Announcing the Winners: Let's Choose (Moon) Patagonia!

In the last few years, southern Chile’s volcanoes have spewed thousands of tons of ash into the skies of Patagonia, but the primary victim has been neighboring Argentina, as the prevailing westerlies drop most of the debris across the Andes (though the jet stream carries some of it, in a distance-decay effect, around the globe as far as Australia). The most recent culprit has been the Puyehue-Cordón Caulle complex, which erupted about a year ago, ruining the last ski season and summer at the Argentine resorts of Villa la Angostura and Bariloche. The iPhone photograph below, which my wife took in March, shows a cloud of ash advancing from Chile.

As my recent post reported, Bariloche is now advertising that, as the skies clear and the airport reopens, authorities are optimistic about the upcoming ski season. Of course, it’s only been a few years (2008) since the more southerly Volcán Chaitén forced the occupation of its namesake Chilean village but also dramatically impacted the Argentine side of the border. Local opposition to a government decision to relocate the village to the safer site of Santa Bárbara forced reluctant authorities to restore essential services, including electricity and water, despite Chaitén’s precarious location at the base of a subsiding but still burbling caldera.

Volcán Chaitén was the answer to the quiz I posed to award two copies of Moon Patagonia to aspiring travelers, and I finally have my winners. The first was Steve Behaegel of Merelbeke, Belgium, a Patagonia addict who has been there several times before and is planning, in the next austral summer, to go pack-rafting in the wilds of Lago O’Higgins, at the terminus of the Carretera Austral. The other goes to Oliver King of London, who intends to visit soon with his wife and young daughter.

Oliver also identified Volcán Hudson as the Chilean volcano that erupted in 1991, burying large parts of southern Argentine Patagonia in ash, killing thousands of sheep and destroying the soft fruit and orchard production of Chile Chico and Los Antiguos (which has since recovered). In fact, Oliver told me, he was there at the time, and again in 2003.

In the course of doing my first guidebook for a publisher whose name is best left unmentioned, I myself visited the area around Los Antiguos and Chile Chico just a few months before Hudson’s eruption. Even a couple years later, driving the Carretera Austral, I saw ash more than a meter deep on each side of the road, and the remnants of the eruption are still visible in the so-called Bosque Inundado (“sunken forest,” pictured above) along the Río Ibáñez.

Rescuing the Rivers? HydroAysén Retreats

For those interested in this part of Patagonia, there’s good news that the Chilean energy giant Colbun has decided to refrain from pushing the massive HidroAysén dam project on the region’s endangered Baker and Pascua rivers (pictured above), at least for the time being. I’ll have something about this intriguing development in the near future.

On Tuesday: Rapa Nui, Puyehue, HydroAysén, & Record-Setting Lemonade

Today’s entry covers a series of recent items on Easter Island, the lingering effects of Volcán Puyehue, the HydroAysén controversy, and the world’s greatest lemonade (by volume; I’ve not been able to taste it).

Rapa Nui Wristbands
Things are changing fast on Easter Island. As I wrote a few months ago, Conaf (Chile’s national parks agency) has instituted a new annual pass (around US$20) that applies to all of Chile’s parks except, unfortunately, Torres del Paine and Rapa Nui. Now we learn that Conaf has instituted a new policy by which every passenger arriving at Hanga Roa’s Aeropuerto Internacional Mataveri will be required to purchase a wristband (US$20 for Chileans, US$50 for foreigners) to visit Parque Nacional Rapa Nui.

The passes will be valid for five days for all sites except the Orongo Ceremonial Village and the Rano Raraku quarry (pictured above), where all the island’s signature moai came from. Previously, those were the only archaeological sites where any charge was collected, and the new pass will entitle visitors to a single visit only to each site.

I’m personally ambivalent about such charges, because I dislike the differential charges for Chilean nationals and foreigners, as it simply assumes foreigners are more able to pay them. On the other hand, given that Easter Island is a relatively remote destination that’s expensive to reach, it’s hard to imagine that the fee difference would be a deal-breaker.

