Valdivia and the park of magic

I can not apologize enough for the lack of keeping up this blog. As Santiago became more of a home, it became awkward to blog about “normal” life here (mind you normal has been building toilets in slums, hiking volcanoes, sailing, rock climbing up the Andes and other such “normal” things). I have much to share and REALLY do need to be better at keeping this up. So I am going to jump around a bit. Just bare with me.

So Chris and I got the chance to head south with a couple people from CODEF to go view a small natural park on the coast. CODEF is the oldest environmental NGO in Chile. For a decades now they have been protecting various plants & animals through out Chile. We knocked on their main office door a couple months back and they were vary interested in the possibility of solar toilets in their parks. Specifically one park, 12 hours south of Santiago on the coast. This park was created about 20 years ago to preserve an Olivian Forrest, an endangered tree species native to Chile. Nothing was really done to make the park easy for people to visit because money ran out. Now they want to re-build the information center, and get the park ready to be an educational experience for visitors from around the world. And they want to make everything as self sustaining as possible, and as such are interested in us trying a solar toilet there, and they need a toilet quick as they start building down there.

So Patty, a Chilean girl about my age and heading up the project, invited us down to have a look. So Chris and I caught a night bus to Valdivia and met Patty and her friend Cristobel to go “check out the park”. AND WOW!!! What an area. The drive there alone was worth the trip down. We drove right along the coast line going north from Validivia. This area of the country is known for all of its rivers and channels that intersect and enter the ocean there. Between the bridges and islands, wild life and the coast itself, Chris and I were drop jaw the whole way. The park is situated right on the coast with beaches and cliffs combine together and then quickly become a deep forest so dense you can hardy see sunlight in many places. First Chris and I went to go play on the beach. The rocks were so much fun to climb over and the sand was so fine and felt so good on bear feet. The ocean was a vibrant blue color and fit amazing with the perfect blue sky and bright shining sun above. We had a great nap up on one of the cliffs next to where the old attempt at a visitors center stood, now an old abandoned building falling to pieces. Then we hiked up the cliff line to some amazing overviews of islands and cliffs reaching into the Pacific Ocean.

The other had to leave at this point and Chris and I opted to stay and camp out in the old abandoned building for the night. So we said goodbye and then Chris and I took off by ourselves into the thick forest/jungle to see what we could find. We were following random trails through amazing plant and animal life and suddenly we stumbled on it… the natural Olivian Forest and WOW-WIE! These trees are like red woods in their size wide as the size of a car and so high you can’t see the tops, except that these are so much more vibrant with colors. Greens of all colors where every where and blinded you as they reflected the rays of sunlight passing through tree tops. Then not to mention this whole forest was growing right on the ocean so you had the blue blue of the ocean and the constant sound of the waves to add to the effect. We felt as if we were walking through a dream. It was incredible.

That night a huge storm came in off the coast. Wind and rain pummeled the old building we had pitched our tent in. It was awesome to read by flash light while listening to rain hit the tin roof. While the roof leaked, and the building didn’t have any windows I was still really happy that it wasn’t just us and the tent out in that storm.

The next day we caught a bus back into Valdivia to explore the city a bit. A day of watching sea lions, eating fresh sea food caught only moments before and going on a boat tour up the channels was pretty nice- specifically when the boat tour became a kind of pub-craw as they took us to local houses that make their own local drinks. Everything from home made beers to Chicha, it was delicious.