Vina Del Mar, 1967
Santiago, 1986
Partial view of the city located at the Llanquihue lake’s shore. At the back the Calbuco Volcano.
Petrohue, Chile
Torres del Paine National Park
Region of Magellan and Chilean Antarctica, Chile
Lago Grey Hotel, Patagonia, Chile
Outtakes from my book. Enjoy photos from around the world.
The day has finally come. It feels like I have been working on this book forever.
But now, here it is!
I have set up some pages to go with the book. Lots of pictures and videos. Praise from readers. And info on where to get it. Also info on how to get a review copy. Click on Much More Info below or on Echoes of a Global Life in the menu above.
ECHOES OF A GLOBAL LIFE by Kathleen Gamble
A story of survival from Burma to Moscow and beyond. Memoir. Travel stories. Living in interesting times.
Echoes of a Global Life is part memoir, part travelogue, part history lesson. Kathleen lives in a world of constant change. Moving from city to city she says goodbye to one and starts to explore the next. Never two the same. She is a survivor. She keeps on going. Through trauma, including a plane crash, and other scary times, there is also humor. Kathleen was born in Asia and lived on five continents before she was eighteen. She takes you to Burma, USA, Mexico, Colombia, Nigeria, Switzerland, and Russia. She weaves in parts of each country she carries with her. Her family lives through a coup in Burma, student rioting in Colombia, two coups in Nigeria, and political unrest in Russia. Sometimes things are fabulous. Sometimes they are not. She is a Third Culture Kid, rootless and restless. As an adult she lived in Moscow for nine years during the 1990’s where she witnessed history in the making and a terrifying exit. Life is never boring.
One thing I noticed while driving through the countryside from Punta Arenas to El Calafate was just how vast and how empty it was. My sense of space became warped. My brain had a hard time processing distances. I would look out the window and it felt like I could touch the clouds or reach out and pet the animals. But they were miles away. It became more obvious when I tried to take a picture. My camera could only see a speck no matter how much I enlarged it. There were no billboards, there were no houses, just fences and a few animals from time to time. Otherwise, about 450 miles of open space.
We had a quick bathroom stop at a cafe, shop, small hotel all in one literally in the middle of nowhere. Ranches all around. The sign on the door said: “Hotel Posada Rio Rubens. Here, we open when we get here and we close when we leave. If you arrive and we are not here, then you won’t find us. Thank you.”
From Torres del Paine we drove to Cerro Castillo on the Chile/Argentine border. That took us all morning. We had lunch at a restaurant that catered mostly to tour busses. There wasn’t much else around. There was one tourist shop that we actually visited twice – once going into the park and once leaving it.
Across the border we picked up National Highway 40 that runs from the Bolivian border to the southern tip of Argentina. It was 200 miles from Cerro Castillo to El Calafate and there was one “town” between the two. Its name was Esperanza – Hope. The road was pretty good. We were glad to be on paved roads after the dirt bumpy roads of Torres del Paine. We arrived in El Calafate late in the afternoon.
Our hotel was an old converted ranch house with plenty of charm. The building was surrounded by lavender plants and lovely gardens.
El Calafate is on the shore of Lake Argentino, the largest fresh water lake in Argentina at 546 square miles. It is within the Glaciers National Park and its water flows to the Atlantic Ocean via the Santa Cruz river. The town has about 6500 residents and caters to tourists. Lots of touristy, artsy shops, restaurants and bars. It is also home to the Glaciarium Museum dedicated to educating people about ice and glaciers. It has an Ice Bar in it where they serve cold drinks. It is said to be the only bar in the world constructed from glacial ice.
The main attraction, of course, was the Glaciers National Park and the Perito Moreno Glacier. This glacier is special because it is the only one in the world that is easily accessible to humans. It is easy to get to and to get close to. Good or bad? Not sure. But it was definitely something to see.
Punta Arenas is an important port on the Magellan Straight at the very south of Chile. Of its 170,000 people, about a third are of Croatian decent.
In 1518, Ferdinand Magellan left Seville in Spain with five ships. After several problems including a couple of mutinies they found a route through to the Pacific Ocean. The Magellan Straight. It meant they didn’t have to deal with the unpredictable hazards of Cape Horn. One of the five ships made it all the way back to Seville but Magellan was not on it. He was killed in the Philippines.
Another historical figure who had ties to Punta Arenas was Ernest Shackleton who led three expeditions to Antarctica, not always with the best results.
I took a long walk by the water and saw some interesting things.
From there we drove to Torres del Paine national park. Along the way we came across a couple of gauchos crossing the road.
We also saw rheas, guanacos and flamingos.
Once we got to Torres del Paine we took a short hike.
We stayed in a hotel right on Grey Lake and at the end of the lake you could see Grey Glacier.
Next day we had a longer hike.
I found out that glaciers make a rumbling noise like thunder when they move. This one was moving a lot.
Puerto Varas is a nice tourist town on lake Llanquihue with the Osorno volcano looking down on it. This area is within the Pacific Ring of Fire and has many volcanos. A lot of them are active but they do not spew lava, they throw up ash. Like a cloud. And the ash rains down on everything.
