Ciao Chile y Sus Torros Locos

Barring anymore wild circumstances, this should be my last post in Chile.  Sunday we are set to take off for Argentina.  Our visas expire in a week, which is crazy, because we never planned to be here this long.  I guess that is the beauty of this trip--that we have the flexibility and willingness to change plans as we see fit and as is necessary.  A few days ago it seemed as though we might be here for considerably longer again.  I will relate the following story and hope that it does not cause too much alarm.

Last week we took a trip to the "big city" of Coyhaique, where we flew into three months ago.  We went to do some errands for Mary Ann before we left, and we spent a frenzied few days running around.  We returned on Saturday afternoon tired from many many hours in the car on pot holed filled dirt roads, but we at least we got to see tons and tons of baby animals (piglets, lambs, goats, calves) on the side of the road throughout our drive.  On Sunday we were out working on the ranch with Mary Ann when we heard the dogs barking wildly.  She ran out to see what was going on.  Then we heard what sounded like shouting, but we thought she was just yelling at the dogs.  We had been inside of this yurt that is on the property doing some work in there.  Luke ran out just to make sure everything was okay and I stayed in the yurt.  A few minutes later again I heard what I thought was shouting and got concerned.  This happened once before, as some of you know, about a month ago when one of the dogs viciously attacked another one.  I never wrote a blog post about this, but with the crazy wind here and the large expanses of space, it's sometimes hard to tell what is legitimate shouting and what is just yelling at dogs, excitement, whatever.  Anyway, I stepped out of the yurt and a bull charged right by me.   I was very confused, but it happened so fast it didn't really scare me.  I could tell things were not as they should be, and I ran out to see what was going on.  Luke came running and told me we had to go.  Mary Ann had been charged by the bull and was very hurt.  One of the neighbors had been crossing her property with his animals, and a bull had gotten loose.  The bull was already angry, and then the six dogs had gone up to it and surrounded it.  Mary Ann tried to call off the dogs, and the bull charged her, ran her down, and plowed her into the ground.  Fortunately Luke ran up and diverted its attention and the damage was not worse than it was.  What ensued was a rather insane eight hours or so.  Her finger was broken very badly (I won't go into too much detail, but it was really bad, as in bone sticking out) and her back was also in a lot of pain.  She sent us to find the neighbor, and unkind words were exchanged, which I also won't go into.  We then had to try to get her into the pick up, which was very difficult considering the back and torso problems she was experiencing, and drive an hour along pot hole filled dirt "highway" to the town of Cochrane to go to the nearest hospital.  I use the word hospital loosely.  The doctor there was not equipped to deal with her injuries, and we experienced an absolutely ridiculous lack of adequate medical care.  Her finger looked like an accordion and you could literally see the bone, and the doctor tried to tell us it was not broken.  Anyway, it was a horrible experience for her.  We went and got some friends of hers in the town, and we decided that she was going to need to go to Coyhaique, which is a five hour drive (where Luke and I had just come back from) to go to the hospital there.  Luke and I went back to the ranch, packed a bag for her, and waited for two hours by the gate for her friends to come back with her.  When she arrived back after dark, she informed us that she was not going to Coyhaique, and was going to take her chances healing at home.  This concerned Luke and I a great deal, (as well as her friends Nela and Carlos), but she was adamant.  The next morning she was in tremendous pain and made the decision to go to skip Coyhaique entirely and go to Santiago.  This was the right choice.  We have heard from her and she is going to be fine, but she had a bad blood infection from her finger, and broken ribs that were pushing on a nerve.  We offered to stay and help her for as long as she needed us to, but her sister is coming from the states.

Needless to say, it's been a crazy few days.  We are taking care of the ranch until she gets back, and then she is insisting that we still head to Argentina on Sunday.  So that's the plan for now.

On a lighter note, we will be spending our first spell in Argentina in the El Bolson region, working with a group of old Mapuche women who have just reclaimed some of their land and are beginning to farm.  The Mapuche are the native people of this area.  So far, despite joining wwoof Argentina, we will be working off the wwoof grid.  We got this opportunity through a wwoof farmer that we contacted, and I think our next stop will be in Mendoza working with a small farm that is also not part of wwoof but that we got through a wwoof contact.  It's interesting how this is all working out.

We have spent an incredible three months here, and we are ready for our next adventure.  We are so relieved that Mary Ann is okay, and of course we gladly would have stayed as long as necessary (although this would have involved having to get an extension on our visas) but we're really excited for the next step and to move on to a new country.  Chilean Patagonia is so completely isolated, and although we will still be in Patagonia for a few weeks in El Bolson, the Argentine side is completely different.   We will be entering a land of phone service, internet service, mail, and possibly paved roads.  The food will not consist only of torta, white bread deep friend in animal fat (which actually tastes pretty good, but you eat one piece and that about does it) and meat.  Don't think this is all we've been eating here, because it's not, but there have been times when these are the options, and when we were in Coyhaique, the regional capital, our options for eating out consisted of meat, french fries, meat and french fries.  The little hospedaje where we stayed included breakfast, which consisted of Nescafe, hamburger bun like giant pieces of cardboard white bread, and a slice of bologna and American cheese.  This is what people eat here!  I kid you not.   Here we come Argentina, with your delicious food, locally brewed beer, and phone service.  We're ready!