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hi everyone, we have been a chile about 10 days now, and yesterday had our finest day. we walked up through the araunauca forest, (monkey puzzle trees) and got into the snow. the sun was hot, so running shoes wasn't a problem, although right at the top of the walk in thick snow, my cotton socks weren't enough to stop my toes from going a bit numb!! the kids loved it. they shooshed down the slopes on the way down and we were the only ones up there. our foot prints were the first in the snow. it was 15ks of walking and six hours, but we all made it and even had a hot swim at the end of the day - which was rather expensive!! three times the price of mt mauganui, but then we were in plush surroundings for chile. We can't quite understand why its so expensive, but we think there must be a lot of wealthy chileans, prepared to pay these absorbant prices. there are hardly any tourists here. infact we were told pucon was the backpacking city of chile, but we havn't seen one yet! Mind you we are staying in a guest house just out of pucon, with a chilean couple in their sixties, no english, so i am having to use my spanish, which is nice, although some times confusing. i have got my spanish dictionary by my side!! Chile is a huge country, and yesterday's walk made up for the down side - travelling long distances in the car. Tim is getting very good at eye spy , and they are also now reading in the car, and have down journal work! We need some new cds.....too. The car we are renting this time is an american gas guzzler, a big crysler, but yesterday, it did us proud, we drove up a gravel rd, no problem. A lot of the national parks here are on gravel or four wheel drive tracks.now three days later we are in Puerto Mont, staying in a hostel run by a family related to our flower grower contact, Matias. They live 10 minutes walk from the city. very handy. Today we went fishing - caught 13 fish!! kept 7. So guess what's going on the barbecue this afternoon. We went fishng in a 12ft boat smaller than our bathroom! i must admit i was a bit nervous getting into it, six of us in a little wooden tub - but it didn't matter. the sun came out, after a night of rain, and the kids caught three fish each! some were too small to keep, but they were healthy looking salmon. we trolled just outside a fish farm in lake llanquihue, for those of you keen to look it up. it made up for our very poor nights sleep, one of the pernmant hostel stayers, a fisherman, had an all night party, right next to our room! we were not impressed! noise control is non existence here.we will visit chiloe island soon. isabel and stu have done some shoppiing at the markets here, but the rest of us, having found anything we like yet. there are lots of wooden and woollen crafts. isabel bought another headband, this one cotton, so i think it will last longer than the plastic one she bought in germany. There are huge differences in wealth here, and Puerto Mont is typical. a lot of the houses are quite run down, and everything looks like it needs a good coat of paint. the main highway is the only road that is kept up to maintenance....and to get really off the beaten track you need a four wheel drive. there are loose dogs everywhere, and they are also the main road kill. seen six dead dogs and 1 hare so far. but in saying that, all the dogs seem to keep quite good condition and are obviously fed by the locals.signs are also a mystery in chile - its like they start the job and then somewhere along the way they have either lost interest or forget that not everybody knows where to go! a map is essential.
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