Central Chile

, originally uploaded by m_hagen.

Rich knocked on the door at the Happy House in Santiago fresh off the plane from California. It was great to see him. It´s been nearly a year since he came out to Bali and Sumbawa. He was loaded down with a boardbag, books for me, (Haruki Murakami, my favorite author, so finally I wouldn´t be scrounging around the hostels hoping for something decent to read), and fresh baked cookies from Mom. We had a couple of coffees and breakfast while catching up.

By midday we were on the bus south to Pichilemu. There we had a decent surf at Punta de Lobos. It was good to get in the water after a month of trekking in Patagonia. We spent the next day organizing transport north and shopping for supplies for the next week of camping. The following afternoon we were on the bus to Litueche. Once there we bargained for a taxi ride to the Rancho. The driver dropped us at the clifftop overlooking the point. We´d been told it was only 30 minute hike down to the point. I later discovered there are a few different roads out there and this taxi driver decided to drop us at the point most convenient for him, not us. The view from the cliff revealed perfect lines of swell wrapping around the wind protected point. Wave after wave following in each others path. The taxi driver collected his cash and was quickly off. We were looking down an extremely steep and rutted out one-way track that would eventually lead us to the point. We grabbed our packs and then took turns letting the boardbag drag us down the hill. After 30 minutes we were down on the flat near the village. At this point Rich and I heaved the boardbag up and over our heads and finished the last hour hiking across a sandy track behind the surfline. We arrived just before sunset and quickly made a fire, cooked up some pasta and then crashed out in the tent to the sound of a rising swell.

The next week the surf didn´t let up. The point offered up variations of perfect surf everyday. Surfable through the tides, but low being by far the hollowest and most lined up. Camped directly in front of the surf. It was basically surf, eat breakfast, sleep, surf, lunch, read and then surf again before dark. I watched Rich catch a wave late one afternoon that looked more like backlit, green Padang Padang in Bali than any other wave I´ve ever seen. Not a huge wave, but he pulled in on the take-off and was perfectly slotted for about 4-5 seconds through two separate sections, just barely getting pipped at the end. Every night we lit fires with wood gathered from up the hill and warmed up under a starry night sky. There are some photos of the surf here.