18th March
Another beautiful morning greeted us as we headed further south to Parque Pumalin. Our boat picked us up and took us across the fjord, followed by a short ride in a Bedford van across a bumpy dirt track before our next boat ride of the morning. This took us across another fjord, where a trawler was fishing for sardines (we could see them all thrashing around in the net). Sea lions playing the water, beautiful snow-capped mountains - does it get any better than this?
Our destination is a tiny village called Caleta Gonzalo consisting of a café and a few beautiful cabañas made of Alerce (our home for the next two nights). The park is slightly controversial in Chile, as it is privately owned by American businessman turned conservationalist Douglas Tomkins (founder of North Face and Esprit). It covers nearly one million acres and runs from the coast up in to the Andes and the Argentinean border, basically splitting the country up. However, a massive area of pristine temperate rainforest is now safeguarded. We met up with staff from the park, who took us round and showed us where to find specific plants. The slight problem was that the park was closed due to the recent eruption of the Volcano Chaiten that was still very active and had destroyed a section of the only road through the park. Our guides had sorted out two trucks, one to pick us up on the other side of the broken road.
On route we saw the sight we had all really been looking forward to, the smoking top of the Volcano. We passed the base of it - amazing to see the trunks of all the dead trees in the surrounding area. The main aim of the day was to collect the conifer Pilgerodendron uviferum (the world's most southerly-growing conifer) a relative of the more commonly know Incense Cedar from western USA. It frequents wet boggy ground but, due to the very dry year, it was easy to collect. The most annoying thing was the mosquitos, who had a thirst for some new British blood! We harvested an excellent collection of seed (great for the Pinetum and the Millennium Seed Bank) and we headed onwards very happy and covered in bites!
We stopped in Chaiten for food and couldn’t believe the sight that met us - the town had been wiped out by flood water after the eruption and was now a virtual ghost town. The streets and houses were covered with a thick layer of grey ash, in the bay there were houses that had just been washed out in to the sea. This is a sight we will all never forget. Fortunately no one was killed, as everyone had been evacuated in time. A few people had moved back into the town and a couple of small stores were open for business - life goes on. Worryingly, the volcano is still smoking and who knows when it might erupt again! This was quite apparent as on the way back our guide stopped the pick-up to explain about the eruption and a new plume of smoke came out of the side of the volcano. Time to head back to Cabañas! As the park was shut we had the whole café to ourselves including the kitchen - great for cleaning seeds.
19th March
Today we went for a walk up through the rainforest; aptly named, as it was pouring down with rain along “waterfall walk”. It is very difficult to collect in closed forest as the seeds of the trees are usually in the canopy. As we found no clearings and no seed, we cut the walk short and moved on to another site. As this was a nice open site, we gathered seed from Ribes magellanicum, Escallonia rubrum and the white flowered Escallonia leucantha and Nothofagus dombeyi. A good end to the day.
20th March
Reluctantly we had to leave Parque Pumalin. Two days was nowhere near long enough to spend in such an amazing place, but we had other places to be and other species to collect. Today we had a long journey to Osorno. This involved an awesome half -hour boat ride, during which we saw loads of sea lions and a pair of sea otters before getting back into the cramped Bedford van. Then another boat back to Huinay, and another boat to Horopiren where we returned to the cars. Unfortunately the guys had left the lights on for the four days we had been away and the battery was completely dead. No jump leads, so they took the battery from our car and put it in theirs. This didn’t work, so we towed them to the only garage.
Our group headed onwards as we had to make a stop to collect the very beautiful but rare Chilean Lantern Tree. After about an hour of collecting much to our surprise the others (Marcello and Marcos) turned up saying they had charged the battery enough and it would be all right. They turned the ignition of and the car would not start again (turned out they had blown the fuse when they put our battery in their car). We left them and the car by the road and rushed to catch the last ferry (otherwise we would not be able to get to Osorno). This was the last we would see of them for three days. The rest of the journey was much less eventful and we rolled in to Osorno at 11.30pm after 14 hours of travelling.
