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After a week of hedonism in Rio we needed time to rest and recover before another expected few weeks of hedonism in Australia. Our flight to New Zealand was booked from Santiago, so we spent a week back in Chile, and headed south to Pucon at the very north of the Chilean Lake District, and ateway to Patagonia. The flight from Rio went via Montevideo, so it meant Jon did to go there in the end, although he didn't actually leave the airport so I'm not sure it was exactly what he had in mind.
Pucon is really lovely small Alpine town with the buildings made from timber. It looks like it should be on a chocolate box - it's quite an epic journey south from Santiago and given my aversion to night buses we did the journey in the day and saw the landscape change from desert, to vineyards, to woodland and finally into the mountains. To drive from one end of Chile to the other you would cover the same distance as driving from Norway to Nigeria; with the alps on one side of you, and the sea on the other Chile feels like an island on the edge of South America.
At the edge of the lake district, Pucon is outdoors activity central - it even has its own North Face store. Unfirtyunately it rained the entire time we were there, although it did mean we got lots of sleep. t's the chocolate capital of Chile - unfortunately I haf decided to give up cholocate and chips for lent. D'oh.
In a break from the rain we decided to do a tree top adventure / canopy thing - after my success in Ecuador of becoming an invinsibe superhero I was very excited by this. We ha heard that Ecuador has some of the more lax safety standards in canopy adventures. The matress tied to a tree to act as a stopper for the fast wire at this place would suggest that this isn't necessarily the case. This was more of the adventure than canopy, as there were lots of ladders and platforms. If you undershot the platform you had to climb back along the wire with your hands - I discovered I have no upper body strength and a low tolerance for Chilean men shouting 'come on you can do it' at me after sliding back down one of the wires. They didn't even offer you the option of playing superman at this one.
We took an evening boat cruise around the lake in the rain one evening. Unfortunately you couldn't see that much from the boat as it was absolutely chucking it down, but they played the greatest 80s mega mix I have ever heard for most of the hour and a half. Do you remember the radio one roadshows in the 80s, where people used to go on stage at the location (usually somewhere like Skegness) and play a game where they played 10 seconds of each song and you had to guess what it was? I loved that game, and am really good at it, making me a valuable pubquiz team member. Anyway, it was like that. We thought it was brilliant and got mildly hysterical, and insisted on staying out on deck the whole time much to the bemusement of the Chileans on the trip who alternated between wanting to watch us, and wanting to be downstairs in the warm and dry.
Because Pucon is in a volcanic area there are lots of hot pools in the area. We naturally chose a trip to the cheapest, and found ourselves on a bus with a few others travellers heading out in the rain to the hot springs. We were told to take our own food and drink supplies so bought a cheap bottle of fizzy Chilean wine (it was a Tuesday night and seemed only appropriate), an our fellow hot poolers had some beer. What they (primalrily the Lonely Planet, but also hostel owners) don't tell you about is the undercover staff in the hot pool, cunningly disguised as a portly middle aged woman in a swim suit who will come round and sniff your bottle to check it is non alcoholic. Using our now extensive Spanish (no, solo agua) we managed to convince her that there was nothing unusual about our yellow coloured water. The others from our bus weren't so lucky and had their beer confiscated. It's a testament to how good our Spanish has become that we overheard her lecturing them on the four cardiac arythmias that had taken place in that very hot pool because of people drinking alcohol. To think that I could understand the word four!!
It's going to be weird leaving South America and going somewhere where English is the first language. It will make it a lot harder to talk about the people we spend hours watching go by for starters. The fact that we only understand about 50% of what is going on has made this part of the trip both funny and frustrating at different times. We will miss South America loads; the manana lifestyle, the friendliest people, the buses to anywhere, the wine, the steak, the desert carts and the continental obsession with photocopying, UNESCO heritage sites, and anything that rules can be attached to - and then ignored. We will miss how far our money goes, (most of) the weather, the beaches, the cheap beer, and the ability to make a meal out of almost any animal lying around. We will miss being the tallest people almost anywhere we go. But it's time to move on, and to New Zealand and Australia to speak English and catch up with people who know enough well enough to not have to ask where we are from and where we are going next. And it will be nice to be able to put toilet paper in the bowl again.
This week we…
Stayed
· At the Rado H in Santiago. The 'H' can stand for hotel or hostel, or whatever you want it to mean". Hmmm - more form than substance, but great location, clean and modern and nice roof terrace.
· At La Bicycelta in Pucon. Owner was totally amazing, his 3 month old puppy even more so. I asked if we could take him home, but was told he came with 2 kids thrown in, so we had to leave Oi behind.
Ate
· At a Urugarian steak place in Pucon. So Jon not only got to go to Montevideo, he also got Urugarian steak. Wrapping up all lose ends nicely…
Learnt
· Even at the very last moment South American taxi drivers can shock you. Our last taxi driver who picked us up from the centre of Santiago didn't know where the airport was. I didn't know exactly where the airport was but even I could see the sign off the motorway with a picture of the plane on it. He didn't, drove right past, and then had to stop and ask for directions on how to get back there.
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