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I've probably choosen the most difficult place to start my last destination (South America)of my travel:CHILE! Already on Easter island i tought;"Oh,they speak quite a strange spanish!" But as I arrived in SANTIAGO it was even worst! "Lost" in the busy and fast living "big city jungle" with a much faster spoken chilenian Spanish.... "Ok,here I'm!Let's take the challange...!" ;-)
I felt much more convertable after I was told by others(not chilenian but motherthonge spanish speaking people) that they also have problems to understand them. "Uff...!"
I spent around 1.5 days(2 nights with nearly no sleep) in SANTIAGO with a little bit of sight seeing(didn't see everything because I allready knew I will come back to travel north)bevore i left on a trip by bus to the south.
I also coul'd managge to send a parcel back home. The situation in the postoffic must have been like a comedy show;but hey,I made it!;-)
My first destination was CHILLAN where I met Verena (I met her first on easter island)again.
After a great "Pisco sour noche"with our hosts from the hostel we started travelling together to reach CHILOÉ ISLAND. During our trip we stoped on different places.
In PUCON we were quite sporty: we did a bycicle trip and climbed up the VOLCÁN VILLARICCA. It was a nice, strenomous dayhike on wich we had to cross a glacier and snowfields while wearing climbing irons and using an ice axe.But on the summit we got the reward of an awesome view over the valley, the lake and all the other vulcanos around. On the way down we had also the possibility to sledding down the glacier on a plastic sleigh.Something we didn't miss...Oh what fun it was! :-)
After it we wen't into one of many natural thermes around Pucon. Our tired muscles really enjoyed this relaxtion.
In VALDIVIA we had a nearly perfect german night while we visited the Kunstmann brewery and tasted us trough the whole menu of homemade beer. The big sized portions of german dishes we nearly swamp and didn't even left a crumb.(poor backpackers were starving...;-) )
Perhaps this was why the waiter didn't charge us for the beertasting?!?
The short trip to BARILOCHE in Argentina was totaly worth doing it! The scenery was stunning and the argentinian beef served with a glas of red wine just excellent...!;-) (pictures will follow after I've spent more time in Argentina in the Argentinian folder)
Via a short stop in PUERTO MONTT to change the buses we reached the island. So far we were lucky about the weather,always following the sun and avoiding the rain.But at the end, on the island it got us and with it our bad mood started...(we tryed to make it better with lots of coffee and cake...;-))
It's a "lazy" island with not much to do on it,except watching whales and pinguins but we missed it just for a couple of weeks. There are a lot of nice wooden churches on the island but we haven't been very intrested in them. So we wen't into the NP. We were told it should be very beautiful. In our case we thought its "quite nice".(At this time we were hardly asking ourselfes if we are already to blind to see new and nice things.But then we decided, as long as the walking times showed on the plates are not simular to our slow walking pace,we are more than fine!;-) )
We collected ripe "myrto" while enjoying the stroll trough the bushes and met cows on the beach.
As soon as we were sitting in the overnightbus back to SANTIAGO our mood started to get better imediately; we knew that soon we gonna have at least a bit warmer climate again. On this ride we had lot of fun and because the "cama"seats were confortable we also could sleep a bit.
Travelling by bus in and around Chile and its neighbour countries is pretty easy!You can reach pretty much every place,you just have to be aware that it might be that you gonna be on a long busride because of the sometimes huge distances.
I'm already out of Chile for more then a week now;Peru!But during a trip through Bolivia I gonna be back in Chile for a short visit at the ATECAMA DESERT and the city of SAN PEDRO. Let's se if I "chakay" the Chilenos then...!;-) ("chakay"is an expression used to ask "did you get it?""are you ok?""dou you understand?")
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