El Espolón

     I just got back from El Espolón, which is a small community on the edge of a lake, or rather, in a valley that shoots off from the lake.  It's very remote, and kind of strange, because there are lots of ashes on the ground and lots of dead, white trees standing around, remnants of the colonization efforts in the 20s, when they burnt areas of land to raise sheep.  These kind of eerie ashes and trees are flanked by vegetation, though, which makes me feel like it's the land of the dinosaurs.  Seriously, I thought I was suddenly in Jurassic Park, after all of the fences go down and the dinosaurs get loose and they start driving those fancy cars off of the electric track.  I fully expected a dino (the small, quiet, friendly kind) to peek out from behind a bush at some point.  

      The process of getting to Espolón is an interesting one.  First, we load about fourteen people into a van, then drive about 30 minutes to the boat launch.  From there, there is a great community effort to load the boat.  This can include anything, from stoves to sheep to bales of hay to cans of oil, because this is the only access to the community and the surrounding areas.  Seriously, this place is so remote that they rely on smoke signals for communication.  If you look closely, you can see the smoke in this picture, on that little peninsula.  

We finally take off around 10:30 or 11AM, and there begins the marvelous, breathtaking, surreal but tranquil trip!

The water's strange shade of milky green is due to the ashes -- it used to be clear and mirror-like (Gustavo is the son of the woman who runs my pensión; the photo is from a trip he took a year ago):

But now it's kind of unhealthy looking:

The ashes also apparently killed off a lot of sheep and other animals, because it contaminated their water and food, and a lot of people had to leave the area because they lost their livelihood. 

A strange stop on our way back this afternoon:

That is a plastic bag hanging from a dead tree.  Inside the plastic bag are rolls of bread.  Next to that spire of the stump is another bag of food.  We (the boat) left both of those bags hanging there, with no one around to receive them.  My theory is that a hermit or wild child or Nell lives in those woods behind this stop, with only the one little dog for company.

Last week, I wrote down an episode from the journey as soon as I got home, so as not to forget:

"Before I forget!  On the way back from Espolón, I was in the back of a pickup truck, bouncing around with some other people.  We arrived at the boat launch, boarded, got settled, then took off.  I spent much of the trip reading or making faces at the little kids around me or talking to a mother named Maria (who wanted me to translate some of The Language Instinct for her, which was extreeeemely difficult).  Finally, we piled into the red van that acts as a shuttle between Futa and the boat launch.  Just before arriving at the Futa end of Lake Espolón, we had picked up a man with two bags of pigs -- I didn't see that they were in sacks until we deboarded the boat and heard the squeals.  I located them when I saw their little snouts pressed against the grain of the sacks.  He got into the van with us, tossing the noisy little piglets into the back of the van.  About 15 minutes into the trip, Maria complains to the driver about the smell.  He sends his son to the roof of the van, and the pig owner tosses the poor, terrified little creatures onto the roof, still in their sack, and the kid ties the sacks up there, to a tire.  Finally, we arrive in Futa, where the kid gets back up top and just drops them down!  More squeals."

It was hilarious that day, but today they did it with a pet dog that just didn't fit in the van with all of the people, and I have to say that was much more heart-wrenching.  Poor thing.

It's getting chilly here, especially in the mornings.  The trees are just barely beginning to change.