The highlight of our stay in Puerto Varas were Petrohué falls at the Vicente Perez Rosales national park. Chile has 46 national parks covering over 32 million acres. Vicente Perez Rosales was the first national park to be established in the 1930’s. Just to compare, the USA has 63 national parks that cover about 50 million acres. To put it in perspective, Chile is 292 thousand square miles, whereas the USA is 3.8 million. My math isn’t the greatest but it can give you an idea of the percentage of total land dedicated to parks. Anyway, the falls were beautiful.
We spent the evening at the home of a local family. The mother was a geriatric physical therapist and the father owned his own landscape design business. They had two teenage daughters and had built their house out of four very large shipping containers. Interesting people.
The next day it was back on the bus to catch the ferry to Chiloé Island. The main city of Castro was founded in 1567, but the island has been inhabited for over 7000 years. The island was originally called New Galicia by the Spanish settlers but soon reverted to Chiloé – land of the seagulls. The Jesuits arrived in the 17th century and started building churches. There are about 150 wooden churches on the island and some are designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Chiloé is also known for its houses built on stilts.
On our way off the island we stopped at the Puñihuil Wildlife Reserve. We donned life vests and were pushed in carts out to boats in the Pacific Ocean. From there we boated around three islands. These were uninhabited islands where mostly birds are protected. We saw penguins, seagulls, ducks, other birds, and a sea lion.
Unfortunately I don’t have a telephoto lens.
Next time Punta Arenas and the south.
We spent a few lovely days in Bariloche. Our hotel was right on Nahuel Huapi lake and I fell asleep to the sound of gentle waves lapping the shore. Bariloche is a vacation spot for many and is a ski resort in winter.
A native Mapuche man gave us a talk about his people. Their culture is tied to the earth. To the stars and the moon. The Southern Cross and silver jewelry are important.
We also had a talk about Germans in Argentina and the hunt for hiding Nazis. The Bariloche of today was settled by German immigrants in the late 1800’s. And in more recent times a Nazi was found living in town.
Our first day in town we took a chair lift to the top of Campanario Hill. I was taken aback by the view. It is one of those things that words can’t describe. It kind of hits you in the gut.
Anyway, the photos don’t do it justice.
That afternoon we went for a gentle hike and ended up at a German brewery for lunch. The following day we climbed into two rubber boats and spent a few hours floating down the Limay River. Quite idyllic.
From there we headed to a family hacienda where some went horseback riding. We ended the day with a delicious meal of grilled lamb, chorizo, and beef.
And on the third day we boarded a bus and headed back over the Andes on our way to Pueto Varas, Chile. It was very dry on the Argentine side but turned lush and green on the Chilean side.
We made it across the border in time for lunch. We stopped at an auto museum. An elderly man, a dairy farmer, started the museum out of a love for cars. He has the largest collection of Studebakers outside the USA.
We ended up at the Radisson Hotel right on Llanquihue lake in Puerto Varas. The first important thing we did was learn how to make a Pisco Sour and we have been drinking them ever since.
Next – Puerto Varas and Chiloe Island.
The only town in Rapa Nui is Hanga Roa. It sits right next to the ocean and sculptures line the coast.
I found these signs next to the sculptures. From what I can tell they are telling us who sponsored the sculpture. They are in the shape that is the local symbol of Rapa Nui. It looks like a boat with two heads and symbolizes authority.
Iorana is the word for ‘hello’ and ‘ goodbye’.
Easter Island or otherwise known as RapaNui is a five hour flight west of Santiago, Chile. It is actually part of Chile and everybody speaks Spanish.
As we approached the island I was pretty amazed anybody could find this little spec in the middle of the ocean. It is about the size of two Manhattan Islands. And the runway goes from the ocean to the ocean. I was glad the breaks worked. There is one flight in and one flight out to and from Santiago each day.
Today there are about 8000 people living on Rapa Nui and about 60% are native. They are Polynesian and originally populated from other islands in the South Pacific. The closest neighbor it has is over 2000 miles away.
It is known for its Moai. The large heads sticking out of the ground. There are over 1000 of them on the island. There was a large archeological effort in the 1980’s to excavate and restore them. Those are the ones seen today. There are also many Moai in museums around the world thanks to the usual looting – the British Museum, the Smithsonian, and various others. Two have been repatriated.
Here is a sampling. The Maoi are made of volcanic rock. There are many dormant volcanoes on the island but three main ones are Terevaka, Poike, and Rano Kau.
Rano Kau is the oldest volcano – 3 million years old. Avocados and Pineapples and other fruits grow inside the crater. people hike down into it to pick fruit and some go swimming. I hear the water is cold.
The view from up there was amazing.
We had lunch at a restaurant right in the ocean that happened to be just at the end of the runway. it came in practically on top of us.
Next up a walk by the ocean.
This is one I make up as I go along. Use whatever you have one hand. This one has kidney beans but you would use black beans. You could use turkey or beef or buffalo. Throw some corn in if you have it on hand. Anything goes.
1 lb turkey
½ onion chopped
½ green pepper chopped
1 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 large can chopped tomatoes
1 can beans
½ cup tomato paste
1 tbsp Adobo
2 tsp basil
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp salt – to taste
generous grind of black pepper
1 cup prepared salsa
shredded cheese for garnish
Cook the turkey and onion (add a chopped clove of garlic if you want)
Add the pepper and mushrooms and any other vegetables you want.
Add the tomatoes and spices and beans. Let it simmer until the vegetables are cooked.
Serve. This freezes well too.