Simplicity and Difficulty: Learning about Life on a Patagonian Homestead

A cow skull rests on a fencepost with Don Heraldo’s campo and livestock in the background. Photo by Clary Greacen.

My hiking group was scrambling through dense vegetation along the river bank, hoping the cow trails we were following would lead us to the homestead where we planned to camp that night. We ducked low under trees, trying not to get our packs caught up in the tangled branches.

We had begun our journey, the Patagonia Cultural Expedition, with a bus ride from Coyhaique, the small town where the NOLS Patagonia campus is located, to our drop-off point north of Villa O’Higgins.

For several days we’d trudged through the lenga temperate rainforest, hiking in two separate groups of five and six people. We’d gotten thoroughly soaked by the Patagonian rain, and our boots and gaiters were plastered with mud. Now, on our fourth day, we were finally approaching a campo, or homestead.

We picked our way across the braided channels of the river, finally rounding the bend and discovering a grassy pasture in front of us. Up on the hill we could see a small house. We headed towards it, eager to reconnect with our team’s other hiking group and explore the area.

This remote house had been built and lived in by Don Heraldo Rial, a poblador, or Patagonian rancher, until his recent passing. We were pleasantly surprised to find his grown children and their families there, taking care of his animals and property.

A few gauchos (Patagonian cowboys) were there as well, helping to round up the cattle that had been loose since Don Heraldo’s passing and tag them so they could be sold in Cochrane, a small town to the north.

Our camp in the lenga and pine forest near the campo where we spent several peaceful days. Photo by Clary Greacen.

Paola, Don Heraldo’s daughter, lives and works in Cochrane, but travels to her father’s land regularly. She immediately invited us to come into the house to drink mate, and generously welcomed us to stay on their land for several nights, our first layover of the expedition.

With Paola and the rest of their family, as well as the gauchos, some of whom would bring us our re-ration further down the trail, we began to understand and appreciate the simplicity and difficulty of such a remote lifestyle.

Like us, they had to pack in all the food and supplies they needed. The electricity supplied by a solar panel that powered a single light bulb inside the small house had only been installed this year. Heat came from the large 1950s-era metal stove in the center of the house. Large metal pots and the mate kettle sat on top of it.

It was amazing to look around the house, the walls covered in old photographs, posters, and calendars, and think about what had been horsepacked in from Villa O’Higgins, from the window panes to the massive stovepipe, and what, like the shingles of the roof, had been hewn from the land itself.

The gauchos’ horses rest after a long day’s work. In the background is the house, with the solar panel and radio lines visible, as well as a Chilean flag. Photo by Clary Greacen.

We sat in the small cabin, our group of eleven crowding around the small table and stove, and listened as the gaucho Papo told us about our route ahead.

Paola showed us some native mushrooms she had harvested, and a guide book of birds including the huet-huet, a curious robin-like bird that we encountered often on our expedition.

Paola had a wistful look in her eye as she told us of how she wished she could spend more time on her father’s land, but that she had to stay in Cochrane working to support her family.

One of her sons is studying tourism in Cochrane, following the trend prevalent in the younger generation to move away from the agriculture-based, remote lifestyle and towards the tourism industry in more developed areas.

My coursemate Becca Bratcher holds dried mushrooms harvested by Paola from the area. Photo by Clary Greacen.

A few of Don Heraldo’s younger grandchildren were still accompanying their parents out to the campo, but the isolated and challenging life Don Heraldo had carved out in the mountains seemed to be slipping away as the generations progressed.

The life that Paola and her siblings had led growing up in this remote place was very different than that of their children, who have grown up in Cochrane surrounded by modern-day conveniences.

However, the poblador blood runs strong in the Rial family, and the look in Paola’s eyes as she gazed out the small window and over the grassland cleared by her father many years ago told of a connection to the land strong enough to withstand the shifts time will bring.

Some of the horses who are used to transport both people and supplies to the remote homestead. Photo by Clary Greacen.

The light faded slowly as the sun dipped behind the distant peaks, and as we returned to our tents, I stole a final look at the campo in the twilight.

Warm light shone from the small windows of the house and the smoke of the fire floated upwards into the clouds rolling off the mountains. Horses and dogs watched as we made our way behind the hill, and stars began to emerge as evening shifted into night.

As I crawled into my sleeping bag, I thought about the vast differences between my lifestyle back home and that of the people I was meeting out here in this isolated and beautiful part of the world. All the things I took for granted at home, like running water or the grocery store just down the road, now seemed like luxuries, and things like WiFi and Netflix seemed unnecessary. I didn’t care about the shows I was missing or all the unopened messages on my phone back at the NOLS campus. Those could wait.

For now I wanted to stare at the sunset behind mountain peaks and watch condors circling high above me. I wanted to share laughter with people who spoke a different language than I, and find community not through an app on my phone but through shared experiences, stories, and smiles.

See Clary’s course: Patagonia Cultural Expedition