“So are they fiberglass or aluminum?” the American hostel owner with legs like tree trunks asked me. “Oh, they are fiberglass,” I replied proudly, knowing also that the flysheet was polyester, the weight was 3kg, the front door was fitted with no-see-um fine mesh and the window was PVC. With little experience of camping, I had decided that before stepping out into the wilds of Patagonia I should at least do some tent research and after much trawling through Santiago shopping malls, I felt confident I had brought the perfect tent. The American man continued, “you have fiberglass poles? Oh, they’re just going to shatter”. Possibly not noticing my crushed expression he ploughed on “yeah, with the kind of winds here, you should only be taking aluminum. Fiberglass poles will snap like twigs.” He added an
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