Ash Falling on Cape Town

The ashfall from Volcán Puyehue continues circling the planet and, as of yesterday, it disrupted flights from South Africa’s Cape Town International Airport. LAN Airlines, however, has announced the resumption of flights from Santiago to Auckland and Sydney, though its Argentine domestic operations to the airports of Bariloche, Neuquén, Comodoro Rivadavia and Río Gallegos remain suspended. The Chilean government is permitting evacuees to return to the Puyehue area, where their fields are covered in ash, but the worst victim of the ashfall appears to be the Argentine resort town of Villa La Angostura (where NBA basketball star Manuel Ginóbili has a home; pictured above before the eruption). From photos I have seen, Villa La Angostura is blanketed with ash, while the telephone service has collapsed; the central government has sent five million pesos (about US$1,250,000) in short-term assistance.

HydroAysen: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Following its approval by a government commission last month, the controversial HydroAysén dam and power project in wildest Patagonia (including the Río Baker, pictured above) has hit a judicial obstacle. An appeals court in the city of Puerto Montt has granted an injunction against HydroAysén pending resolution of a series of complaints from lawmakers, municipal authorities, and environmental groups. It is also possible that a number of local land-use referenda currently in progress in the thinly populated Aysén region could prove to be additional obstacles for the company.

When Life Gives You Lemons, Go for the Record
Best known as the cradle of Argentine independence, the northwestern city of San Miguel de Tucumán (pictured below) is where delegates to the Congreso de Tucumán declared themselves free of Spain in 1816. Though it enjoys mild winters, for much of the year it’s a hot, humid subtropical city that was long renowned for its sugar mills. According to the Buenos Aires daily Clarín, though, Argentina is now the world’s largest lemon producer - a fact I did not know - and, on Sunday, Tucumán residents made the Guinness Book of World Records by producing the world’s largest lemonade.

The relevant stats: 30,000 lemons, 1,100 liters of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and 470 kg of sugar to produce 5,500 liters of lemonade - breaking the previous record of 4,359 liters in the United States. With high temperatures only around 15° C (roughly 65° F), Tucumanos might do well to save some of it for summer, when the mercury routinely climbs above 30° C (86° F) with Floridian humidity.

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Road Trip Update: Chile's Carretera Austral

As the southern hemisphere winter sets in, there are few tourists along the Carretera Austral - which I have described as Chile’s top road trip - but what’s happening now in northern Patagonia’s Aisén region will have repercussions for the upcoming season and the coming decades. As Patrick Symmes details in the current issue of Outside magazine, the controversy over five new hydroelectric dams in the thinly populated region - two on the Río Baker and three on the Río Pascua - concerns a potential environmental catastrophe.

In his article, Symmes details the controversy over two new dams on the Río Baker (pictured here) plus three on the Río Pascua, plus a 1,500-mile transmission line that would require a 500-mile clear-cut through its forests (the online version of the article will not be available until next month, but there is a gallery of accompanying photos). In a country that lacks conventional energy resources - Chile produces perhaps 10 percent of its own fossil-fuel consumption - half the electricity comes from hydropower, which many Chileans consider the default option.

In terms of flow, the Baker is Chile’s biggest river and there are ideal dam sites along the Carretera Austral just north of the town of Cochrane (population about 2,200). Nevertheless, there is determined local opposition, including holdout farmers unwilling to surrender their prime bottomland even for an enormous payout that would set them up for life (it’s only fair to add that some locals support the project enthusiastically). The nationwide campaign for Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia Without Dams) and others have done their utmost to publicize the threat to the Baker but, as Symmes says, they have relatively little clout among Chile’s power brokers.

Except perhaps one: despite belonging to a center-right coalition, recently elected President Sebastián Piñera is a philanthropic conservationist who has set aside a large densely wooded portion of southernmost Chiloé as Parque Tantauco, a private nature reserve open to the public. In doing so, he followed the example of US conservationist Doug Tompkins, who created Parque Pumalín on the mainland across the Golfo de Corcovado, and with whom Piñera has cordial relations (unlike Chile’s previous center-left governments, some of which distrusted Tompkins intensely).

