The story of how we didn't end up WWOOFing in the Bay of Metri shares many themes with the whole of our trip so far. Don't plan on things working out neatly. Be courageous and flexible in the face of difficulties. And be prepared to stick out even more than you think you will.
After a thirteen-hour night bus from Santiago, we arrived in Puerto Montt on Friday morning. "Chiloe?" a security guard asked us as we left the bus, concluding that Chiloe, the nearby tourist-friendly, hostel-rich island, was obviously the only logical destination for two American backpackers. Interestingly, no. We were headed for the fishing village (and village here is used generously) of Metri. The guard directed us to the rural terminal, where we boarded a mini-bus packed with locals come into town to get groceries and pick up packages. Stops were unmarked, but after repeating "treinta" to the bus driver several times, I eventually communicated that we wanted to be let off at the bridge at kilometer thirty of the highway. He dropped us there, looking more than a little bemused, and we alighted in the Bay of Metri.
Now confident in our ability to navigate rural Chilean highways, we started trying to follow Matthias Doggenweiler's remarkably vague directions to his farm. "Cross the bridge to a hill with some houses," he had said, "and keep going 200 meters until a black inner gate with WWOOF on it." We crossed and recrossed the bridge in both directions. We went up and down several hills. We tried calling Matthias, but couldn't get the call through on our cell phone. We finally asked directions from a kind man across the across the street and were directed back up the steep hill we'd already climbed twice: arriba arriba, he said, just keep climbing until the end.
Finally we found the black gate with the WWOOFing sign and thought we were home free. Oh no, my friend. We walked for some time along a dirt path through the woods, which eventually diverged into several unpromising-looking nooks and crannies, but wherever we searched, we could find neither people nor inhabitable buildings. We did turn up several shabby huts, a small herd of cats and dogs, and some rather run-down fields. We were starting to get a strange vibe. Even if we came across the owners at this point, we were not sure this was the kind of place we wanted to stay.
After searching for a while, we decided to bag it. The property didn't look cared for and our patience had been worn thin by Matthias' laissez-faire directions. We hiked a kilometer up the road, sweat some more, and finally found a little "store" (a room in someone's house) to buy a coke and some potato chips and recover our spirits.
Next we boarded an even more crowded mini-bus back into town, took a taxi to a "guesthouse" (another room in someone's house), where we spent the night, as we had hoped, in all the comfort of a rustic grandmother's cottage. Except with Perla and her half-Swiss grandchildren instead of with our farm hosts. Here we also found out that WWOOFers at Matthias' farm actually stay in one of the shabby huts we saw. There's no heat in the building, possibly no electricity, and no food except what's in the greenhouse (which right now is nothing). So all things considered, we're glad we walked away.
We are now, yet again, in a position to regroup and redeploy. Lessons in flexibility have not been in short supply on this trip, but luckily we are feeling limber. Although, as the photos demonstrate, our appearance became increasingly haggard in the course of the day, our spirits stayed surprisingly high. As we plot our next steps we are thankful to be warm, dry, and happy in the luxury of a free night at the Holiday Inn Express (thank you to my incredible father for letting us use his travel points!). And we are hopeful that in a couple of weeks we will look back and think, "Thank goodness that farm turned out to be a sketchy abandoned field. Now we had the chance to ______." Just follow the clues, as a terrific fellow traveler Ross Ballinger would say. And embrace the unwritten conclusions of your fragile plans.
"Interestingly.....no."
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