June 7, 2004
PATAGONIA, CHILE
I rise now with the sun in a 200-year-old barn, a few horizons away from any semblance of civilization. I put a couple of logs in the wood-burning stove and wait calmly for my breath to disappear and the water to boil. It is winter in Patagonia, and for a California boy, it takes an open mind and an abundance of patience to make it through the saturating chill of Chile’s southern reaches. That and a heavy jacket. After all, this is the tip of the world.

From the window I watch an old man in a jumpsuit feed carrots from our garden to a pair of horses as he runs his fingers through their bristles. Soon, my bosses tell me, my backyard will be full of animals: cows, pigs, goats, llamas. I’ve even heard wild boar mentioned casually over a glass of red Carmenere. And of course, what collection of rare Patagonian fauna would be complete without the native saggy-throated chicken, which lays blue eggs with bright double yolks? Visions of Dr. Seuss in chef’s whites stream through my head:

Scramble, fry, boil, or poach:
Blue egg fowl with two orange yolks...

The first moments of the day here usually pass in curious disbelief; sometimes I feel like I am strolling through my childhood, caught in California, building drip castles on the beaches of Big Sur, running through the rain-soaked redwood forests. Other times, I roam the realms of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth. But today, when I step outside and find myself caught between the endless blue of the Pacific and the smoky morning breath of a forest older than Homer, I remember how real this all is. This is my new home and my new job—Parga, one of Chile’s newest ventures in ecotourism: 8,000 acres of rugged coastline and ancient flora, rolling hills and penguin colonies. And I am to be the chef. Though the accommodations and the surroundings are unthinkably plush, this is more than another pampering getaway for the ultrarich.

Parga’s just opened, and is developing into a fully sustainable resort: Guests will dine on vegetables and herbs grown in our organic garden, fish swimming in our waters, lamb shanks and pork loins currently grazing outside my window. We work with the local community—the fishermen, the farmers, the shepherds—encouraging sustainable practices, developing new and ecologically sensitive methods for catching fish, growing produce and raising livestock. The Wilderness Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group in charge of development at Parga, hopes that the experience offered to guests—wandering through the forests, kayaking around the penguin colony, feeding the animals, picking and preparing seasonal produce—will serve as a model for sustainable tourism nationwide.

The vision is ambitious, but so goes the trend of ecotourism and conservation in Chile. “Chile is still considered a developing country,” Greg Locke, the director of the foundation (and my boss), says, “so we are in a key position to create models that can be replicated, affecting the way our natural resources are employed in the future.” Much of the terrain in southern Chile, stretching from the glacially carved fjords of the Carretera Austral to the arctic tip of Tierra del Fuego, is still up for grabs. In many ways, the fight to secure the land has been polarized between environmental groups like Locke’s and the country’s major industries. Mining, timber, and fishing are Chile’s top three industries and thus possess serious political clout in Santiago. Resource extraction forms the traditional base for Chile’s economy, and the government still supports ecologically disastrous ventures throughout the south: the massive aluminum plant in Coyhaique, the proposed damming of the Futaleufu River, and the continued clear-cutting of the ancient alerce trees. But at the same time, lawmakers in Santiago have glanced into the crystal ball and found, paradox or not, that tourism and conservation are essential to the country’s economic future. So while they continue to support big industry, they also have begun offering concessions and subsidies to green-minded projects in the south.

Still, much of the burden of conservation has been left up to the private citizen. Up and down Patagonia, people—foreigners and Chileans alike—have been purchasing parcels of land for the sole intent of preservation. The undeniable leader of these green philanthropists is the outspoken gringo Douglas Tompkins, founder of North Face and Esprit clothing, whose 800,000-acre, privately-owned Pumalin Park has generated front-page controversy for the last decade in Chile. Critics have been skeptical from the start concerning his intentions with land that spans from the Pacific to the Argentine border, effectively cutting the country in two, but his recent donation of the land back to Chile is bound to quiet the cynics.

