Travel with Indigo

After clearing the needlessly complicated immigration and customs procedures, we finally pull away from the pier in Valpariso at 4pm on November 27 making our way west to the tiny Juan Fernandez archipelago. Lying 413 miles due west, the chain has but three islands only one of which, Robinson Crusoe, is inhabited and it only by 500 souls in the village of San Juan Bautista.

The islands were discovered in 1574 by their namesake and thereafter for centuries remained a bleak dot on the charts inhabited but briefly now and then by pirates and the occasional navy and sealing ships taking on fresh water. It remained vacant until in 1704 one Alexander Selkirk, an irascible Scotsman, demanded to be put ashore on the island and left there. More than four years later, he was “rescued” and delivered to London to great media acclaim that, according to legend at least, was noted by the writer Daniel Defoe. Defoe, it is said, used the story as the basis for what is regarded as the first novel of English literature, Robinson Crusoe. Recently, in his book Searching for Robinson Crusoe, the travel writer Tim Severin concludes after exhaustive research that it was not Selkirk nor the Juan Fernandez islands that gave impetus to the Defoe novel. This startling conclusion irritates the local tourist industry, nascent as it is.

The seas on the way are fairly calm and at night nearly flat. Thanks to the Humboldt current that flows strongly north along the Chile coast, water temperature is 61 degrees. It is this current that helps make Chile one of the world’s largest producers of both wild caught and farm raised fish.

Our voyage lasts just forty hours at about 9.5 knots and is generally uneventful except for the several pods of right whales we pass through, some no more than 50 yards from the boat. As we approach it from a distance, the island is barely discernible among its enveloping clouds, but as the eye adjusts to conditions its soaring peaks come into view jutting out of the sea to 3,000 feet. Partly arid desert and partly verdant jungle thanks to wildly differential rainfall, the island is so botanically unique that it has been named a UNESCO World Bioshere Reserve.

As Indigo nears the village harbor on Cumberland Bay, the only habitable site on the entire 33 square mile island, we are struck by stunning beauty. The soaring mountain peaks in front of us are draped in deep jungle giving the place the look of a South Pacific island like Bora Bora, yet off to either side are steep cliffs plunging into the sea covered over in arid desert. Richard Henry Dana, in his seafaring adventure Two Years Before the Mast, called the island “the most romantic spot of earth that my eyes had ever seen.”

Upon dropping anchor in the sheltered bay and clearing in with the port captain, the entire crew and yours truly go ashore where we are promptly greeted by the hospitable Marcelo Rossi, a man to whom we had been introduced by our friends from Santiago. Marcelo is the owner of the wonderful inn called Refugio Nautico to which he takes us for a fine fish barbecue. First come the obligatory pisco sours–the first hint that the party has begun–followed by fresh mero (a species of grouper) fingers with soy sauce dip and hot empanadas right off the stove. The pisco sours continue to flow along with wine. Then we all sit down to the main course consisting of grilled Pacific swordfish accompanied by local veggies.

After lunch, I foolishly hop aboard Marcelo’s ATV and go for a barely controlled spin about the village. Then I and some of the crew jump into Marcelo’s 4WD truck and travel up the face of the highest peak’s base to a point from which we hike along a narrow jungly trail a mile or so until we reach a glen of enormous pinion trees. The rest of the crew arrives mounted on mules. From the glen we hike along prepared trails through a wonderland of flora indigenous only to this island. Elephant ear ferns with leaves the size of serving trays have a texture like sharkskin and stalks rough as corncobs. It wouldn’t take much imagination to picture yourself on the Jurassic Park island with raptors scampering about.

Returning to Marcelo’s inn, we begin phase two of the party with yet more wine and pisco sours. About dark a group of four local musicians appear and begin playing music indigenous to this island using three guitars, a vocalist and a set of bongo drums. It’s not long before your humble servant is dragooned into playing the drums with arrhythmic and discordant results. Soon the island’s mayor, or alcalde, appears with his girlfriend and some other notable locals and the party shifts into another and higher gear.

Next day we welcome the alcalde, Leopoldo Charpentier, a native islander, and the port captain along with Marcelo for a fine lunch on Indigo prepared by Chef Fiona. At its end and after fond farewells, we sadly depart this remote eden on our way to Easter Island, some 1,700 miles to the west, about seven days travel.