One Mountain Too Far For The City Slickers!

Thursday 8 February

I almost overslept this morning and if it hadn’t been for Colin waking me up, I probably would have missed breakfast. I indulged in more warm brown rolls and apricot jam – Colin is definitely getting worried about my change of diet – but I couldn’t bring myself to eat the cake. Clark came and chatted with us while we were eating, about purchasing Toyota vehicles from Belgium (apparently it is much cheaper than buying them in Chile), and this conversation moved on to emissions, ecology and the planet! But all too soon it was time to meet our horses.

We put on the chaps to protect our legs, but Manuela thought that our own hats, bought in Australia, would be better than helmets, as they would protect us more from the sun. She gave us a brief (!) introduction about handling the horses - how to use the reins and how to mount and dismount - and then it was time to start the ride! Colin had never been on a horse before in his life, and was somewhat apprehensive as he stood, with one foot in the stirrup (like a pointed boot front) and had to jump and cock his other leg over the top of his horse – which stood almost shoulder height – to land sitting in the saddle! One, two, three . . . . he just about made it, but his hips are not that supple and to make such swivel movements wasn’t easy (also he hasn’t been doing his exercises since we left home!). Then it was my turn. I was very pleased I had had a lesson before – at least I had some idea what to expect. But that was the end of today’s lesson, and Manuela led us out of the Hacienda and along the River Bank track we had walked a couple of nights ago.

Colin’s horse was a pure white mare – I think it was the same horse who eyed us disparagingly when we arrived on Tuesday – perhaps she knew what was coming. Mine was a pale tawny brown colour with a black mane, and male! We had been assured that both were docile and used to novice riders. We traveled in a line, with Manuela at the front, then me, and Colin bringing up the rear – apparently his horse is not keen on being followed. Mauela’s dog – a young tan short-haired Labrador – kept us company, running back and forth, and exploring all the exciting scents along the way. Although we set off at only a slow pace, it was quite a steep learning curve for Colin – keeping his balance, turning the horse to follow the path (I think the horse was just testing him, as she obviously knew the way very well), and stopping the horse from munching as we traversed a field of alfalfa. It was hard enough for me, and I had now been on a horse three times!!!!

Yesterday I had been quite concerned about how we would manage in the heat of the day, as it certainly gets very hot here, with little or no breeze in the mornings – in the afternoon, a gusty wind gets up, very warm, but it relieves the intense burning from the sun – but we didn’t have time to think about the temperature – we had put lots of Factor 50 on before we left, and that would have to be enough. We continued further along the track than we had walked, and then turned right on to a steep path up the side of the mountain – almost straight up! - with loose stones, rocks and gravel for the horses to cope with. We lost the thick green foliage that had provided some shade and stepped out on to the arid brown mountain where there was no shade at all – just some cactuses and small stunted bushes were growing here. The horses only slipped and slithered a couple of times, but that was enough to make us grip the reins even harder – there was a sheer drop down, from the track to the valley below, and I did wonder how Colin was getting on with his vertigo – but thought it better not to mention it, as he had enough other things to worry about. The track met the first summit, and turned along the ridge to the next mountain before continuing to climb some more. From then on it was a succession of little more than goat tracks, going mostly up but with a few downs and flatter bits in the middle. The views became more and more staggering the higher we went – and if we looked down we could see the trails we had already covered.

We stopped at a couple of viewpoints, but neither Colin or I wanted to dismount – we might not be able to get back on! Manuela took a couple of piccys of us “City Slickers”, to prove we were up in the mountains on horseback. Soon after one of our stops, we were riding up a particularly steep slope, when Colin’s saddle slipped and he nearly fell off – only grabbing the reins hard kept him aboard. Manuela jumped off her horse, and declared he would have to dismount to tighten the leather girth straps. I could see it was a painful experience for him, but, of course, being Colin he didn’t complain. Manuela reset the saddle, and helped Colin back on his mount – oouch!!! – just how painful can this get?.

