - The Murals

2007-02-14T10:15:00.000-08:00

We loved riding the ascensors (pics when I get around to it), but were really charmed by the Valparaiso murals. Look at the detail. These are from two sections of town, Bellavista and Cerro Conception, I think.

Of course, enough of this Frida Kahlo crap, bring on Beavis and Butthead. My favorite mural

was at the edge of the ritzier part of town. This large mural was really alive, but so many were just so beautiful. Even the graffitti was cool. Sorry for the layout, blogger sucks as a graphics program.

Valparaiso Recap

2007-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

Oh how the heck does anybody keep up with their vacation AND their blog. Am a few adventures behind. No our Yellow House hostel did not look like this, though it was cute and wonderful just the same. After we found it.

Valpo is like a mini South American San Francisco and some streets just don't have roads in the front. Yellow House is on one of them. Regardless, the people can't be more friendly, puppies too. My friends here belong to the hostel owners, Patrick and Lizzette.

My pal Dana and I traipsed all over the city hunting for the murals that make this place famous.

Welcome to Hostal Land

2007-02-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

We're taking a little walk on the wild side with our pre-kayak trip lodging. While I am kind of a Motel 6 girl when traveling on the cheap in the US, the Chilean hostel offerings look interesting. We are staying at the La Chimba in Santiago and then The Yellow House in Valparaiso. Looks like this, we hope! So far reserving La Chimba has been a snap. Easy e-mail communications and with luck we indeed can check in at the butt crack of dawn when we actually arrive Santiago. (7am-ish.) Will be very impressed if that works. We had to reserve the night before...hope they hold it for us.

2007-01-30T12:57:00.000-08:00

We are staying close to Pucon, south of Santiago.
The Long's new compound is here somewhere, under the shadow of the smoking Volcan Villarrica.

2007-01-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

Going to Chile! We're excited. Dana and I are headed down early to the coast. Wonder if we'll look like this again?

Do the Long's remember how much of a pain in the ass we can all be?

Oh Yeah, the Kayaking Part

2006-02-26T16:26:00.000-08:00

Now this is how to start a kayaking trip. We are the only gringos in a lovely hot springs resort atop some 11,000’ pass about an hour from Quito Ecuador. The water is ‘boil-your-back’ hot and the seven students are bonding with the instructors (Phil and Mary DeReimer of DeReimer Adventure Kayaking (www.adventurekayaking.com). We students are all wondering what a 7-day Class III/IV whitewater trip will include.

In some ways it’s odd to be joining a guided tour. Kayaking for me and my friends is usually a do-it-yourself affair, but I am thrilled, THRILLED to be guided around in this gorgeous, yet daunting country. With my three weeks of internet Spanish lessons I can barely buy a Coke! That is pathetic as this country runs on the good ol’ US dollar. You say “Una coca por favor” and they said, “una dollar…. Dude”! Actually they smile and are so polite. The country is clean and outside of Quito, safe. Stuff is cheap if you are willing to go a bit native, 70 cents an hour for internet, $1 for breakfast and $3 to ride the bus all afternoon in the mountains. But the scale and diversity of the country is amazing. Imagine finding the jungle, complete with howling monkeys and riotous-looking orchids, just 100 miles away from A-Basin! Of course, traveling that far in Ecuador is a two-day affair, but it is worth the journey!

When our trip finally begins, I am just happy to be with some other folks! I traveled alone through the volcano district around Quito looking for some mountain biking (which I found) and some views of the 20,000’ peaks, which I did not, due to low clouds. But I was also kinda lonely and a bit scared as everyone keep saying, “Be Safe, Be Careful” and well, Quito looks like an city under siege to some degree. All shops and inns are protected by armored bars and locked gates. Solo gringo girls like me are warned to not wander around at night alone – that kinda crimps my style.

Am looking forward to the food on the tour. I figured out breakfast though I will learn soon how to say scrambled (eggs). But dinner is another matter. In a daring (stupid?) moment I downed an Ecuadorian shish-kabob off the street and was in heaven. Yum! My biking guide, a local guy (educated at Tulane), about flipped and scolded me for being reckless.

So I am happy when we arrive at our farm-house home base and get served a wonderful dinner family style. We find some volcanoes peeking over the clouds in this gorgeous fertile river valley located at 6,000’. We get in kayaks and do a section of the Rio Quijos. The gateway to this run features walls formed of arhcing columnar basalt, Lava Falls style. So pretty. Rapids come a little more often and on number three I ask myself Is this Class III?? We banged into a small eddy after some miracle move that involved a 180° around some rock/pillow thingey, and I worry about making the ferry across a strong jet of water. I paddle WAY, WAY up the eddy to get a better run at this ferry and peel out. I make the line just fine and am kinda snoozing through the bottom of the rapid when I see another student rolling his way down the rapid, never quite coming up. But he ain’t swimming either and I wake up and give him a bow rescue! Duh. Way to hang in there! The rest of the run is truly Class III/III+ and Phil and Mary do a great job of ‘splaining the rapid and the lines.

