98 | April• 2018
FAR AWAY FROM IT ALL
a group of men, their bare shoul-
ders sprinkled with ochre dust.
They’re jamming shovels into the
ground under the supervision of
Bernard Keiser, an American who’s
funding the excavation of what he
believes is long-lost treasure. Keiser
walks me over to a cave and points
at some proto-graffiti carved into
the rock, which he believes is code
etched by Captain General Don Juan
Esteban de Ubilla y Echeverria,
who absconded in the early 1700s
with barrels of gold and jewellery
now worth billions of dollars. “I’m
convinced he left these marks to in-
dicate where to ind the booty,” says
Keiser. We walk back to the dig. I scan
the site and look down into the hole,
which vaguely resembles an open-pit
mine, and kick a few rocks around in
the hope of inding something. It isn’t
until I swing by the town that after-
noon that I strike gold.
My skipper drops me off at the
wharf and I scoot up to a small house
with a wooden deck that cantilevers
over the hillside. I knock, and Clau-
dio Matamala, the owner of Cerveza
Archipiélago, opens the door of his
nanobrewery, which produces a to-
tal of 3000 to 4000 bottles of golden
lager, amber ale and cofee-coloured
stout per month. “I like beer, but with
so few provisions brought here every
month, I had to start making it myself.
When my friends tasted the irst batch,
a lager, they wanted me to make some
for them, too,” he says as he showsTRAVEL TIPS
GETTING AROUNDThe fastest
waytoreachtheSelkirklookout
orthesummitofCerroCentinela
is on horseback. Saddle up
with Guido Balbontín from
Cabalgatas Tierra Mágica,who
canalsotakeyouthroughthe
enchanted forest at Plazoleta
El Yunque.FOOD AND DRINKAfter
hiking the island’s many trails,
sitdownonbrewerClaudio
Matamala’sdeckforacoldone
from hisCerveza Archipiélago.
cervezaarchipielago.cl.
Nicole Marré and Guillermo
Martínez atMásaTierra
Eco-Lodgeswap the clichéd
Chilean folkloric music, fried
foodsandwhitericeforoctopus
carpaccio, amberjack ceviche
and golden-crab stew, served
toasound-trackofreggae,
bossanovaorSpanishpop.
masatierraecolodge.comHOTELSIf you yearn to get away
from it all while you’re away from
it all,Crusoe Island Lodgehas
everythingyouneedtolivelike
a pampered marooned sailor –
hot tub and sauna, pisco sours,
scuba gear, freshly cooked
lobster and golden crab, a
librarywithafireplace–ona
sheltered bay outside of town.
crusoeislandlodge.com