Memoir 15: Adventures in South America

Volcan Copiapo & Lago Negro Francisco

ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AMERICA

Some people may be interested in my adventures in Chile.  I went there for a few weeks or months nearly every year from about 1985 to about 2000.  This amounted to a prodigious heap of frequent flyer miles.   Unfortunately, they went to Western Washington University, or the National Science Foundation, never to me.   The scientific results that came out of these South American excursions turned out to be less important than our work in North America, but one very important conclusion emerged – the geologic history of North and South America are not alike, at least on their western edges, and geologists who continue to refer to California as an “Andean plate margin” are full of refried beans.

The guy who first lured me south was Robert Drake, whom I had known in graduate school.  Drake was what is referred to as a “geochronologist”; that is, someone who determines the age of certain kinds of rocks, chiefly volcanic ones.  As most of Chile is made up of volcanic rocks, Bob was something of a Chilean national hero, at least to their geologists.  Bob also was a crackerjack volcanic geologist, and I relied on him to an extraordinary extent.  Other Norte Americanos who worked with me from time to time include Russ Burmester, Bob Butler, and graduate students Paul Riley and Brian Steele.  Russ ran the paleomagnetism lab at WWU, had his own projects, and was (and is) an excellent geologist: with Russ and Bob Drake I could hardly go wrong.  Bob Butler was a professor of geology at the University of Arizona, who had done paleomagnetism in Argentina; he was happy to cross the Andes and collaborate on my projects.  The two graduate students had one thing (at least) in common; they were persuasive.  I had a rule that stated “only Chilean students on South American projects”.  These guys talked me out of the money to do work in the Andes.  Publications came out of both trips, so I shouldn’t complain too much.

More important than the gringos were my Chilean colleagues and students.  I can’t name them all: the list would be too long.  I will mention six: Francisco (Pancho) Herve’, Francisco (also Pancho) Munizaga, Constantino Mpodosis, Alfredo Garcia, Jose Cembrano, and Connie Rojas.  The first two were on the faculty of the Universidad de Chile, in Santiago.  Mpodosis (“Cocho”) worked for the Chilean Geological Survey,and the remaining three were their students whom I kidnapped and carted back to Bellingham to work on  M.S. degrees.  Pancho Muni was a special friend of Bob Drake, and we often stayed at his house when we were in the big city.  Pancho Herve’ was (and is) the “Grey Eminence” of Chilean geology; he knew everybody, everybody knew him, and he was the go-to guy for many kinds of Andean geological problems.  We were lucky to have these guys help out.

The Chilean grad students were superlative.  They knew they had no more than two years to finish their research and write their thesis, so they worked hard, and succeeded.  Cembrano may have been the most talented graduate student we (WWU geology) have ever had.  Connie and Jose were married, and Connie was pregnant, so she didn’t finish her degree.  Alfredo was a good student and a very popular and social one.  He played a lot of tennis with some of the other graduate students; it was fun to watch a match, with Alfredo cursing freely in Spanish and his opponent in English.

More about these folks later.

So, anyway, on my first trip south I was met at the airport by Pancho Muni, who was to take me to an apartment that the U. Chile geology people somehow had title to.  I was hungry, so I invited him out to dinner.  He seemed perplexed, but we found a restaurant and a table.  It was about 6:00 pm.  The place was deserted and the waiter looked a little surprised.  Later I found that Chileans rarely eat “la comida” before 8:00 pm.  Often when the season for field work arrived Pancho H would throw a “gringo party” to welcome us back.  This would start about 10:00 pm.  I was at one when one of the Chilean geologists arrived after midnight!  Strangely, they all seem to make it to work by 9:00 am the next day.

Trips to and from Santiago would take about 24 hrs., what with changing planes and all.  I hated the entire airline experience.  Often we would have to go via Miami and come back via Buenos Aires and again Miami.  Most of the flights were by Pan Am, at least in the early days.  It was a terrible airline: rotten food, rude cabin attendants, and inconvenient schedules. .  I once shipped a drilling outfit via Pan Am , rather than take it as luggage.  It hasn’t been seen to this day.

We worked at various places the entire length and breadth of Chile.  (“Length” is considerable;” breadth” is not.  Chile is shaped like a piece of spaghetti.  There are places where you could stand on the Pacific shore and throw a rock into Argentina if you had a good arm.)  For wheels we usually used Toyota Land cruisers belonging to the University of Chile; they, and their “chauffeurs” were part of the Chilean contribution to the projects.  Yes, each vehicle came with its own driver – and boy, were they good!  Also, part of the time we worked from boats in the southern Chilean fjords.  This was real luxury field work, for the most part: a cook, a shower, a bunk, and no worries about where the next food was to be found.  But usually we drove, we camped out, and we didn’t change our clothes very often.  We would get clean only every few days, when we either found a little hotel someplace, or a hot springs.  I remember Pancho Herve and I jumping into this one warm pool and turning the water a rich, golden brown!