I can’t begin to analyze all the intricacies of the Baker controversy here - either buy the magazine or wait until Symmes’s article comes online - but I did write about it in more detail in a post in late 2007. It’s worth adding that the project would also affect the pending Parque Nacional Patagonia, a project to which Tompkins and his wife Kris McDivitt are major contributors. It’s also worth adding that the hydroelectric project would not help Aisén residents directly - all the power generated would go to metropolitan Chile.

Meanwhile, there’s another environmental controversy in the border town of Futaleufú, the whitewater rafting capital that’s the gateway to its namesake Class V river (pictured here). In its waters, scientists have discovered the so-called “toilet paper algae,” an invasive diatom that attaches itself to rocks and other submerged surfaces. Native to cool temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, but now found in New Zealand and Chile, Didymosphenia geminata kills off insects that fish feed on and, thus, could damage the area’s fly-fishing industry.

As the algae has likely arrived on rafting, kayaking and fishing equipment, foreign and Chilean operators may have to prohibit the use of imported gear. In the long run, it’s also a danger to the pristine clarity of the “Fu” and other rivers in the region but, unfortunately, local authorities seem to take it less seriously than the recreational operators.

There is some positive news out of the region. Carolina Morgado, of Parque Pumalín, has written me that work on the highway south from Caleta Gonzalo - closed since the 2008 eruption of Volcán Chaitén - is due to begin soon, and the park will reopen its Caleta Gonzalo facilities, including cabañas, a restaurant, and the visitor center, in the upcoming 2010-11 season. In the pending Parque Nacional Patagonia, meanwhile, “We have finished a lodge at Valle Chacabuco, and it’s a beauty.”

Ethical Travel: Argentina & Chile Score High

According to a recent press release from Ethical Traveler, an organization headed by my Oakland neighbor Jeff Greenwald, both Argentina and Chile figure among the ten most ethical destinations for world travelers in 2010. Given where these countries would have figured 30 years ago, when both were under vicious military dictatorships, this is a welcome development though, in the following paragraphs, it will be apparent that the analysis is not quite so simple.

Ethical Traveler arrived at its evaluation by compiling information on each country’s records on environmental conservation, social welfare, and human rights, from sources such as the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, UNICEF, Amnesty International, and Freedom House. Specific items taken into account include forestry practices, child mortality rates, and freedom of the press. Admitting that these standards alone are not enough to make a destination appealing, the release adds that each of the countries in question “boasts wonderful opportunities for the traveler - opportunities to experience nature at its most pristine, and to interact with local people and cultures in a meaningful, mutually enlightening way.”

In all these categories, though, there is room for devil’s advocate arguments. In Argentina, for instance, the government may have pledged preservation of endangered Atlantic forest in the northwestern province of Misiones, but at the same time it’s lagged far behind in cleaning up the Riachuelo, a stagnant stream of sludge that runs through the tourist-friendly Buenos Aires neighborhood of La Boca (pictured above). Chile deserves credit for its progressive national parks system but, outside park boundaries, monocultural plantations of exotic Monterey pine often continue to replace native forests. Controversial, massive hydroelectric projects threaten areas the Río Futaleufú (pictured here) and other rivers without formal protection in northern Chilean Patagonia.

Both Argentina and Chile, of course, suffer from great disparities between wealth and poverty, both in the cities and the countryside. Chile has dealt with this in a more systematic manner, providing assistance and opportunities within an institutional framework. Argentina, meanwhile has often tied assistance to political patronage, in both urban and rural areas. In some ways, this has made existing problems worse.

While the political environment in both countries is far superior to what it was three decades ago, it’s not without problems. Perceiving its ebbing support to be a result of an unfriendly press, for instance, the Argentine government of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner forced adoption of a new media law aimed at the Clarín group, its most outspoken opponent. In another irony, Chile has invoked a Pinochet-era anti-terrorism law against Mapuche Indian demonstrators (some admittedly violent) in the southern lakes district.

