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before carefully picking it up, turning it so I
can see its startlingly black-and-white belly,
then delicately placing it on some leaves. It’s
not an exotic beauty, but the wee critter has
more capacity to generate delight than it can
possibly know.
While I take photos, Tomas turns full
naturalist, explaining that this is one of
only two frog species known to incubate
their tadpoles in the father’s mouth. When
the babies next see daylight, they too will be
little frogs.
As Tomas explains that because of its
conservation status the exhilaration of finding
the frog is joined by melancholy. I’m quite sure
it’s not because of the rain trickling down my
spine, but because of just how fragile this tiny
little creature appears in this big, wet forest.
Tomas delicately places it back exactly where
he found it, and off it goes, its hops and our
hopes comingling in the undergrowth.
Bad moon rising
It would be easy to disparage Pucón, a town
designed for, and used by, travellers, which
we reach after another beautiful drive — four
hours north from the town of Lake Ranco. Here
you can find karaoke bars and T-shirt shops,
tour companies and streetside hawkers. Yet the
surrounding area is so scenic, so impossible
to ignore, that somewhere was always going to
have to take the hit and welcome the crowds.
For better or worse, Pucón is it.
After several months of pandemic-enforced
quiet, the place roared back to life for one
strange week in December 20 20, before
quickly falling back into an eerie silence
as another wave of the virus crept over the
Andes. Although it’s now back to normal
— with groups coming for hiking, rafting and
mountaineering — the reason for the traffic
during that curious week was celestial.
I know about that peculiar time because
I happened to be one of the few thousand
people who made it to Pucón to see the total
solar eclipse of 2020. It was perhaps the
most singular, extraordinary and emotional
moment of my life, an instant where I could
feel something inside me alter, never to
be quite the same again. Here was a great
shadow passing over the Earth, and at its
most awesome and terrifying extent a corona
appeared before the darkness receded, and
light once more flew across the sky.
In that carbuncle of a year, the eclipse felt like
a miracle, but returning to Pucón, I find that
some people experienced it very differently.
The Indigenous Mapuche people hold their own
beliefs around eclipses. For them, it’s a battle
between the sun and moon, representing the
death and magnificent rebirth of the former.
“But it’s nothing to celebrate,” Rosario Colipi
tells me inside her ruka (a traditional Mapuche
home), which she’s opened up for cultural
visits aimed at improving understanding of the
lives of the Indigenous community. “For us,
an eclipse is a sign of a bad omen. We also had
one in 2 018, and it told us the pandemic was
coming. When the one came in 20 20, we knew
the problems would not end soon.”
This revelation comes as a surprise — both
that the celestial event could be viewed as evil,
The Indigenous
Mapuche hold
their own beliefs
around eclipses. For
them, it’s a battle
between the sun and
moon, representing
the death and
magnificent rebirth
of the former
Clockwise from top left: Mapuche
grandmother Rosario Colipi stands
outside her ruka; the critically
endangered Darwin’s frog; Rosario
strips corn for a lunch inside her family
home; a Chilean fire tree, growing in a
valley just outside of Pucón
JUL/AUG 2022 111
CHILE
