by Eric Gresham:
Just when I think I’m on my way to having an adventure in Chile, I meet someone that convinces me otherwise. The first time it happened was when my boss, Jimmy, invited me for drinks at the Club Orquidia to meet a fellow patriot and celebrate the 4th of July.
Walking over to the club, the stray German shepherd that owns the turf by my hostel passed me by, reminding me of the wild dogs that trailed me for an hour on the highway last week. I was searching for a hidden beach on the Puerto Varas lakeside. I found one, but then the dogs found me.
Rock in hand, I convinced them to keep their distance for the next 6 km, until a sympathetic bus picked me up. While this tale provided me with an adrenaline rush, it would not bear mentioning to the man I was to meet.
I arrived at the empty club and spotted the two Americans. Jimmy waved me over and introduced me to Chester.
Chester grabbed my hand and we shook vigorously. “Always glad to meet a fellow American in Puerto Varas,” he smiled. He asked what brought me here, and I summarized my backstory, citing a banking internship as having played a pivotal role.
“Banking!” he exclaimed, “no wonder you ended up 5000 miles away!” He continued, “they don’t produce anything- what do they provide? I don’t know, they’re either leaching off us or maybe we are off of them, I don’t know, but…”
I sat back and grinned. He was wearing a faded black hooded sweatshirt and dark jeans over his wiry figure, complemented by weathered hiking boots. His ginger hair, spilling out into a ponytail under a worn baseball cap, framed a sharp, freckled face overlaid with red stubble. Not the look of an advocate for the finance industry. His rant over, he adjusted his wire-frame glasses, and took a long drought of beer. I took advantage of the pause and asked him what his story was.
From State College, Pennsylvania, Chester has been living in Chile for the past eight years. He now considers himself as much Chilean as American. He returns to the states for a month every year to work as a poster salesman, earning as much as ten grand a trip. He currently has plans to open up a brewery, going into debt to achieve his goal. The brewery itself is made up of two recycled shipping containers, and the infrastructure is made from 90% recycled materials.
Chester has been selling “pirate beer” for the past four years all over Chile. He defines pirate beer as home-brewed beer not sanctioned by the government. But, according to Chester, the government doesn’t care, and neither do the restaurants and bars he sells to. His current primary sources of income are beer and side jobs as a chef. These forms of employment don’t have very set vacation schedules, so every year he takes off for a couple of months on biking trips all over Latin America. He has biked in Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile, taking him through places with names like the Road of the Dead, and beautiful locals including Lake Titicaca, Futaleufu and La Paz.
Opening the brewery is the closest he’s come to settling down, but he isn’t certain if he’s ready to commit to living in Chile for life. In retrospect, Chester views his lifestyle today as a combination of his many passions: traveling, cooking, brewing, and biking.
I thought I was striking out into the wild when I decided to move to Patagonia for two months to live the life of an outdoor journalist. Chester is on a whole other level. I told Chester I was interning at Patagon Journal because I wasn’t yet sure of my passion. However, until I do, I’ll try my best to be as restless as he is.