Another beautiful morning greeted us as we headed further south to Parque Pumalin. Our boat picked us up and took us across the fjord, followed by a short ride in a Bedford van across a bumpy dirt track before our next boat ride of the morning. This took us across another fjord, where a trawler was fishing for sardines (we could see them all thrashing around in the net). Sea lions playing the water, beautiful snow-capped mountains - does it get any better than this?
Our destination is a tiny village called Caleta Gonzalo consisting of a café and a few beautiful cabañas made of Alerce (our home for the next two nights). The park is slightly controversial in Chile, as it is privately owned by American businessman turned conservationalist Douglas Tomkins (founder of North Face and Esprit). It covers nearly one million acres and runs from the coast up in to the Andes and the Argentinean border, basically splitting the country up. However, a massive area of pristine temperate rainforest is now safeguarded. We met up with staff from the park, who took us round and showed us where to find specific plants. The slight problem was that the park was closed due to the recent eruption of the Volcano Chaiten that was still very active and had destroyed a section of the only road through the park. Our guides had sorted out two trucks, one to pick us up on the other side of the broken road.
On route we saw the sight we had all really been looking forward to, the smoking top of the Volcano. We passed the base of it - amazing to see the trunks of all the dead trees in the surrounding area. The main aim of the day was to collect the conifer Pilgerodendron uviferum (the world's most southerly-growing conifer) a relative of the more commonly know Incense Cedar from western USA. It frequents wet boggy ground but, due to the very dry year, it was easy to collect. The most annoying thing was the mosquitos, who had a thirst for some new British blood! We harvested an excellent collection of seed (great for the Pinetum and the Millennium Seed Bank) and we headed onwards very happy and covered in bites!
We stopped in Chaiten for food and couldn’t believe the sight that met us - the town had been wiped out by flood water after the eruption and was now a virtual ghost town. The streets and houses were covered with a thick layer of grey ash, in the bay there were houses that had just been washed out in to the sea. This is a sight we will all never forget. Fortunately no one was killed, as everyone had been evacuated in time. A few people had moved back into the town and a couple of small stores were open for business - life goes on. Worryingly, the volcano is still smoking and who knows when it might erupt again! This was quite apparent as on the way back our guide stopped the pick-up to explain about the eruption and a new plume of smoke came out of the side of the volcano. Time to head back to Cabañas! As the park was shut we had the whole café to ourselves including the kitchen - great for cleaning seeds.
19th March
Today we went for a walk up through the rainforest; aptly named, as it was pouring down with rain along “waterfall walk”. It is very difficult to collect in closed forest as the seeds of the trees are usually in the canopy. As we found no clearings and no seed, we cut the walk short and moved on to another site. As this was a nice open site, we gathered seed from Ribes magellanicum, Escallonia rubrum and the white flowered Escallonia leucantha and Nothofagus dombeyi. A good end to the day.
20th March
Reluctantly we had to leave Parque Pumalin. Two days was nowhere near long enough to spend in such an amazing place, but we had other places to be and other species to collect. Today we had a long journey to Osorno. This involved an awesome half -hour boat ride, during which we saw loads of sea lions and a pair of sea otters before getting back into the cramped Bedford van. Then another boat back to Huinay, and another boat to Horopiren where we returned to the cars. Unfortunately the guys had left the lights on for the four days we had been away and the battery was completely dead. No jump leads, so they took the battery from our car and put it in theirs. This didn’t work, so we towed them to the only garage.
Our group headed onwards as we had to make a stop to collect the very beautiful but rare Chilean Lantern Tree. After about an hour of collecting much to our surprise the others (Marcello and Marcos) turned up saying they had charged the battery enough and it would be all right. They turned the ignition of and the car would not start again (turned out they had blown the fuse when they put our battery in their car). We left them and the car by the road and rushed to catch the last ferry (otherwise we would not be able to get to Osorno). This was the last we would see of them for three days. The rest of the journey was much less eventful and we rolled in to Osorno at 11.30pm after 14 hours of travelling.
