PUERTO RİOTRANQİLO & RİO LEONES.

PUERTO RIO TRANSFER & RIO LEONES.

Coming across a cyclist on the road after the pandemic and feeling that he respected the cycling culture on the Carretera Austral route gave me the opportunity to examine this route with a very different eye. I would say that we have gained a lot of experience in Puerto Rio Tranqilo in a very short time. We helped a concierge who laid a water line in a small tourist office, and in return, he gave us a gift from tours by boat to Capilla Marmol. It still makes me happier with barter-style shopping in a way that I don't understand why. It is the only lake in South America bordering Argentina and Chile and the second largest lake on the continent, with caves indented and protruding on the shore shaped like a mushroom, and its color is very clear turquoise. The name of this lake is General Carrera/Buenos Aires Lake. I would like to spend a lot longer here, but sometimes you cannot use the flexibility you want in tours.

On the route we want to take, we need to be able to cross the border in a nearby region, but the border gates are closed, it seems that we need to lose some time and linger. By the way, we are in the same country from January to November and the pandemic is passing over us and it is still not over. We can act with the documents, but there is no vaccine yet. We are not legal as a visa, I guess we can pay a border penalty and bring ourselves legally. On the route we are on, where are the border gates closed and how will you pass? While chatting like this, I asked Alejandro, whose house we stayed at "I wonder if we can find a job here" and the adventure started for us. I have never worked in the forest in my life, but wherever I hear the smell of the forest, I go there. On the Carretera Austral route in the Aysen province of Chile, you can see very regularly planted pine trees hidden in the forest in certain areas. In these regions, forest work and pine tree planting, cutting, and cultivation are very common. So much so that if you can't get a job, it's only a matter of time before you find a job in a forest. The sad part is that during the colonization of the region, there was not enough soil knowledge or it was ignored, which I consider being a greater possibility, it is ignored that pine trees disrupt the soil structure of this region and damage its mineral wealth. I learn this from an agricultural engineer we came across in Punta Arena by chance. However, since it is a habit and business area that has been going on for years, and because people in this region still make their meals on wood fires, forestry over pine trees is going the same way. With the question I had asked, Alejandro referred us to a friend and we set out to meet Ricardo. A few days later, we met Ricardo, who lives with his cat "Don Gato" on the Rio Leones coast, 30 km from Puerto Rio Tranqilo. It was only after a month with Ricardo that I realized that "Don Gato" was a name usually given to the word "Don", which is used by people in this region in nameless cats and which is considered to be respected or respected in the social hierarchy. Within a few days, we realized that we had a large or wide beach sandy bath with a view of the river that did not even have a roof and that we had a clean or clean stream from the glaciers. What was interesting was that despite the generator-powered electricity of the hut, which was the only eye room, it probably had the latest model 4k led, a television as big as a wall. We had probably spent a month with Ricardo and Don Gato in this place where even incredible vital needs were gone. Still, I think television is another opium tool. I will tell you about this month in detail, but it was an experience where I once again understood that saving stories is more valuable than money and valuable goods. Every time I remember him, he takes me to laugh by himself, and every time he passes the conversation, my father and I start laughing.

When you go down 30 km south from Puerto Rio Tranqilo, Rio is located on the banks of the Leones towards the road that leaves the forest. This place is within walking distance of where we need to work, but it was around 15 km from the landowner's house, these areas are rented from the state at certain times and forestry is done or used as project-based wood production zones. It is cleaned and planted again or used as a continuous production site without being cleaned completely on a regular basis. Turning a pine tree, which has not grown in this type for centuries in this region, into a production factory due to its high yield offers a very wise result to the needs of the modern world. At the same time, this clearly means the death of the land in that area. Landowners who live far from a small number of central villages or towns can buy incredibly large tracts of land from the state at very reasonable prices, and the main problem that makes us uneasy is that forestry is done in the most primitive way than the massacre of nature. In regions where there are very few people and machines, or rather where machines cannot enter because there is no road, it is not surprising to come across people walking around the forests with only a wood-cutting machine.

In the morning we go into the forest and work for 3 hours, returning to food, and after resting for an hour, we continue the work left after the afternoon for 5 hours. What we do is bring together large and small pieces of branches from cut trees. Later, they said they burned them in the winter to destroy them, but these piles of branches are huge. The name of the person we will work with and stay with is Ricardo, who has been fishing with his family in Puerto Natales for many years and migrated here due to long-term unsolved financial problems with his family, in fact, he meets his annual needs by using the boats that go to Capilla Marmol during the tourism period. During this pandemic, he started the forest business to provide financial support, but as I have witnessed many times, he had difficulty even using the wood-cutting machine. So it wasn't a job for him, and according to his physique, it wasn't at all. He had breakfast with Mate in the morning, lunch with a few pieces of bread and food, and dinner with Mate and closed the day by making dinner with Mate. I think I can say clearly that he was addicted to the series, mate, and his cat.

In this place where we stayed for a month, there was no electrical or plumbing installed. There was no bathroom and the kitchen was just a wood-burning stove. We used the water of the stream coming from the glaciers for water and a huge forest for bathing. While I was living in these incredible conditions in Buada, I felt an incredible absence when I learned that many foresters were actually trying to survive in this situation. For people who are fighting for their lives with indescribable problems in a region equipped with natural beauties that you can dream of, the absence of electricity, the absence of water supply is very normal and the internet feels like a luxury. I can say that this is not only for this region but especially for many regions of South America. In addition, it should be put in a separate place that for many parts of the world, human beings are born from standards shaped by wrong choices in the process of modernization.

Littlebylittleit was time for us to separate because my capacity to endure was full, and when we had been sufficiently utilized, I had brought conviction and set my sights on the road. We just had a companion we were waiting for. We would continue the next part of this Carretera Austral journey that we started by chance with Gonzalo. Who knows maybe we could come across new companions on the way.