Days 27 & 28 – Wednesday and Thursday March 23 & 24: R & R in Villa Cerro Castillo; an injury!
Although there was no access to internet, there were some great possibilities on our list of R/R activities in Villa Cerro Castillo. On the first day some of us went for a short ride and hike to Los Manos National Reserve, others went horseback riding with a guide along the Rio Ibanez. Three (Ray, Steve Jahn, John) opted for the Gaucho horseback excitements, while the other five decided to see Los Manos. Meantime, just taking in the breathtaking views of Cerro Castillo with its snow covered spires was awe inspiring.
The horseback outing turned out to be terrific. We were driven about two miles to a ranch where our gaucho host, Manuel, was waiting. Each of us was given suede chaps that fastened below the knee; then we mounted our saddled horses and trotted off upriver. None of us had ridden in years and we had a hilarious time settling in. Our guide, who had been to Idaho and California, clearly enjoyed taking us on the roads and showing us the beauty of the countryside. Part way into the ride we spotted a pair of rare woodpeckers that resembled our own northwest Pileated Woodpecker – the Magellanic Woodpecker, the largest woodpecker in South America. These were huge black birds, and the male had a bright red head. For the rest of the morning the sound of hooves combined with the sight of snow peaked mountains ringing the narrow river valley to give us a real high. We ventured onto trails that climbed up to vantage points overlooking the river and down to the sandy stretches along the shore. We finished, a little saddle sore, back in Villa Cerro Castillo with a small barbeque at our guide’s little restaurant.
The other group left for the Los Manos Park to view prehistoric handprints on an overhanging cliff four or five kilometers away. They rode there and found a gatehouse and a guide, Domingo, who took them to the rock face of a towering cliff. Thousands of years ago a native tribe had used the rock overhang as shelter and they left a number of handprints, some positive (paint on the hand pressed onto the rock) and some negative (paint blown around a hand to produce an outline. They also hunted guanacos – a kind of wild alpaca nearly extinct now –which they also drew on the wall. No one knows today what the significance of the handprints might be, but the interest in seeing the remains of a culture several thousand years old is intense.
We returned to the b & b that afternoon to discover that our dashing guide Dario had nearly cut off part of his finger while working on the bikes and was en route to a hospital back in Coyhaique to have it treated. Bad news; everyone was upset, and we wouldn’t know what the damage was until later that evening.
At eight thirty we started off to a small local restaurant nearby for a barbeque. With exquisite timing, Dario and Tikka, who had driven, returned from Coyhaique at the same time. The end of Dario’s finger had been stitched back on and the prognosis was good, though it would be several weeks before he could ride again. With relief we proceeded to dinner, and were ushered into a building with an enormous fireplace at one end; there, fastened onto an iron spit and grill about five feet high and four feet wide was an entire flayed lamb. We drank wine and feasted on it, returning to our cozy b & b with the leftovers for sandwiches the next day.
The following day Ray and John and Steve Jahn went to see Los Manos Park while the others went for a hike up towards Cerro Castillo. It was a fairly serious hike, gaining 3400 feet of elevation to a turquoise lake just below the snowfield of the mountain. The guide took the group along trails and cow paths and a stony climbers’ track to vistas that were simply stupendous.
That night we ate ravenously and went to bed early. Tomorrow was the trip back towards the coast, over the pass to Bahia Murta (Murta Bay).