A work party would consist generally of me, a Chilean graduate student or two, one or both of the Panchos, and often one or more other gringos.  Smaller parties were more efficient.  None of us Americans could speak Spanish worth a damn, so we absolutely had to have at least one Chilean along.  Several times Russ and I were forced to work by ourselves for a few days.  Russ’s Spanish stops at “no hablo español”, and mine – painful to relate – was not a hell of a lot better.  We managed to survive, but it was my most uncomfortable time in Chile.  That’s why I almost entitled this thing “A MONOLINGUAL GRINGO LOST IN THE ANDES”.

Okay, so you really don’t care about the science aspects of this story.  You are rightfully asking: “Well, what in heck did you do that was interesting?”  So I will see if I can find some humorous bits to relate.  Keep in mind that it really was work: most of the time we finished the day tired, dirty, and bored.

So, by far the best trip I took to Chile was the one where Linda went along.  We were out for about a month, “we” consisting of Linda and me, Bob Butler and his wife Pat, Pancho Muni, Alfredo Garcia, and a drive named Rosando.  We had a Land Cruiser and Alfredo’s little 4X4 something.  We drove from Santiago south to the Lake District, as far as the city of Puerto Montt.  (You might locate a good map of southern South America, if you feel so inclined.)  The country there is very beautiful: big lakes, volcanos, and attractive agricultural land.  In deference to the ladies, we stayed in small hotels or resorts, and usually ate in restaurants.  Linda has written a wonderful account of this trip which she seems to have distributed to family members.  I have the original and will be glad to show it to anyone who visits.  The highlights of that trip included a few days in Puerto Montt, which is the official end of the Pan-American Highway.  The road continues further south, but it is dirt or gravel, filled with chuck-holes, and constantly under repair.  Puerto Montt has a wonderful seafood market, where you can buy anything you know from the ocean, and gaze in wonder at things you had no idea people could eat!

 Our best experience in Puerto Montt concerned a special dinner, called a “curanto”.  I have had curantos several places since, but this was the only truly authentic one.  It was held on a small island just offshore, where there is an old and famous restaurant.  Here is how it works.  They dig a big hole in the ground, into which they put very hot rocks.  Then they put in layers of seafood, sausage, vegetables, more seafood, and so forth, each layer covered by some kind of big leaf.  All the customers are expected to stand by the pit and watch.  When they are finished they cover the whole thing over in leaves and dirt, and then everybody goes inside to drink white wine!  After an hour or so and many bottles of wine they bring the stuff in on huge platters, and everybody digs in.  I ate some things that day that I had not known existed.  And they were good.  If you ever find yourself in southern Chile, try to find a curanto – you will never forget it.

We had lots of little adventures on that trip, too many to tell.  One of the volcanoes was erupting (little puffs of smoke) near where we were working.  Pancho was breaking rock with a sledge hammer, and I was getting ready to drill.  Suddenly an old indigenous woman came out of a nearby house and stomped over to us, screaming and shaking her fist.  Pancho said she was saying “You are pigs!  You are hurting the earth!  Look at the mountain, blowing fire and smoke!”  Pancho said we had better cut and run, so we did.

One thing that does merit mention is the annual curse of the colihuacho in the Lake District.  About mid-December they suddenly appear.  They are very like a colorful version of our horse fly, only bigger, dumber, slower, hungrier – and way more ubiquitous.  They are everywhere.  They land on any tiny scrap of exposed skin, walk around for a second or two, then bite.  I read somewhere that the female can only breed if she has had a drop or two of mammalian blood.  When doing field work during colihuacho season every task requires two persons, one to do the work and the other to swish away the flies.  Pancho Muni once stood in the shade and watched us work one day, while swatting colihuachos.  He killed 67 in two minutes.  Once we hired a boat to take us across a big lake; the colihuachos followed us for about a mile, out over the water.  This description doesn’t do justice to the full horror of the colihuacho infestation.  I am surprised humans ever managed to maintain a foothold in their territory.  They disappear abruptly after the first good rain.    You may think I’m exaggerating the visceral horror of these bugs, but I’m not.  Do not visit southern Chile during December.

