I have visited the Saltos de Petrohué in Chile three times – 1990, 2006 and 2017, always during November. Since the last visit there had been an open wound – and blood was oozing out of this wound – so to say – as two days ago the changing wallpaper of my laptop showed the Saltos de Petrohué.
Saltos del Petrohué is a chute-type waterfall of Rió Petrohué inside the Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park [1]; the source of this river is Lago Todos los Santos, which one can cross to Bariloche in Argentina. You can have a pretty view of both of the waterfall and Osorno volcano. It is safe to visit nowadays, but ouside the marked areas it still is dangerous.
I still like some of my inept old analog pictures, of which I scanned some. And I thought of having photographed a brass plate, saying that a German had died there. I had searched for this picture four years ago, last year and the past two days – in vain. The last visit had been with a guided tour and when I noticed that the brass plate hade gone, I asked the tour guide about the plate, but she had never seen it before. I already had searched in the internet for a rafting accident there, but could only find another recent, fatal accident of a young US-American [2]. I have been reasoning that the tourism industry did not like having such a plate there as rafting, not through the chute but on the lake, is advertised. But it is stranger still.
If I don't find something I develop a tenacity to look further. I should have looked up my old travel diary earlier as there it reads: „In memoriam Wolfgang Hechenbichler 1984“. I had copied the text of the plate in 1990! This was a new lead. I found that there is a homepage dedicated to the memory of Wolfgang Hechenbichler, who had been an artist [3]. Wolfgang Hechenbichler lived from 1953 until 1984. He had been granted a scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) at one of the art academies of Santiago de Chile [4]. The grave is in Villarrica [5], which is halfway in between Puerto Montt and Temuco; it looks quite like the graves in one of the small town around where I live [6].
Wolfgang Hechenbichler had lots of talents as he sculpted, painted or wrote texts. I am quite interested in stained glass and I've found some interesting work by him. The last church, which I've written about, is St. John Baptist in Ripsdorf [7]. And Wolfgang Hechenbichler has created stained glass of Salome and John Baptist [8]. Thanks to Balthasar Hechenbichler, the brother of Wolfgang Hechenbichler, and the Erbengemeinschaft the memory of this gifted artist will stay.
My open wound has closed, but I guess the wound of John Baptist will stay open for some time longer.
The Saltos de Petrohué and the landscape around is well worth a visit [9].
Links and Annotations:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrohu%C3%A9_Waterfalls
[2] Turista estadounidense murió tras caer a los saltos del río Petrohué / La víctima se habría lanzado a las aguas junto a otro joven de la misma nacionalidad, quien resultó con lesiones. https://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/2011/11/15/512872/turista-norteamericano-fallece-tras-caer-a-los-saltos-del-petrohue.html
[3] https://www.wolfganghechenbichler.de/
[4] Academia Chilena de Bellas Artes or Academia metropolitana de arte (?) – the German text doesn't differentiate.
[5] There's a picture on the already mentioned homepage: https://www.wolfganghechenbichler.de/bio_fotos.htm. The brass plate is the one of the cross not the lost plate at Saltos de Petrohué.
[6] Der Friedhof mit den Holzkreuzen in Nettersheim (text in German, the title means: The cemetery with the wooden crosses in Nettersheim), four pictures. https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2020/08/der-friedhof-mit-den-holzkreuzen-in.html
[7] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2021/12/st-johann-baptist-in-ripsdorf.html is in German, but the text on the castle of Herodes (Machaerus), where the head of John Baptist has been presented, is in English: https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2021/11/machaerus-castle-where-herod-antipas.html.
[8] Salome https://www.wolfganghechenbichler.de/bild_gross.asp?baNum=15701 and the head of John Baptist https://www.wolfganghechenbichler.de/bild_gross.asp?baNum=15901
[9] https://rheumatologe.blogspot.com/2018/01/carnaval-del-sur.html shows a celebration in Puerto Varas, which is situated at Lago Llanquihue, from where one can see the volcanos Osorno and Calbuco.
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