What’s most astonishing is that Roberto didn’t start paddling until 1999, just a few short months before he started the Los Escualos kayaking club. “I had seen people paddling, but I thought they were just gringos muy locos,” he tells me. “Now I’m one of them!”
His passion for kayaking began when an Argentinian kayaker, a friend of his brother-in-law, passed through Cochrane. He led a short paddling class on a nearby lake, and Roberto, his wife, and her brother were inspired to learn more. They approached the mayor of Cochrane to acquire funding to purchase their first kayaks, and soon enough, they arrived. “At first, the three of us didn’t know anything,” Roberto says, laughing at the distant memory. “We flipped over in the river, lost our kayaks. It was a disaster. But little by little, we continued to practice.”
One day, as he and Claudia paddled down the river, they noticed a boy running along the road that bordered the river, following them, watching them play in the waves. They looked at each other, and it clicked: maybe they could teach young people how to paddle, too. Soon after, they organized their first paddling class.
Early on, Los Escualos received support and training from NOLS instructors, whose Patagonian programs are based out of the neighboring town of Coyhaique. Their Argentinian friend and paddling instructor also helped Roberto and Claudia organize an exchange program with youth from Argentina, inspiring Roberto to think even more broadly of the potential and possibility of the Los Escualos club. Today, the Alzar School has inherited this legacy of cross-cultural exchange.
"I had seen people paddling, but I thought they were just gringos muy locos....Now I'm one of them!"
Los Esqualos paddlers alongside Alzar School students