Headline of the week update!

Chilean Uprising (update)

Photo by Kyle Loeffelholz

I mentioned recently that I had emailed a guide I knew in Patagonia to see if I could get a first hand report of what was going on in Chile. Thankfully Kyle took time out of his schedule to respond to me with great details and first hand photos of the roadblocks. 


"I first heard about the strikes about two weeks ago when one of the locals mentioned that a good sized group of fisherman (not fly fisherman, but the local coastal commercial fisherman) shut off the road coming to Coyhaique from Peurto Aysen by burning tires and trees in the road near Puerto Aysen. There main complaint was the price of fuel, and the point of blocking the roads was to prevent the gas trucks from entering into the region. If you compute the cost of gas (both unleaded and diesel) down here in terms of US Dollars per gallon, it is between $7 and $9. About 50% of this price comes from government taxes. If you combine the cost of fuel for the fisherman's boats with limited quotas being enforced on some of their money-making fish, their profits have been rapidly decreasing. From what I understand, this was the root cause of the protests.

From this root cause, the protest has expanded as other groups have joined in and turned this into a much bigger situation. Organizations such as "Patagonia Sin Represas (Patagonia without Dams)" have helped make this a much more public situation. A couple days after the fishermen blocked off the roads coming out of Puerto Aysen, roadblocks started to form throughout the entire region, preventing any gas truck from entering Coyhaique. Not only have these road blocks prevented gas trucks from coming in, but they have also made it difficult for food trucks, tourists, buses, and any other form of transportation to pass. They are even having bicyclists stop for the allotted amount of time. The only way through without delay is by foot. One problem with the roadblocks has been that there has been no kind of regularity with the times they open. At first they tried every 2 hours, but everyday seems to be different. Some days the only open the blocks at 8 am, 2 pm, and 8pm. This has made it hard for operations, such as ours, to operate efficiently. In terms of picking up and taking fly fishermen in and out of the airport at Balmaceda, we have to pass around 4 to 5 roadblocks; each having, at the least, a 2 hour delay.

Luckily, La Posada is located above the roadblock cutting off the road to La Tapera. This allows us to fish the entire length of the Cisnes, along with a couple lakes, with no interruption or delay on the road. Other operations located around Coyhaique have been having problems because of their location between roadblocks. In terms of gas, which is key to an operation like this, we were lucky enough to have plenty of reserves. In the past two weeks we have only had to make one run for additional gas - which was about 300 miles away.

Today when I passed by the roadblock in Amengual, spirits seem to be a down as the cold and rainy weather has settled in. There is an update from the government tonight at 9 as to whether things will change and the government will give the citizens what they want."

Photo by Kyle Loeffelholz

Thank you again Kyle! We really appreciate the first hand information! I hope everything continues to work out down there for you guys and I hope the Rio Cisnes fishes well.