It is a holiday, Columbus Day, Día de la Raza in Chile – a fitting date, I muse, for my excursion. The day shines bright and clear, and the mountains call to me. My hands grip the steering wheel. It’s my first time driving this zigzag road on my own. The yellow sign on the switchback ahead reads number 13. Thank God, only two more to go. Rounding the bend, I glance at the steep drop plunging to the canyon far below. At curve 15, I turn in at the wooden gate of the Yerba Loca Nature Sanctuary.
Thirty years at the foot of the Andes has not extinguished my longing for the mountains of my native California – for the scent of redwoods, the trickle of shady streams, the sighting of an occasional deer. Perhaps immersing myself in Chile’s mountainous terrain today will allow me to sink my roots deeper into this land and ease my north-south tug-of-war.
On a hillside ahead, gnarled fruit trees and crumbling stone walls are the only signs of previous human habitation. Someone has named this place Villa Paulina. Maybe a house stood here at one time, and the low winding piles of stones might be remnants of corrals. Bright white blossoms on the fruit trees contrast sharply with the azure springtime sky. I’ve read that the trees were planted by the previous owners of the land, a German family.
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