We set off along a ridge which climbed up to a few trees and a small hut. We were now about 2,000 metres up and had been going for nearly two hours. The hut belonged to a goatherd, aged 74, who lived up here all year round. When we arrived the goatherd was not there – as his dogs were not there either, Manuela thought that he had probably gone down the mountain to collect some supplies – he used to go down once or twice a week with his cheeses, now only goes down a few times a year! – the milk yield is poor now and he only has enough to feed himself and the young kids, kittens and pups. We dismounted – our legs felt a weak and we staggered about for the first few minutes - and so decided to eat our lunch here in the goatherd’s “sitting room” – a shelter of made up of wooden sticks, covered in places with a torn tarpaulin, and a straw roof. There were a couple of wooden benches along one side, where we gratefully sat down. In the centre of the “hut” was a small wooden table with a tin bath turned upside down on the top – when Manuela peeped inside, it was his food store – with almost nothing to eat, just a small jug of what was probably home-brewed beer!) We could see the goat pens a little way further up the mountain, although they were roaming around close by and further down the mountain. A grey stripy cat had immediately assaulted us as we sat down, looking expectantly for food.

The accommodation was a series of similar “huts” – a store room was joined to the “sitting room” through the stick door, tied closed with a band of black material, and we could see a few bottles of beer, his drinking water supply fed by a dripping hose pipe, and a few other tins of “goodness knows what”, standing on the shelves around the “walls”. The cat - and her kitten - also lived in here. The cooking area, was another similar shelter, this time with only a half door, where there were the remains of a wood fire and a cast iron skillet, full of pale grey ash, with an old battered metal kettle on top. A few other black pots and pans hung around the sides, together with strings of large white onions and garlic cloves. Just up the hill, a few metres away, was another of these shelters, but this time the door was padlocked! There was a solar panel outside. Peering through the cracks between the sticks, I couldn’t see much more than a few empty bags (like you buy sand or aggregate in at home) a large torch size light – presumably powered by the solar panel - and a sort of stone workbench. Outside we had seen another large flat stone with lots of copper chippings in various stages of being processed – perhaps this shelter was where he stored his findings from the nearby mine. Under Chilean law, if you dig and find minerals you can register the site as your own – but in this case, this man gets a pension from the Government, as he has very little income, and he would lose that, if he registered his claim. Manuela told us he was looking for someone to register his claim, but who didn’t want any share of the profits – not a lot of hope there! To the side of the sitting room, in yet another shelter was a cast iron bedstead, with a few blankets – obviously his sleeping quarters.

In the ‘courtyatd’ in front of these scattered buildings was the pond of greeny water for feeding the animals (drip fed by yet another hose from the opposite side of the valley, strung high in the air to reach this property), a dozen or so chickens sitting in the shade of an old gnarled tree, clucking merrily, and a line of washing (well a couple of “blue?” shirts) attached to the walls of the storeroom. In winter the temperature here drops at night to below freezing, and quite often the rain will fall as snow at this altitude. The man is not married, but has family and a house of his own in the town below. But he likes living up the mountain, as he has done for most of his life. He had a prosperous vegetable garden, which we could see the remnants of on the hillside, but there hasn’t been any rain now for three years, so he can no longer grow any crops. It was a shame the man wasn’t there, as I would like to have seen him, to understand his way of life a bit more.

We ate our lunch of ham, cheese and avocado in a brown roll, walnuts and raisins, plums and chocolate cookies (for Colin of course), washed down with mint-flavoured water. All very delicious – the plums and biscuits that were left over, we left for the man in his food store.

Getting back on the horse was obviously another painful experience for Colin – his groin and hips were really aching by now, but he managed to ride while we were still going up – about another half an hour – but as soon as we started to descend steeply, he had to get off – it was just too painful. Manuela walked with him for a short distance, but explained that she had a bad knee and couldn’t walk far (I had thought she was limping a bit). So Colin walked his horse and Manuela and I rode ours, going down steep slopes and over the ridges, across valleys and part-way up the other side. But the general direction was down toward the Hacienda – a journey of a good few miles. The track continued to be soft and rocky, along the sides of the mountains, but Colin was more comfortable walking, than sitting on the saddle – and we had to get down! Our descent was slow, but we all kept together, and at first we could see the tall Italian cypress trees in the distance far below, but they kept getting closer, as we traversed each mountain and valley.

