We had the perfect plan. Richard drove us to the lake region where the children and I would spend the summer. He returned by bus to sweat out the season in Santiago, learning Spanish at the “German School.” The pastel-painted row houses, blindingly reflecting the intense southern sun, gave way to a hilly country of scrub brush and avocado orchards as we traveled south. “Ruta Cinco” became a way of life for us, being the artery through which life flows in the fertile and temperate sliver of land between mountain and sea that is Chile.

The grand-scale lakes and mountains took my breath away with their vivid hues of sapphire and emerald. A comely array of Germanic style homes greeted us as we wended our way down the folded hillsides above Puerto Octay. Volcano Osorno rose behind Lake Llanquihue like the belle of the ball, her perfectly shaped skirt frosted with summer snow. She followed us to our cabin, where I arranged the treasures picked up on the way. The aromatic fragrance of fresh apricots and cherries competed with the robust scents of exotic cheeses, sausages and bread.

The brokenness of our perfect plan dawned on us a few idyllic days later, as our car limped into Osorno, where we had gone to drop Richard at the bus station. I realized then that a remote cabin in southern Chile, without a car, pushed the boundaries of ‘adventure’ for someone whose entire Spanish vocabulary consisted of restaurant phrases.

“But how do we get home!” I rocked our crying baby and tried to keep the other children together in the busy terminal. Osorno being a fifty-minute drive from the house, the cost of a taxi was prohibitive. Richard had no salary until the fall. Our savings had to get us through the summer.

“There’s a bus leaving  for Puerto Octay in a few minutes.” Richard got in line to buy us tickets. “I saw taxis near the station. It shouldn’t cost much to get home from there.”

Along the way, I puzzled out what to say to the taxi driver and wondered if any would be there at our late arrival hour. Would we all fit?

The taxi driver was unfazed by there being fewer seats than occupants. We stumbled through the darkness of our front yard, bearing the last-minute goods that would support us until we were brave enough to venture out on foot.

I sat up late, engulfed by the profound quiet of that country night. The point on the globe to which I had voluntarily flung myself floated accusingly before me. What a vulnerable speck of dust I was in a vast universe, displaced so permanently from my whispering South Carolina pines. At length the door creaked open and the click-click-clack of Delta’s claws beat rhythmically across the floor. Her Boxer/Great-Dane head stopped before the sliding glass door, and we gazed into the mist-filled darkness for a time. Then she swung her great bulk around and settled at my feet. I sank to the floor, laid my head across her broad back, and appreciated anew the virtues of a great big dog.

We learned to enjoy the unruffled flow of days and the loveliness of small variations. Would there be cows or sheep in the pasture today? Would Osorno and her volcanic neighbors, Puntiagudo, and Calbuco, pose with stark clarity against a pale blue sky? Or would they hide behind a thick fog upon which only the tip of Osorno floated? Some nights passed like the first, as dark and still as a tomb. At other times, the wind would shriek and shake the house half the night, as the loose chimney cap beat out a tinny accompaniment.

On nice days we ambled down to the lake, the children delighted by the diminutive water-falls cascading into the ravine. Delta strode along the dusty track like a young lioness. Dropping all pretense of royal manners as we approached our inlet, she charged at the bay and cavorted in its shallow waters until her sides heaved with the effort. After our play, we sat amid dark, volcanic rubble and watched the resident kingfisher make thirty-foot dives.

Then came the morning of New Year’s Eve, when the toilets wouldn’t flush and the faucets burbled out their last drops. Our water came from a community well up near the main road. I found the one spot where the cell phone sometimes worked and called Richard. “Our water stopped running.” 

Richard cleared his throat. “Must be a leak somewhere.”

“Okay. What do I do?” At his suggestion, I checked the outside spigot, the lowest point in our system. “A trickle comes out.”

“Then there’s pressure left in the system.”

“Okay. But what do I do?”