I’m not quite sure how I ended up in this Patagonian crossroads of ecotourism and politics and pan-seared salmon. For these past months I searched for jobs, for a real life in Chile, unsuccessfully. Then one day, I cooked the right piece of fish for the right person, who hired me as the chef here. Life below the equator is already a strange existence, and even as lovely as it might seem today picking herbs in our garden, chatting with penguins, I won’t kid myself: It was not easy getting here...

April 3, 2004
OFF THE COAST OF CHILOÉ, REGION 8
The ocean swallowed our Zodiac at 3:30 this morning, the gale-force winds and horizontal rain making our precious rubber motor boat easy prey for an angry sea. We were anchored off the coast of Chiloé, an island 1,200 kilometers south of Santiago, when the knot holding the Zodiac to the main boat came undone. I awoke to the sounds of the cranking engine, readying for the sunrise reconnaissance mission. My first day of work aboard Cahuella, a tour boat built in the traditional fisherman style, and it already looks like my tenure at sea is up; without the Zodiac, we cannot pick up our five passengers in Castro today. The boat owners dubbed me, at least temporarily, the cook of this charming vessel and though I’m thankful for a job, I see the uncertainty of future meals in the quiver of celery stalks hanging with the rest of the neglected vegetables in nets on deck, slick with rainwater and sea mist.

The day is spent in desperate pursuit of the $12,000 runaway Zodiac. My companions are three seafaring Chileans, reared on the tides of the Patagonian Pacific. With a three-hour lead and strong easterly winds, the Zodiac is likely out of our reach, lost in the rising swells of the Bay of Ancud. Our only hope is that it was caught among the dozen tiny islets off the coast of Chiloé, mere specks of green amid the vast blue of the bay. The crew is somber, determined; the cook silent, pale, incapacitated. Britt Lewis, current employer of said seasick cook, is not going to be pleased.

Even in my helplessness, I am still somehow swept up by the changing tides in the south of Chile. Austral Adventures, Lewis’s company that runs seven-day cruises around Chiloé and the Carratera Austral, is just one of hundreds of adventure-tourism outfits operating in the lower regions of Chile. Popular destinations throughout the Lake District—like Puerto Varas and Pucón—are following the New Zealand and Costa Rican tourism models by attracting travelers with the magnificence of their surroundings. Trek through glacier-studded Tierra del Fuego, climb Volcán Villarica, raft down the perilous Futaleufu. Come to Chile and you might leave with the sense that Mother Nature was just too tired for the rest of the world. And while some countries have suffered the cultural and environmental impact wrought by mass tourism, most people in Chile—from government officials to Signora Gomez busy baking crab empanadas for dreadlocked gringos—are pleased with the way the country is handling the world’s increasing interest in Chile’s natural wonders.

“Tourism is the most ‘democratic’ of all industries,” says Lewis. “From taxi drivers to artesanos, there are more owners and people in control of their own destinies than any other industry.” Like many tourism operators in Chile, Lewis stresses cultural sensitivity and local involvement; his boat was constructed by locals, using wood and products from Chiloé, and except for this gringo and his sauté pan, is operated completely by native chilotes. Lewis sees the rise of adventure, eco-, and agritourism as a financially and environmentally positive addition to life in Chile. “It is in the interest of this type of tourism to be eco-friendly,” he explains, “because its very success depends upon the intact nature around.”

As for me, my very success depends upon the recovery of one lost Zodiac boat. I was fortunate to find this job; a simple meal cooked for a friend a month ago brought me here, tossed at sea with three strangers with salt and wind stained to their skin. Chile is like that: opportunities as tour guides, bartenders, and English teachers abound for foreigners, you just need to be open to the discovery, as glorious or humbling as it might be

The day has grown thin and weary, and even the rain needs a siesta. We have scoured the shores of ten islands unsuccessfully and are on our way back to port when one of the crewmates calls out from behind a set of binoculars: "Mira, mira! Afuera!" Two hundred yards off in the distance, washed up on the rocky coastline of the last satellite island, is the zodiac. A crowd of old men and little children has gathered around the inflatable boat, poking it with sticks as if it were some alien spacecraft fallen from the sky. And so the trip will go on. I will wield my knife boldly on Chilean waters. But sadly, I found this job too late: With winter approaching, this is the Cahuella’s last voyage of the season. So when the last tomato is diced and the last filet of congrio seared, I will be back on that bus once again…

