A sneak peek at the start of a new blog series about my adventures buying and building on an abandoned farm in southern Chile.
NOTE: As moving has unearthed boxes of old journals and photos/slides, I’ve started to resurrect a half-finished novel based on my time owning a farm in remote Southern Chile. And due to popular demand (especially by spousal unit Thor), I’m contemplating finally writing my memoirs of the many phases of my rambling life seeking adventure. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, here is a preview of the Chilean sojourn. I need to digitize a lot of slides, and then I’ll start a new blog series. Buen viaje!
As you may have gathered, I’ve always been ready to jump on the bandwagon when a new adventure beckons, especially one involving travel to foreign lands. My former husband “K” had been harboring a secret dream to move to southern Chile, even though he’d never been there, despite traveling elsewhere in South America as a young man. It was a dream of an unspoiled Southern Hemisphere equivalent of our native Pacific Northwest in Washington State. He complained a lot about the corruption of the U.S. and “ruining” of our beloved wilderness, so I finally said more or less, “Put up or shut up.” We decided to backpack around the continent and scout out possible places to live. Southern Chile was indeed beautiful and beckoned to the outdoors spirit we shared.
Long story short (I’ll eventually expand once I get photos in place), we ended up buying an abandoned farm on the rather remote island of Calbuco. I had lived and worked in Latin America, and knew that wheels often ground slowly, with very different expectations of “efficiency.” K was not prepared, and found it very difficult to adjust. Through many misadventures, we managed to build a lovely casita on our land, and even though the experiment ended up an epic disaster that led to return to the U.S. and divorce, I have fond memories of our new Chilean friends, our sometimes hilarious (mis)adventures, and of the many fresh experiences of the culture.
Here are a few snapshot memories:
With the help of a lucky acquaintance whose son we met while hitchhiking — Pablo Huneeus, a well-known Chilean writer whose summer cottage and land were also on the island — we had bought an abandoned farm on 25 acres with 1/4 mile of beachfront. It was beautiful, but beset with issues we wouldn’t realize until moving there…. (That’s a cliffhanger, in case you were wondering.)
Another part-time neighbor on the island was the former U.S. Naval Attache to Chile, who asked our help in getting his traditional “lancha Chilote” sailboat shipshape and launched for a local race around the islands. We helped lay log rollers, and a local oxen team pulled the boat down to the water. (The floats are for commercial shellfish baskets.)
Here I am (in turquoise shirt) getting ready for the race:
K and I would later hire the same oxen team to deliver gravel from a pit down the dirt road from our land to our building site, for a septic field. On boat launch day, the guys persuaded me (I could never turn down a dare) to “drive” the oxen team back up the beach after launch. The driver actually leads the team with the long stick shown in this photo, and the oxen follow. When I led them, they started surging faster and faster after me as I started running (still clutching the stick). Finally I threw it aside and jumped into the bushes as the oxen thundered past, much to the amusement of the watching locals.
It was a very patriarchal, old-fashioned farming and fishing community, and southern Chilean wives did not generally work, but stayed home with the kids. As “La Gringa,” I was certainly a puzzlement, as I claimed the freedom to work alongside the men and handle a lot of the complicated business of owning and building in a foreign country. We hired a couple of local men to work alongside us in building our casita (small house) following the local methods. There was no electricity, so everything was done with hand tools. We got to pick out some beautiful local hardwoods that I still regret leaving behind. Below, “Don” German (the “Don” was a term of respect in the community) and assistant Rosauro work on the nearly-completed casita with its hand-made windows.
The men would not take instructions from me, as they would lose face taking instructions from “La Senora” (I didn’t seem to have a name separate from my role as my husband’s wife), but only from K, even though I was doing all the organizing and buying of supplies by the end. K finally disengaged and stopped helping, but somehow I got Don German to accept me as “the boss” to finish the casita. If we had left it unfinished and unoccupied, our Chilean friends assured us that “robo hormigo” (robber ants) would soon steal it piece by piece. Or squat there and claim the property.
Finally, a cozy little house, just in time as the long, cold rainy season had begun, and we had been living on a leaky boat. No electricity or running water yet, but a small woodstove heated it nicely. We moved in and pondered the next step.
This had been part of my motivation: a writing “aerie” in the upstairs loft, with a view over our land to the Gulf of Reloncavi and snow-covered mainland mountains. I planned to write more novels there, but “the plans of mice and men” definitely went south, and events conspired to end this adventure.
On a happier, present-day timeline, I’m weaving in episodes of my new “Rambling Writer’s Quest for Home” blog series, following the progress with my very present husband-extraordinaire Thor on building our own new dream home overlooking the Salish Sea. And guess what? There I will have that long-desired upstairs writing aerie with a view of the sea! Stay tuned for events past and future….
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You will find The Rambling Writer’s blog posts here every Saturday. Sara’s latest novel from Book View Café is Pause, a First Place winner of the Chanticleer Somerset Award and a Pulpwood Queens International Book Club selection. “A must-read novel about friendship, love, and killer hot flashes.” (Mindy Klasky). Sign up for her quarterly email newsletter at www.sarastamey.com
