Challenging to get to and even harder to leave, our
beloved Futaleufu River Valley is a paradise of self-sustaining natural bounty.
 We’ve made it an essential part of our
lifestyle here at Bio-Bio Expeditions;
to tap into the local abundance while re-using the goods we bring in from afar.

Here’s what we’re doing to use less, re-use more, and source as much as we can
from, as close as possible:

– The brainchild of our ever-resourceful South African river legend Stan
Ricketts, Stan makes yogurt daily with milk from cows just up the road.  Even more impressive, Stan’s first batch of
yogurt started with just one little single-serving yogurt cup (to get the biotic process of turning
milk into yogurt going) and local milk.  For each successive batch, Stan
uses a small portion of the previous day’s batch as a starter and then adds the
fresh, local milk.   At the end of the
season, even though we’ll have made and eaten gallons of yogurt, Stan will have
only used that one little plastic cup of yogurt to make a season’s worth of his
creamy goodness.  That’s a lot of plastic
yogurt cups and bags saved from going into our nearby landfill.  Stan’s delicious yogurt, along with our
homemade granola and fresh fruit, is an indispensable part of our daily
breakfast of champions.

– Diego Valsecchi, our Argentinian-Italian wine maker and class V guru,
recently procured half a cow from a ranch a mere 10 minute walk away from camp,
and butchered it himself.  Along with our
end-of-the trip traditional Patagonian asado that features all-day cooked
cordero and chancho (lamb and pig) from other nearby ranches, we’re proud and thankful
that more and more of our meat feeds on Futaleufu Valley grass and roams free
in our valley right before we get to enjoy it.

– Nelly and Ximena, the lovely ladies at the top of the hill who Lorenzo and
Marc bought the land from to build our camp on nearly 20 years ago, still bake
our bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – fresh every day.  Whether a whole grain breakfast loaf,
light-as-air lunch rolls, or their famous cinnamon buns, Nelly and Ximena’s
breads keep us fueled up for the day.

– All of our buildings in camp feature wood and stone from the plentiful
forests, river, and creeks that surround our camp.  With the Futaleufu River as our choice wood
sculptor, we’re keen driftwood collectors and the river’s finest pieces have
homes all over camp in furniture, fences, and buildings.

– If it’s green and we eat it here in Futa, you can bet that it either came
from our on-site garden or a thriving greenhouse belonging to one of our
fabulous kitchen staff.  It’s hard to
find a home in the Futaleufu Valley without a vegetable garden, and we’d be
silly not to use the nutritious and delicious herbs and lettuces grown right
here in the rich Futaleufu Valley soil, by default organic!

– Why sit on a cold wooden bench when you could lounge on a thick, cloud-like
sheepskin made from the hide and wool of local sheep?  When you pull up a bench by the fire or for
dinner, that’s the kind of luxury your derriere receives.  It’s also a rare day in Futa when you can’t
find a Bio Bio guide sporting wool clothing made by a local artisan who, with
hand-spun wool from their own sheep, sew beautiful hats, socks, vests,
sweaters, ponchos, and much more.

– We’re succeeding in turning all of our food waste back into food!  Our food waste is either composted into soil
to grow vegetables and herbs in our garden, or fed to our pigs housed in our
adjoining chacra (pigpen).  We’re trying not to get too
attached to our pigs as we’re looking forward to making homemade sausage and
bacon in the upcoming months.

– Lorenzo has tried for years to have our used bottles and cans taken to a
responsible recycling center but has yet to find a willing recycler who will
travel from Futaleufu to mainland Chile, where recycling does happen!  Instead of sending our bottles and cans to the
local landfill, we’ve built the walls of our onsite brewery out of beer cans
(the more you drink the faster we build!).  And, we recently purchased a glasscutter and
are churning out candle and flower vases as well as cocktail and water glasses
from our used beer and wine bottles as fast as we can.

– If it seems as if it can’t get any better, we’re brewing the soon-to-be
world-famous FuBrew right here out of our brand new brewery with local
ingredients.  In the time it takes to
down an ice-cold mug of FuBrew in the hot Patagonian summer, we can deliver a
freshly brewed keg from our brewery to the tap at our riverside bar…that’s as good
as it gets!

We’re quite proud of what we’re doing to support local farmers, ranchers, and
craftsmen and women as well as our own creative efforts to make and re-use
everything we can.  Come see and taste it
all for yourself this summer (winter, in the Northern Hemisphere) at our luxurious
riverside camp on the one-and-only Futaleufu River in the heart of Patagonia!

-Cooper Freeman