March 16, 2004
PAN AMERICAN HIGHWAY
I have seen El Edad de Hielo—better known as 20th Century Fox’s Ice Age—five times in the past two months, animated humor for each leg of the 16-hour bus trip between Viña del Mar and Puerto Montt I have embarked upon. I sip nonchalantly from an impromptu piscola—the national cocktail of choice and the easiest way to endure the 1,300-kilometer trek—and mouth the Spanish subtitles even before they appear on the television set hanging over the aisle.

I love the south of Chile—the shimmering lakes, the Andean grandeur, the infectious friendliness of the people, and maybe, I think half-soberly to myself, if I just keep coming back, someone will ask me to stay. I did not come to Chile to travel; I came here to live, and after two months of searching for a life here, I wonder if there is one to be found for me. Perhaps my parents were right: Maybe I should have put the backpack away, stayed in the States after graduation, entered the so-called “real world.”

One thing is for sure—nobody in this country wants me as their English teacher. I have dropped résumés all over Chile. “No tienes más experiencia?” “No tienes un TEFL?” has been the country’s collective response. No, I don’t have any experience teaching English, and I never had the time, the money, or the patience to get a TEFL or CELTA certificate before coming to South America. My best friend’s girlfriend’s milkman—or something like that—told me I’d be cool without one, that Chileans have an insatiable thirst to learn English and that teaching jobs abound for young gringos like myself. In hindsight, to base a six-month stint to the bottom of the planet on the words of one optimistic dairy purveyor might have been a bit careless. Chile, the continent’s safest and most economically stable country, is the burgeoning beauty of South America, and businessmen and bartenders are dying to make mergers and martinis in the official language of this globalizing world. But without a reputable certificate or some serious experience teaching English in a foreign classroom, the government won’t relinquish the chalk. And so here I am, trying to dig up whatever work I can: cooking, serving, herding llamas. Anything.

“Quieres chocolate?” the girl on the seat beside me asks suddenly. Until this point, I was too busy with brandy and subtitles to notice this gorgeous young chilena; I silently scold myself before accepting a piece. Requisite small talk is lubricated by pisco and cacao. Ten hours later, the bar of chocolate is gone and I know more about Carmen Gloria than I knew about my last three girlfriends combined. She tells me how her doubt in God consumes her and how it hurts to see her parents in a loveless relationship; I tell her that everything I do is driven by fear.

In Chile—more than in Spain or Thailand or Guatemala—a piece of chocolate is likely to lead to a life story. From the desert of Atacama to the glaciers of Tierra del Fuego, an effusive, genuine friendliness unites the people of this long, skinny country. A smile will take you incredibly far here; throw in a bit of Spanish with those pearly whites and you might be having dinner tonight with that old man and his little dog you just met in the park. As I leave the south dejected, still unemployed, I take comfort in the inescapable warmth of the Chileans.

With daybreak approaching, as the rest of the bus sleeps, Carmen Gloria and I are inching ever closer to each other. She holds my hand softly. I make a move toward her but she puts her palm to my chest to stop me: “That woman sleeping there,” she says in a sweet whisper of castellano, pointing across the aisle, “she is my mother.” But she’s asleep, I think immediately, but then, on second thought, I see no reason to complicate this moment. When I come back from the bathroom later in the trip, she is gone, vanished into the outskirts of Santiago. Her number is on my seat, scribbled across a ticket stub. I may or may not see Carmen Gloria again; it does not matter.

When I get home to the little cabaña in Reñaca—my home since arriving in Chile—it isn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Solitude lurks around every corner abroad, but in Chile, where teeming life is found inside every restaurant, at every market, on every bus ride, even the loneliest leaf never blows alone. I don’t know where this wind will take me, but by traveling, by removing myself from the familiar. I am placing my faith in unknowable elements. This country is as lovely and warm as any I’ve known, and if I am open to the journey, maybe the wind will blow me somewhere beautiful.