I got to go to a town called Chanco today, a bit north of Pelluhue, which is the farthest north Max has taken me thus far. Its basically the last major pueblo in the bay where all these little beach towns are located. One of the things Chanco is known for is its locally made artisan cheeses. So one of our stops was at a shop to get a wheel of aged cheese, and a block of fresh cheese (called quesillo). Also, although Ricardo lives in Curanipe, he is mayor of Chanco, so we met him for lunch at a restaurant (Allantu) his son just opened last February (i cannot remember his son’s name, because it is a new name to me; might be Janko or something like that). But it was a really neat little restaurant, and quite unique for the quant town. I guess they built the restaurant from basically nothing, as the building originaly in that location was destroyed in the 2010 quake and all that was left was dirt floor. he, with the help of his brother and some friends build wood floors and a bar and some walls and created a really unique spot. it has a hindi vibe, local art and fotography on the walls, chairs made from tree stumps, and fresh flavorful food. i had a lovely rice cake with hummus and a salad. First time ive encountered hummus since being here, and the son was telling me that most people coming into his restaurant have never heard of it.
after a very leisurely lunch, Max took me to a little shop a friend of his owns, who he calls the ‘honey man’. this guys lives and breathes honey! his little boutique was amazing; i wish i had taken a picture to show the shelves of different types of honey-based products and flavors of honey he makes. it was a joy to here him talk about honey and his products, because his passion was so obviously deep and sincere. i tried probably 10 different types of honey in a lot of beautiful flavors, but i gotta say my favorite was the unflavored. it was the most amazing sweet, but not sugary, smooth velvety honey ive every tried. it was like mother nature’s dulce de leche. it’s 100 times better than dulce de leche. Max told me he’s overjoyed to see his friend doing so well again because his shop and operation were destroyed by the 2010 quake. Meeting the honey man and experiencing his beautiful little shop was so fun!
last stop on our trip was a national forest preserve of great importance to Chanco and to Chile as a whole. As a little back story, a big industry here is growing pine and euculyptus trees for logging operations. The government pays people to clear out their land and plant these fast-growing non-native trees to be cut down in 10-15 years, just to grown more again. Its kind of sad, creating mondo erosion problems when entire hillsides are cut down and nothing is there when a big rain comes. They are also acidifying the land and eliminating places that were once dominated by beautiful native trees. Max hates euculyptus because he thinks it is destrying rural farms and the native landscape. Chile is a very hilly country; the terrain is very dramatic and there is this paradox of beauty and ugliness that exists. It appears to the unknowing eye that large pinetree forests make up lots o the landscape, and it seems pretty until 1. you realize they’ll all be cut down within a few years, and 2. you see the barren hillsides where pine and euculyptus once were. it is strange, and i wish i had pictures to demonstrate. So back to the forest preserve, Max says it is the only place where he loves euculyptus, because it saved the town of Chanco. I cant remember exactly why, but at some point landscape was drastically altered south of here, forests cut down for logging, etc in the late 1800’s. This in turn led to much erosion, and rivers running to the ocean carried with them lots of sand and volcanic rock that did not used to be included in the typical flow. Also at this time and in the 1900s Chanco was the breadbasket of Chile, surrounded by fertile farmland from which the rest of Chile depended on their staple foods. Well over time, without the original trees holding the sand and soil where it belonged south of here, the rivers and southern winds brought all this sand to the coast, and because of the position of Chanco in the bay, it in particular began becomming inundated with sand. Huge dunes formed along their beach and the town was rapidly getting literally burried under blankets of sand. This was causing a huge agricultural crisis, compromising Chile’s main region of food production. Eventually the government brought in a German biologist (Federico Albert, who the preserve is named after) who divised a plan to plant this big forest of quick-growing pine and euculyptus between the coast and Chanco to serve as a wind/sand barrier. Thus, the town of Chanco was saved by the euculyptus and pine. So its the only place where Max likes the euculyptus and pines. Furthermore, its the only forest preserve that doesnt contain native trees! Very interesting, in my opinion. These trees are way old, and thus much bigger and majestic than the euculyptus/pine forests you see in the typical landscape around here. The beach at the end of the preserve was neat; the first ‘dune’ beach i think ive been to. And also due to its position at the northern end of the bay, the humbolt current gives the waves lots of extra energy and they were so powerful and enormous. It was a cloudy, hazy day, but still beautiful in its own right. But we will return next week to Chanco, to watch some American cup Chile soccer games at Ricardo’s son’s restaurant, so before the game we’ll go back to the preserve so i can go to the actual little museum there and get a more detailed account of it’s history.
To round out the evening, when we got back to Curanipe, we met up with this guy and his wife, who are recent new fans of Max’s, from his books and photography, and i guess they may have mututal friends? But anyway, this guy has been emailing Max for a little while now, and since they happened to be in the area Max invited them to come see the house and have dinner with us. It was a most lovely night! Great people, whose spanish i could understand best of all the lighthouse guests thus far. I think this had to do with a few things; they spoke fairly decent english, were younger, but educated and well traveled, and the majority of topics our conversations covered centered on issues i’m already familiar with, so i’d say i was getting 90% of what they had to say. It was great! Thus, a super full day, warrenting it’s own journal entry. =)