“I’ll see if I can get a hold of someone.” Richard called back to inform me there was a maintenance man, but he’d left for his New Year’s celebrations. He’d be gone for several days, if not a week. “Did we buy a bucket?”

“Yes, we have a bucket.”

“That’s probably the best you can do for now.”

Silence.

“Do you want me to come down?”

Silence. “Nooo. It … would just be an extra expense.”

A bucket and a trickle of water. We learned just how precious water is. Half a bucket to flush a toilet or sponge bathe in the shower. A few buckets for cooking, drinking, and other cleaning. No laundry. Our life that week revolved around fetching water.

By then we had learned at what times the regional bus stopped in Quilanto, the small collection of homes and a church within walking distance. After returning from Puerto Octay laden with amazing, locally grown food, we ate on the porch and watched a white owl glide across the dark shapes of trees in search of field mice. On clear nights, we laid on the grass and drank in a dazzling trail of more stars than I had ever seen in my life, stretching from the Southern Cross to Orion.

The end of January brought a sudden shift to warm temperatures. We welcomed that first balmy day, spending much of it on a leisurely walk. The night turned sweltering, however, in a house with no air conditioner and no screens. We had been vigorously warned to close the windows against moths before dusk. After a time of tossing about, I fell into a fitful sleep.

The tickling of insect legs on my neck awakened me. I brushed it off and pulled the sheet over me. Probably a mosquito. Then the same sensation wriggled down my chest. I jumped up and turned on the light. On the bed covers sat four dark brown, short and chubby, larval-looking creatures. Not so bad.

After a glance at the walls, however, all hope left me. On every wood panel, a solemn march was underway. Critters without number, crawling up and down, alone or connected in pairs. I snatched up the baby and ran into the boys’ room. As it seemed clear, I left my still slumbering little girl with her brothers. The girls’ room was like mine, and we labored together to crush bugs, working our way from bottom to top, left to right, and across ceilings. Then we began again, as more of the beasts crept from cracks and crevices until the whole room seemed to be a blur of gyrating, coffee-colored dots.

As morning approached, the number of creepy-crawlers gradually declined. More worrisome was the appearance of flying bugs, with narrow, gossamer wings, flitting about the lights in increasing numbers. This began a new chapter of chasing and swatting the grotesque intruders all about the house. The dawn found us wobbling on the edges of chairs, looking first over one shoulder and then the other for any signs of movement. We will never know for sure why they didn’t reappear the following night, the natural end of an event or the bug spray I procured the next day.

The sunny days of February brought forth masses of wild blackberries from the bushes covering the fields between us and the lake, and we gathered bucketsful of plump, sweet berries.

A few days after I had told Richard about them, he called. “I was telling people here about your blackberries. You might want to cook them before you eat them.”

“Why?” My berry laden fingers stopped their trajectory to my lips.

“Well, everyone says something a little different. But there’s a disease called Hanta virus down there, and some people here associate eating raw blackberries with it. I don’t know if there’s any truth to it, but you might want to cook them.”

“I’ve read about Hanta virus. I thought you caught it by breathing in rat droppings. Are you sure the problem is eating them rather than gathering them? We did wash them.”

“I’m not sure of anything. There are just some people saying things about blackberries. Maybe you should be careful gathering them, too. Wear a dust mask or something.”

Feeling very silly, I wrapped a scarf around my mouth and nose for my next trip to the blackberry fields, but this was not a practice I could grow to love. After much research, we found no official link between blackberries and Hanta, and I abandoned it. We never came down with Hanta, not that summer, nor the four following, but we did become connoisseurs of blackberry pie, cobbler, cake, and jam.

The mention of southern Chile still brings a dreamy look to my children’s eyes. For all the daunting trials we experienced, the memory of that first summer endures as one of the most exquisitely lived times of my life. It gave me a different perspective, presenting both a smaller and a grander scale than any other place I had or have since lived. I discovered what I was made of and gained confidence. Chile burned into my soul a permanent likeness of its penetrating beauty and untamable spirit.