Finally we were down – a bit of a relief all round really – the trip had been a bit longer than even I would have preferred – my thighs were aching and my bum quite sore – but for Colin it was like reaching “sanctuary”. I scrambled down from my horse while he drank thirstily from a pond and we removed our chaps and took them back to the tack shed. We went to the patio where we were promised some cold juice – which turned out to be apricot - my favourite – and met a couple of German people who had just finished an eight-day trek in the mountains going up to 4,500 metres – and camping of course. Did we feel like wimps? – not a bit of it – we had made it back to the Hacienda too.

For the rest of the afternoon, Colin tried to get comfy - having a soak in a warm bath to try and ease his aching body and stretching out his limbs into their more normal position. I just blogged of course, as I needed to keep up with the entries, sitting out on the verandah, enjoying the scents of the garden and the numerous black and white butterflies. Tomorrow we return to our favourite place – Santiago! – and hopefully will be able to connect to the Internet again. It seems weird that we have been out in the middle of the mountains for three days now, with no television or radio, no mobile phone connection and no internet – in fact no way of communicating with anyone – it’s a bit like living each day in a bubble. Juz left for her holiday today to Las Vegas and we haven’t been able to send them our good wishes, or catch up on how things are going with everyone. I think tomorrow might be a busy computer day!

This morning Manuela had asked if we minded having a local vegetarian dish for dinner, as other guests tonight were vegetarian – and obviously that was fine by us. When we arrived at dinner we found we were the only ones sitting down – the other guests appeared to be going out - perhaps to the local town - or maybe they were eating with Manuela and Clark and their tour guide. We sat out on the patio to enjoy our the last of the warm evening rays. We had a simple egg salad for entree, with yet more of the never-ending supply of brown rolls. This was followed by two oblong “pasties” each, which were a local tradition, but in fact were a “crisp thin water pastry”, supposedly were filled with vegetables – the only thing was that somewhere in the cooking process the filling had almost disappeared - broccoli was a discernable mash, and I think I spied a weeny speck of carrot, but nothing else. The bottoms of the pasties were . . . “overcooked” would be generous - black inside would be a more accurate description. The “pasties” were served with a white sauce heavily flavoured with rosemary and a few other herbs. The whole presentation was amateurishly “home made” – sounds a bit cruel, but we British could teach them a thing or two about making pasties. We managed to eat our way through most of them, washing them down with more home-made wine and water. Dessert was a cold pancake filled with their apricot jam, which we followed with tea.

Although still early, we decided to retire to our room, me to finish tonight’s blog and Colin to rest his hips. He says he felt disappointed that he could not ride all the way this afternoon, as being on a horse was nowhere near as scary as he had thought it might be. He is finding it difficult to get comfy at the moment, but hopefully he will feel a little easier tomorrow morning, as we have to sit in the car for 2 ½ hours, on our journey back to La Serena to catch our flight to Santiago.

Another section of our tour is finishing – and we join the Lapwing tour on Saturday. Two months today, we will be in Barcelona, thinking of how best to finish off our tour. Tonight’s topic of conversation at dinner, was whether South America was living up to our expectations and if the stays at the Explora and Hacienda have added anything to the tour. I think the answer to all the questions is “yes”. Peru and Bolivia far exceeded anything we had expected, and although we had a few bad experiences on our first encounters with Chile, we have had the opportunity to see and enjoy firsthand the country outside of the airport and the capital and understand more about the local traditions and cultures.

There is no doubt that South America will be a force to be reckoned within 15 years time – they already have enough natural resources to be self-sufficient throughout the continent and manufacturing and agriculture are making great strides forward. Brazil and Chile are the main producing countries, but Venezuela is now the richest oil producing nation is the world. People here look forward to being able to exist without any dependency on America and the rest of the world, and also being able to trade equally on the world market.