All of this is not to imply that Argentina and Chile are unsuitable destinations for travelers concerned with how the proceeds from their travels will be spent. As it happens, I agree with most of Ethical Traveler’s conclusions, but that doesn’t mean that visitors to these countries should overlook their shortcomings. That’s part of the learning experience.

Is Chile the New New Zealand?

Every Sunday, the Santiago daily El Mercurio dedicates an entire magazine to travel and, because the peso is so strong, more and more Chileans are traveling overseas. In last week's edition, Sebastián Montalva decided to compare Chile and New Zealand as tourist destinations with some interesting insights, but he was also guilty of some oversights.

A caveat for this entry: I've spent years either living or traveling in Chile, and have never been to New Zealand except for a stopover en route from California to Australia, so I obviously know Chile much better, and know New Zealand primarily through reading about it. That said, the geographical similarities are palpable; both occupy comparable Southern Hemisphere latitudes, though New Zealand does not extend into the northern subtropics and tropics, where Chile has extensive deserts. NZ's North Island resembles the Chilean heartland, with its Mediterranean vineyards, while the South Island is an area of lush forests, mountains, and fjords that's similar to Chile's lakes district and northern Patagonia.

Montalva says, in fact, that "Lord of the Rings" could just as easily have been filmed in the landscapes of Chile. So might have "The Last Samurai," also filmed in New Zealand, though given the local hysteria over the filming of the latest James Bond film in the Atacama, using Chile as a stand-in for Japan might have been dicey.

Montalva notes that, despite similar resources, tourism brings New Zealand five times the income that it does to Chile, and wonders why. He says that the numbers of visitors are roughly comparable, but he fails to note that New Zealand's insular isolation means that almost all foreign visitors must travel great distances. Many of Chile's visitors. by contrast, come from neighboring Argentina and other South American countries, and spend less than affluent international travelers who fly into New Zealand.

He does point out differences in language - other things being equal, tourists may prefer destinations where they can communicate with the locals (even if, in many cases, it's only with waiters and desk clerks). Compared to Chile, he says, New Zealand is also tidier and better organized. His main point, though, is that New Zealand does a better job of promoting its natural environment through activities such as whale-watching, which is barely in its nascent stages in Chile, even when Chile's resources may be superior. Pictured above, Chilean Patagonia's almost uninhabited fjords, for instance, are demonstrably wilder and more remote than New Zealand's Milford Sound, but there's been little relatively investment (financial or otherwise) in exploiting them.

With his praise of New Zealand's environmental record, Montalva implies - but never explicitly criticizes - the potential shortcomings of Chile's own commitments. It's worth noting that New Zealand lacks a massive mining industry - Chile's biggest foreign exchange earner, which is counting on the massive development of Chilean Patagonia's abundant but remote hydroelectric resources such as the Río Baker (pictured to the right) for its future energy needs. If that happens, it could preclude Chile's ever establishing a sustainable tourist economy to match New Zealand's.

Ash Falling on Alerces

In August 1991, Chilean Patagonia's 1,935-meter Volcán Hudson spewed an ashfall of more than five cubic kilometers that carried into the South Atlantic Ocean and even across the Pacific to Australia. In the immediate area, around the Aisén region town of Chile Chico and its Argentine neighbor Los Antiguos, more than 1.5 meters of ash accumulated in some spots. It fouled the water, ruined crops, killed livestock that could not reach forage, and drowned forests of southern beech such as the one depicted here along the Río Murta.

Farther north in Chilean Patagonia, where the narrow endemic alerce (false larch) is the signature tree species, a similar event is forcing at least a partial evacuation of the port of Chaitén (population about 4,000). According to the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program, the town's namesake volcano, an 1,122-meter peak only about ten km away on the edge of the Parque Pumalín conservation project, is spewing plumes of ash up to 55,000 feet above sea level. Fortunately there is no snow on the volcano - because the peak drains toward the town of Chaitén, there would be serious flood danger. The caldera, though, does have two small lakes that could drain if the caldera were breached.

