Guest post from Ephraim Goodenough in Patagonia, Chile

Hello, it's Ephraim writing from Patagonia, Chile. I am here with our family friend Andrea and her children; Sabastian and Paula. Everything went well on the flight down. I
changed planes at Puerto Montt where there was a four hour layover and
I ate a bunch of the chocolate I got for my birthday.

At Coyhaique we slept the night in a hostal. Each room cost fifteen mil
pesos, but we got a room with two beds, and so slept that night for
half price. Sebastian and I flipped a coin for the floor, but he won
and I was forced to accept the bed, which wasn't so bad after all.

At Cochrane we rented a big "cabin" for the night, with three rooms
and five beds.

The drive from Coyhaique to Cochran, and thence to Caletta Tortel was
through the mountains on a narrow gravel road. The two trips
combined made up ten or eleven hours.

At the store in Cochrane, the green vegetables sell like hot cakes. We
went there before dinner, and they said they were expecting a shipment
in soon. Right after dinner we returned to the store. Nearly everything had
already been bought. What remained was of poor quality, bruised,
wilted, and very expensive. The minimum price for fruit and vegetables
was mil five hundred a kilo ($3.00 for about 2 pounds), and that for food I wouldn't normally buy
at three kilos for a mil. ($2.00 for about 6.5 pounds)

Here in Tortell, you can not buy any fresh vegetables in the store,
period. They don´t sell bread here either. If you want bread, you
either make it yourself or buy it in Cochranne.  There are people who
sell vegetables and other things privately, but it is very rare. I got
to witness a man selling lettuces: He drove up in his truck to the
city parking lot, opened the door, and in ten minutes he had sold all
his produce; 25 or 30 heads of lettuce, at a mil ($2.00) a head.

The electricity is free, but it only runs during the day. The water is
very cheap, 4 mil a month. I don´t know about gas, but wood is
expensive compared to water and lights. That is probably because of the
 cost of transportation. There are little streams everywhere. If you lived outside of 
the city you could probably put in a hydroelectric system. There is always
wind, so an wind power system could also be good. As far as sun, it
comes out once in a while for a few minutes to brighten the world, but
it isn´t much.

The people here work for themselves. It doesn't seem to matter to them if it
 does or doesn't benefit someone else.. The exception being government
operated tourist centers and libraries and the like. The mother, or
Mita says most people here work for one week and then relax
and drink for a month. In confirmation, Seba went out with the local store
owner´s son to pick up the monthly restocking, and he says that fully
one half of the boat was packed with wine and beer.

There is great potential here for agriculture. The weather and terrain
is like the gorge in Oregon, only more rain and more cold. The plants
that grow on the ground seem to be a sort of relation to seaweed;
spongy and tubular. Wherever you step, your footprint is filled
with water. It is really weird.

Well, I better go. The only internet down here is in
the local library where they have three computers set up with SLOW
internet. So, I will write again when I am feeling very patient.
Ephraim Goodenough, Caletta Tortel, Patagonia, Chile