I should have mentioned that Linda and I, plus the Butlers, visited Machu Picchu before we started work.  That was a wonderful trip, and the several days we spent in Cusco before and after were fascinating.  Cuzco has beautiful buildings, good food, and abjectly poor people everywhere.  The Inca ruins are spectacular.  To get there, however, you have to go through Lima which is (or was) a hole.

Linda went to South America one other time, by herself.  I was working in Chile, so we arranged to meet in Guayaquil, which is the largest city in Ecuador, located at sea level only two degrees south of the equator.  Man, what a place!  I got there two days early and walked all over.  All the downtown streets had permanent awnings, because of the tropical rains.  One time I got soaked to the skin merely by running across the street from one bit of protection to another.  Our hotel looked out over the central plaza, which had huge trees populated by strange birds and many very large iguanas.  They would sleep sprawled out on the upper branches, and only came down to eat – people would pile all kinds of food around the base of the tree.   Although we went all over after Linda arrived, I believe those iguanas were the highlight of her trip.

But I said that she went to South America by herself, and she did.  I went to the airport to greet her, and I must have blended in with the locals – short, dark hair, tan.  I saw her come out from customs, trailing her suitcase.  I have never seen such a forlorn expression on the face of my beautiful wife, before or since.  She couldn’t spot me, and it took me several minutes to fight my way through   the crowd and “rescue” her.  She could speak not a word of Spanish.  You can imagine the greeting I got when I finally reached her.  We went to the Galapagos, Quito and the Ecuadorian highlands that trip.  Wonderful!

Okay, so a few more adventures.  When I first started working in Chile it was under the thumb of everybody’s favorite Latin dictator, Augusto Pinochet.  I think he sensed that he wasn’t universally liked, which was certainly the case.  Consequently, there were police everywhere.  One foggy day near Santiago Bob Butler, Bob Drake and I drove up to the top of a volcanic hill, to drill some rocks.  Several of Pinochet’s fervent admirers had taken to blowing up telephone towers and things like that – and there was such an installation at the top of the hill.  As it happened, it was “guarded” by two boys – soldiers or police, I forget which.  Imagine how they felt when we pulled up beside them, and out of the vehicle climbed three – to them – huge gringos.  Drake, who spoke fluent Spanish, started to tell them what we wanted to do.  Out came their rifles, and one managed to say – in quavering voice – “pasaportes”   They must have been all of 16 years old.  We showed our documents, and then started to get out all our equipment.  They freaked.  One pointed his rifle at us and asked – not ordered – us to stop.  The other took off running to the bottom of the hill , to fetch his sergeant – they didn’t have radios.  The sergeant arrived, again examined our “pasaportes” –and gave us permission to work.  At the time it seemed a rather comical bother, but later I realized we could have got our butts shot off!  Those kids were green, terrified, and well-armed.

The most useful work we did in Chile was near Santiago, but the fun stuff occurred in the far south`, down the dirt highway leading south from Puerto Montt.  At the time we were there that road was known as the “Caretera Austral General Pinochet”, but I’ll bet it’s called something else now.  It goes through nearly empty, incredibly beautiful country.  It was a rotten road then, always under repair, and I would be astonished if it were any different now.  It includes a good number of ferry trips to cross deep fjords.  Gas stations and other amenities are few and very far between – and don’t always have what you need.  The Chilean government has been trying to develop that district as a tourist attraction for decades now, but I doubt if they have succeeded.

Far in the south is a genuine city, Coihaique – probably 40,000 or so.  It is the capital of whatever “Distrito” it is in.  General Pinochet made it a practice to visit the capital city of every Chilean district, every year.  Most of them had garrisons of troops.  Well, one evening in Coyhaique a bunch of us had a nice dinner, complete with a bit too much good Chilean red wine.  We were staying at a house the Servicio (Chilean geological survey) owned on the outskirts of town.  The General was due in town the next day.  People who didn’t want him there – and there were plenty of them – were drawing graffiti all over town.  Pancho Herve and I somehow found ourselves riding on the top of the Land Cruiser, holding on for dear life – and singing “Y va caer” at the top of our lungs.  It was a subversive little ditty – the words translate “and he is going to fall”.  Somehow we made it home safely.  If we had been stopped I probably would have been okay, after some jail, maybe – but Pancho might never have been heard from again.  We were old enough to know better.

Another incident on that trip to the far south: If you have your map, find Lago General Carrera .  That’s what they call it in Chile; in Argentina I believe it is called Lago Buenos Aires.  It is a huge lake in a beautiful setting, said to be full of big fish.  Hardly anybody has seen it.  On the south side of the lake, right near the Chile/Argentina border, is the town of Chile Chico, a typical stony windswept Patagonian village.  We worked around there for a few days, and then set out to cross into Argentina. 