For the next day we head towards the hot, stinking jungle and they take away my playboat. Waaaa? I’ve been in an EZ and feel kinda hobbled by the larger volume Piranha and pout until we hit the creek. I tumble through a bit of a drop and am glad to have some extra volume and a tail that will not stick. This creek, the Upper Misahualli supposedly drops 100’ per mile and is a beauty! Very narrow and lined with black granite boulders. We running a section that is manageable for our group (though Dereimers do offer trips that are IV- and up to IV +). Because these rivers are rain-fed and Ecuador wrote the book on microclimates, the conditions can go from “What fun!” to OMIGOD overnight. Or over lunch! We’ll get to run this creek again and it will have dropped from about 600cfs to 400cfs, making it much slower, but more of a workout. I am impressed with how the Dereimers stage these drops to get some newer boaters down this run safely. Nobody is in over their heads and everyone comes away with a big ego boost – now that’s teaching! As this stretch gets easier, my Ecuadorian big brother Steve and I get kicked loose to lead the drops on our own. Like most girl paddlers I usually follow some guy and seldom lead a drop. My home boys have tried to break me of this by forcing me to lead, but mostly I think they do it to watch me pick wild lines and laugh at the carnage. Ecu-bro Steve and I stay out of most trouble until the last day when I find some ledge hole for some acrobatics!!!

Shamans and Schnauzers

2006-02-26T15:48:00.000-08:00

Never been so happy to shut the door to a hotel room in my life! And hotel is a bit of an exaggeration. Today we kayaked on a river about half the size of the Amazon and ended at the Jardin de Aleman, a rustic lodge deep in the hot, stinking Amazon jungle. Animal noises large and small rage outside my door, not the least of which is the deadly Fer-de-Lance (snake). He is out there somewhere with the yummy taste of Schnauzer on his fangs. You might recognize the Fer de Lance by his other name, the Step-and-a-Half. Mucho poisonoso and I would have been mucho deado had Bill the Veterinarian (another kayaker) been scanning the paved trail we were on for tree frogs. Bill saw the snake right as he coiled and lined up to strike my right foot. Sadly the mini-schnauzer (lodge pet) was not so lucky. He was bit in the snout, but maybe was not injected with the full lethal dose, as he lived through the night.

After dinner the entertainment was a visit from the local healer to talk about jungle shamanism and if desired, perform a cleansing. After the doggy trauma no one wanted to dis the spirit world so we chipped in to buy a cleansing or two.
Interesting ritual – mostly relied on smoke from a Marlboro (yeah cigarette), but fascinating none the less.

By morning we learned a general strike was being called by the proletariat (most of Ecuador) and unless we high-tailed it out of the jungle we would be there until Easter.

Oh damn, no more jungle? We drive back up to the fertile Quijos river valley for some more creeking and a few runs on other sections of a pretty Quijos.
And stay here:

Seems maybe we did push our luck in the karma department a bit as the next day the brakes gave out on our rental van (luckily in the driveway of the farm, NOT on the hard side of the pass), and well, ummmm, it took me 3 days to fly home. But more on those stories later!!!!
Gorgeous country, friendly people, nice rivers. Oh and good hot sauce, what’s not to like!!!!

The Mountain Biking Part

2006-02-26T15:37:00.000-08:00

What a day! This is what travel should be: At times you are scared, sometimes you are tired and sometimes you wish you could be 3 feet tall and Quechuan, and not the only gringo at the market! Three nights ago I got to Quito, slept a bit and mostly wondered what I was gonna do in all this rain. As it pounded down I realized my plans to ride mountain bikes around the foot hills of the big volcanoes were dashed. I got up and walked hungrily around a section of Quito that looked sort of like Beirut -- security fences were pulled over store fronts and the liveliest thing was some macho Rottweiler (EC version of pit bull, mucho popular.) I dove into some Gringo cafe and was at home. Four people sat in silence pounding away on laptops in WiFi oblivion. FInally I asked for help and got good advice --"Get your scaredy-cat ass on the Bus and go to Riobamba" (Chimborazo volcano-land.)
The 4 hour bus ride was not too bad and the landscape opened into incredible terraced fields and green, green hills. My guide (Galo from Probici , probici.com) met me at the train station, he is the biking company owner, wow, that is service. After he fitted my bike and found me a hotel, he took me shopping for lunch meat. All of this and the next day´s tour (with a follow vehicle) for $55. The 4 hour bus ride was $4.
Our first stop was the ´Indigenious market´in Guamote. Wow! For two hours we walked among the local folks selling cows, pigs, chickens and of course, guinea pigs that look like cocker spaniels. I loved it. The highlight was potato shopping. No kidding. They have a section of the market big as a football field for selling potatoes. My guide (a local boy educated at the fine Jesuit schools of Bellarmine and Tulane), transformed from guide to shopper as he haggled for their version of Yukon gold potatoes. Cracked me up. I shot lots of pictures from my waist, they are a bit hinky about getting photographed. So I have lots of colorful photos, with no heads. !! Or heads turned.

I loved every minute of it. The bike ride was gorgeous, endless hills of green, marked with splashes of yellow from mustard flowers and of course, lined with little Quechua ladies with 50 pounds of green onions on their backs, slowly trudging home.

We rode about 25 miles, luckily 2/3 of which were downhill! The volcanoes (Chimbo and Cotopaxi) are still obscured by clouds. But the little volcanic valley town of Banos where I stayed last night was stunning. Hot springs everywhere. I soaked to my heart’s content and today rode back to Quito on the bus under a pile of litle ´Quechua' ladies heading back north. They are simply stunning with their mahogany faces, and bright green shawls, black panama hats and shocking pink necklaces.
Anyway, kayaking starts on Sunday, am excited. Water looks high, we´ll see how it affects the tour. Am living on scrambled eggs and potato chips, have yet to figure out the food thing and no, haven’t tried the roasted guinea pig yet!