May 20, 2003 (Continued)
Soon, the water around the boat was alive with sea lions. They were
everywhere. Unfortunately, Margarita was holding a sleeping Michaela and
didn´t want to disturb her to come and see the sight. I hope that it came
out on video tape. I could see them as they jumped off of the island and
joined the hundreds teeming in the water near us. Smaller groups
continued to chase us as we passed the lighthouse on our way to Puerto
Williams.
Did I mention it was nearly 5 hours before we actually got to Puerto
Williams? As we entered the protected area headed towards the dock, the
water calmed and we took a look at the small city. It actually looked
like a small city, with what looked like military housing and buildings
near the part of the city that we could see. Since the dock at Puerto
Williams was nearly non-existent, we had to tie the boat to another boat
that had tied itself to a large boat that was now functioning as a dock.
Sergio had called in our arrival to the Chilean authorities so before too
long, three officials appeared. We have no experience with these
procedures, but I found it interesting how the officials asked for permission to board the small sailboat. It was quite congenial.
Well, you´ll never know how Mike found it for alas, this is Marga blogging now. Mike is upstairs with a (hopefully sleeping) baby and I am now the official blogger for the evening.
Personally, I found the immigration procedures painless. The immigration people were very nice and courteous. I was a little bit concerned because right before they came I remembered how Chile lobbies a US$100 visa on Americans (in retaliation for the US$100 America charges Chileans for a visa). I´d read that Chile enforces this on passengers arriving by plane, and that those arriving by land don´t usually have to pay it. BUT, I realized with dismay right before getting to Puerto Williams, I had no idea whether passengers arriving by sea had to pay it! Soon, though, our passports were stamped with a 90-day visa (even though we did tell them we´d only stay for a day) and we didn´t have to pay anything.
We got off the boat and we started on our way to the hostería run by Sergio´s friends when a Navy guy in a pickup truck stopped and offered us a ride. We thought that was very nice. We accepted, of course, though I felt a bit strange about accepting any favors from Chilean militaries. Mike, meanwhile, was terribly amused that on the back of Navy vehicles they have signs saying ¨Armada de Chilen, www.armada.cl¨ He later took a picture which I´m sure he´ll post in our travel album.
We found Puerto Williams to be a small Navy town (the town started as a Navy base, and is at its heart still a military town). There is nothing too interesting about it, though its setting between green forests, snowy peaks and a misty channel is quite pretty. Most of the houses seem of rather low quality, some are on wood stumps and essentially without foundations, though there are some very impressive new buildings. The new school, in particular, is a striking example of modern architecture. Lucky kids.
Natural (i.e. piped) gas has not made its way to Puerto Williams, so houses are heated by burning wood. That gives the town a very smokey atmosphere, whether that´s good or bad will depend on your views on the environment and of the qualities of smoke.
Anyway, the navy guy dropped us at the hostería (Pusaki -Mike), whose name I don´t remember right now (but I´ll check). It´s run by Patricia and her husband Tano, who also run the restaurant at the Club de Yates and the Pinguino Pub. Being the low, cold, season, the restaurant is closed but Patricia still cooks for her guests at the hostería and special orders.
The first thing we noticed about the house were the animals outside it. There were dogs and cats galore, which of course put Mika in 7th heaven. We finally made it into the house and were shown to a dormitory which would be ours for the night. Patty´s hosteria is a little house close to her own house which offers two dormitory rooms (for US$13 per person) plus a private room with a bath (which had been reserved in advance). It has a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room-dining room that functions as the common room. Patty and her husband are wonderful, warm people and she took to Michaela at once - and vice-versa. Patty couldn´t be happier to have a baby in her house (the youngest guest so far!) and she played and interacted with Michaela to exhaustion! Mika really liked her and by the end of the evening not only was she walking towards her (she gave 9 full steps going from Mike to Patty, 4 more than her previous record of 5) but also let Patty held her! Amazing!
Anyway, after we warmed up and rested we decided to go for a walk to see the museum. We´d paid US$280 to go to Puerto Williams and while it was too late and cold to go hiking in the forest I wanted to see something of the damned town! We asked for directions but didn´t understand them properly so soon we had no idea where the museum was (turned out just a 100 meters or so ahead of where we stopped our search). It was freezing cold and Michaela had started wailing of hunger/cold/sleepiness so we decided to turn back. Actually, Mike decided to turn back and told me to go on to the museum - even though he knew perfectly well that I had no idea how to return to the house by myself. He can be so nice sometimes!
Anyway, we went back and Mike put Mika to sleep. I socialized a little bit with the people there, and then Mike came and joined us and we did some more socializing, interrupted by a couple of walks to the store for sodas & snacks. As expected, Chile was terribly expensive. A can of coke was about US$1, but that´s life.
Later on Mika woke up and she played and interacted with everyone very happily, including the kitty cats that would occasionally sneak into the house. I think that was probably the highlight of Mika´s trip.
Patty cooked a dinner of steak and russian salad (pretty good) and for once we were able to eat in peace, as Mika crawled and walked around. She also showed an extraordinary appetite and ate quite a bit of both salad and meat. Mike and I were ecstatic. Eventually Mike took Mika to sleep (and fell asleep with her himself) and I stayed up with Patty, Tano and Sergio talking about life in Chile, Argentina and the US. It was very interesting. I learned that Chile is a much more structured society than Argentina (I knew it was the case in the military, but didn´t realize this extended to society as a whole), where rules are enforced so people take them seriously. Low-level corruption, so common in Argentina, seems to be very rare in Chile. Interesting.
I finally went to sleep at around 1:30 AM. The room was a bit chilly but I slept wonderfully below a bunch of blankets. And so my first and only night in Chile passed.
Posted by mike at May 24, 2003 06:09 PM