Cruise to Punucapa

Sunday morning brought sunshine and blue skies, so we decided to leave our comfy hotel for the day and take a boat tour.

We walked down to the waterfront and watched the rowers sculling their racing boats up and down the river. The boats glide quickly along the river and always remind me of those water strider bugs that use surface tension to scoot across ponds chasing their prey.

Which then reminded me that the only predators on the water are the Lobos and how you wouldn't want to scoot across one of them in a little boat.

Anyway, we boarded the Embarcaciones Bahia II and headed north of Isla Teja up the Rio Calle Calle into the Santuario de la Naturaleza Carlos Andwandter . This nature sanctuary is located in wetlands formed after the devastating 1960 earthquake when Valdivia city and much of the land around it dropped three meters.

As we cruised, the captain explained over the loudspeakers (in Spanish) what we were looking at. This was hard to understand, but we saw some birdlife and it finally sunk in that they were looking to show us the famous Black-Necked Swans whose population had greatly declined in the autumn of 2004 and since then had become hard for our guide to find.

At last we caught a glimpse of a pair of swans splashing in the reeds and then another pair flew overhead. Apparently, a pulp mill had been built 25 km upstream by a company called Celulosa Arauco y Constitucion (CELCO) in 2004. Ecologists and others from the Universidad Austral de Chile in Valdivia accused the forestry company of polluting the river. The pulp mill was forced to close while the case was being investigated and as of this time the case is still being debated in court.
UPDATE: July 22, 2009 CELCO loses appeal.

We continued up the Rio Calle Calle past the confluence into the Rio Cruces and pulled up to a landing at the pre-Hispanic village of Punucapa, famed for having the oldest church in the region.

The church was very simple inside.

Each year this shrine to the Virgin of Punucapa gets carried in a festival at Valdivia.

As we headed back to town, the wetlands seemed even more mysterious with fantastic plants and trees filled with cormorants.

Suddenly, more Black-Necked Swans appeared and we had a great view as they swam alongside the boat.

Soon we were past the confluence and into the channel that led back to Valdivia.

The fishmarket looks much brighter and more colorful under blue skies.

Pelicans also joined the scramble for discarded fishparts.

Here is our guide and driver, Manuel, who took such good care of us during our visit to Valdivia.