As it happens, the “border crossing” entailed fording a fairly substantial river.  I remember it as at least a quarter-mile across.  However, it was shallow, and there were markers, in the form of sticks thrust into the sand, to show where to go.  The Americans (me) were skeptical, but the Chileans thought nothing of it.  When we got to the far side there it was – a full-fledged Argentine border station, complete with guys with rifles.

Well, we all presented out passports, one by one.  The Chileans went first and breezed right through.  But when I got there the “border agent” (with rifle) took one look – and announced that he was going home for lunch!

It seems that this was only a few weeks after Margaret Thatcher and the British navy had kicked Argentine butt over the Falkland Islands.  At the last minute the United States had shared intelligence information with Great Britain – and the Argentines knew it!  Thus, Americans (we from the E.E.U.U.), while legally entitled to enter Argentina, were not at all liked.  I cooled my heels for three hours before they let me in.

That was a unique trip.  We had to drive out into the middle of the real (Argentine) Patagonia, then some distance to the north, and then back west to the eastern foot of the Andes.  We stayed at a “rancho” that was so far cut off from the rest of the world that we outsiders were a source of great mystery and entertainment.  They threw us a genuine “asado”, wherein you dine on a roasting sheep, some kind of pan bread, and – because we had brought it – good Chilean red wine.  In a true asado you go up to the sheep, roasting on a spit, and use your clasp knife to cut off as much as you want.  It was delicious.  After dinner we all drank “mate”, which is a bitter-tasting tea you suck through a straw. 

The work went well there and we eventually got some important samples.  The only problem was that we had to do it all again the next year:  my car was broken into in Santiago and all the rocks and field notes stolen!    The next year I was sick and couldn’t go, but Bob Butler and Russ Burmester repeated the work.

One last interesting aspect of that trip was the way home.  We decided to cross back into Chile at a place called Alto Coihaique, high in the Andes.  We did the approach at night.  The road was dirt and rocks, naturally, but not too challenging – until the lights of the vehicle went out.  Fortunately there was a bright moon.  The Chilean guard at the border station evidently were a bit annoyed that we had snuck up on them in the middle of the night, with our lights out.  But we made it.

I will end this overlong history with doings in the Atacama Desert.  We started in the city of Copiapo (at the foot of the valley where much of the fruit Americans eat in the winter is grown.)  Out of the river valley the terrain is – by official international certification – the driest place on earth.  The Atacama lies in the so-called Horse-Latitudes, and also in the rain shadow of a particularly high stretch of Andes.  There are a few places where people have lived (all near the mountains) for hundreds of years.  In those places, it has never rained.  Not once.  All the food comes from irrigation, using streams that flow out of the mountains, into dry salt lakes called “salars”.  The best known of these villages is named San Pedro de Atacama.  It is something of a tourist destination now, I understand.  We called it San Pedro de Cerveza, because the mining camp we stayed at, about 50 miles distant, was dry.

Nothing much of scientific value came out of that venture, but we tried.  We drove all around, on mining tracks.  I saw my first and only wild alpaca one day, and on another a large, saline lake (Lago Negro Francisco) covered with pink flamingos, and with the perfect volcanic cone of Volcan Copiapo (6052 m., or 19,856 ft.) high smoking away in the background!  That area is now a Chilean National Park – and if I were 20 years younger I’d go back!

As I have implied, most of the “roads” in that area were built by mining companies.  When they abandon a prospect they abandon their roads.  However, since it never rains the roads take decades – heck, maybe centuries, to disappear.  But nobody ever drives on them, except crazy geologists.  Well, one day one of our Chilean partners (Cocho)  found he was needed back in Santiago, so he took a vehicle and set out for civilization.  (At this time we were staying at a mining camp on the edge of a huge salar, about 50 miles from San Pedro de Cerveza)  Along about evening, after dinner, we look up to see a figure walking toward us across the desert.  It was Cocho.  Seems his jeep had broken down after several hours of driving, not to be resuscitated.  Cocho knew nobody would come by any time soon – probably not for months – so he calmly took a compass bearing from his map and WALKED CROSS COUNTRY for about 15 miles back to camp!  We were, yes, impressed.  

So how do I sum up?  Those trips were fun, and even a bit useful – to the half dozen or so people in the world passionately devoted to geotectonics. And best of all, they were funded by the National Science Foundation.  Thank you, loyal taxpayers!