Again according to the Smithsonian, Chaitén's last known eruption was 7,420 B.C., plus or minus 75 years, so this was unexpected. Early reports, in fact, were that the eruption came from snow-covered Michimahuida, pictured here; an eruption on Michimahuida - the last was in 1835 - could cause major snowmelt and flooding.

Meanwhile, the prevailing westerlies are carrying ash toward the town of Futaleufú, Chile's whitewater rafting capital, and across the border into the Argentine city of Esquel (which canceled school classes yesterday), east of Los Alerces National Park. According to one Internet newsgroup report, some Futaleufú residents were wakened repeatedly by tremors during the night, and went outside to find the town covered by what appeared to be snow but, on closer inspection, was ash. There are photos of the town online at the Chile forum All Chile.

UPDATE: As of early Saturday evening, Chilean time, Chris Spelius of the Expediciones Chile kayaking and rafting company tells me that his wife is trapped in their Futaleufú house with the windows taped, without water and with diminishing food supplies. According to Chris, "No vehicles are moving as the volcano dust conducts electricity and ruins the alternators. There are about 50 vehicles abandoned on the road between Chaiten and Futaleufú ... " The border crossing to Argentina is open, but "but no one wants to take a vehicle since most vehicles do not last 30 miles in the dust."

Chile's Dam(ned) Energy Dilemma

For most of the last two decades, Chile has enjoyed South America's most vigorous economy, not to mention political stability, while countries such as neighboring Argentina (and more distant Venezuela) suffered economic and political meltdowns. There's a threat to Chile's prosperity, though, as world oil prices rise. The country imports almost all of its petroleum, but for a small quantity produced in southernmost Patagonia.

The capital of Santiago, meanwhile, has long suffered from air pollution because of its growing industry, burgeoning car culture, and a location that traps hydrocarbon emissions in the same way as California's Los Angeles basin. It needs energy, though, as does the booming copper-mining industry, based in the northern Atacama desert. Meanwhile, the southerly lakes district is so devoid of energy resources that even mid-sized cities such as Temuco (population about 250,000) and Valdivia rely on firewood for home heating (even some surprisingly large hotels produce their room heat and hot water in this manner). The result is that Temuco has some of Chile's worst air quality indexes.

Chile has been looking for energy alternatives, ranging from nuclear to more alternative technologies such as wind (ideal for much of Patagonia), solar (unlimited potential in the desert north), and steam (Chile's volcanic landscape has huge numbers of hot springs). The conventional solution, though, appears to be hydroelectricity, but that comes with its own problems--a few years back, in a controversial case, the Spanish power company ENDESA dammed the Río Biobío, widely considered one of the world's great recreational rivers.

The problem is that Chile's last remaining wild rivers, particularly the Río Baker, lie in the southern Aisén region, the northern sector of Chilean Patagonia, near the town of Cochrane. ENDESA plans to dam the Baker, flooding more than 5,000 hectares of the stunningly scenic Baker-Nef confluence. In the process, though, it would also have to build up to 2,300 km of transmission lines through nearly pristine temperate rainforest that includes several national parks and other reserves, including the private conservation initiative at Parque Pumalín.

The Baker project would provide clean energy for Santiago and the north, but at great cost. Much of the power would be lost in transmission. Much of the southern forests would be denuded. And, because dams collect sediment, the project might not be sustainable in the long run.

There is a vocal political opposition to damming the Baker, and Chilean highways have sprouted billboards urging a "Patagonia sin Represas" (Patagonia without Dams, website in Spanish only). At the same time, there are signs that it's a done deal--Cochrane's Hotel Wellmann, for example, is undergoing a major expansion to accommodate construction personnel even as a cubbyhole office on the town's central plaza continues to struggle against the project.

Chile has much to do in energy conservation--double-paned windows are becoming common in newer buildings, for instance, but a project to retrofit existing houses and insulate them might reduce the need for imported natural gas and diesel. For the moment, though, the country appears to be concentrating on the supply side of the energy problem, and mostly ignoring a potentially rewarding demand side.