fixing Santa´s sleigh

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There are allegedly many things to fear in South America; spiders, diseases, strange people, mugging, falling off mountains etc. But the only thing we have come to fear is the magic hammer; “el martillo magico”. Unlike Thors hammer, which I believe was used to protect the common good, the magic hammer is eeeeevvil. It is a time-tested fact that however comfortable your accommodation and cozy your bed, however tired you are from the night before, however far you are from civilization, the magic hammer will find you at 8am in the morning. Pucon was no exception. Day two and it found us - waking us with a jolt at 8am to the sound of a pneumatic drill outside the window. The move to Landhaus foxed it for a couple of days - ha we thought, but no, it was waiting for us back in Pucon on our return. It has followed us throughout South America and is actually there outside the hostel now as I type this. There is no respite.

In a bid to escape el martillo magico and its incessant thumping, we fled across the border to Argentina and a place called Bariloche. The glaciers and mountain making forces are no respecters of international boundaries and so the Lake District covers both Chile and Argentina. This town is a lot bigger but also a huge tourist resort apparently for Brazilians who come here to see snow because they don’t get it at home - ahh bless. Bariloche is famous for chocolate - everywhere there are shops making and selling the stuff, and people come here and buy it by the bucket-load.

Arriving at the hostel (La Pastorella) I had booked we were less than pleased with our room (there is definitely a pattern here!) but couldn’t move that night. So we went and drowned our sorrows in lovely frozen margaritas in the local Mexican restaurant (Dias de Zapatos).

We stayed a few days here and went on a couple of the standard tourist items; going up a mountain in a cable car to a revolving restaurant for a theoretically fantastic view thwarted by not being able to see more than the end of your nose (no comments please) because of cloud. We had been so lucky with the weather in Pucon that this horrible wet rainy cold stuff was not to our liking at all. SO we went around and around in this restaurant in the cloud until we had finished a bottle of wine and staggered back to the cable car to go down without doing any of the intended walking. This weather lasted a couple of days but then it improved and we got to see Volcan Tronador and its strange black glacier which was fun and interesting but we were on a tourist trip and it was like being on one of our usual holidays where you are herded around for three weeks like cattle, getting off the bus to see such and such a sight for five minutes just as three more full coaches turn up to do the same thing. However are we going to be able to go back to normal holidays?

We also went to the best hotel in Argentina. Called the Hotel Llao Llao (pronounced jao jao over here in posh castillano-speaking Argentina). This place is in an amazing spot with fab views and fab rooms and fab everything and, wait for it, a golf course (drool drool). No I didn’t get to play, they wouldn’t have let me on anyway. But we did have high tea with a great view over the lakes. We also got our picture taken doing so by the waiter…ummm. Not worthwhile. Waiters should be sent on compulsory photography classes, they cannot compose a shot. Alright its not their camera, alright they are taking a dark subject against a light background, alright they cant be expected to frame the happy couple and the view in one shot. But they could try a bit harder. Oh god I sound like my dad! I don’t bloody believe it! (respect pops)

After deciding that we liked it here, we arranged a Spanish school for two weeks later in the year. Yes things have got that bad, seven months in and although we get around pretty well I would not say that fluency is the word, more like fluke-ily - if there were such a word. This must change before we get to volunteering again in Jan. We also organized a cabaña to stay in which is overlooking the lake and mountains in the distance. So we will be returning to Bariloche.

The posh way to go back to Chile (as we have to be back in Santiago in a week or so to get to our yacht on the Caribbean the week after - darhlings) is called the Lakes routes (http://www.lake-crossing.com/)and is a combination trip of coaches and boats through the spectacular lakes and mountains in this area. It costs a fortune in relative terms, but we decided to go for it as its one of the things “to do”. As it turned out it was fabulous with great views etc, but only because the weather was fab. Again we were herded around like sheep and we are just not used to this anymore. There were a group of new Zealanders in their golden years, who were amazed to hear we were traveling on our own and asked how it was possible to do it like this. There were the troops of giggling Chilean schoolgirls, each carrying their own personal box of chocolate in the shape of a hansel and grettal house which must have weighed 5 kilos, sneaking out for fags every so often, and ignoring the scenery in favour of telephone calls or text messaging. The guides themselves were the real problem, saying things like “if you are not under the protection of a guide, then…” get stuffed and sort yourself out, the subtext being that then you should be because its dangerous out there...not. So we were the last on the bus, left to wait for the next boat or to get through customs etc while the tours groups got ferried through first. I don’t mind this per se, because we can manage ourselves, it’s probably bothering me because one day this will be me - NO!

All this aside, the views of Volcans Tronador, Puntagudo and Osorno were well worth it. If the weather had been bad it would have been a hideous experience. Luckily we had looked at the forecast days before and decided which day would be best and waited to buy tickets.

The trip across the lakes finished with us back in Chile at Puerto Varas. Straight to our hostel - I got this one right hurrah (the Outsider, small and good) we immediately bunked down for the night exhausted as the trip had taken over 15 hours. Next morning we breakfasted and thought perhaps we would relax that day and do a bit of internet, chill etc.

But that was without reckoning on our hostel host Arvid. Aka Uncle Arvid, he adopted us and a rather dull German couple for the next three days and took us on magical mystery tours around the countryside in his truck. He spent most of the time talking German with the couple so we never really knew what we doing or where we were going.

The first day we went to a place on the coast to see sea-lions. This was totally unexpected - one minute we are walking around a small fish market by a river thinking very nice but why are we here
When uncle Arvid points to a guy filleting fish. Sitting beside him is an enormous sea-lion waiting patiently for the scraps. Looking around we see about half a dozen more of the huge things. Lounging on the dockside, each beside his or her own fish-filleter, waiting for the next morsel. They are particular about it too. We watched as the fisherman offered a piece to a sea-lion, only to be met with a definitive shake of the head - she didn’t want that bit! Other parts like fish heads are devoured with fervour, the fish bones crunching as they chew on the head. This was followed by a trip to a botanical garden which reminded us of Kew with many trees from around the world., including an English oak. They have oaks here but they aren’t the same and I’ve been missing the English version.

The next day it was up with the lark to go on a walk in the forest to see 3000 year old Alerce trees in a region of cold rain-forest. There seems to be several varieties of rain forest on this continent, one for each type of climate they have, and this is the cold version. Its still rainforest, after all they get nearly 6000mm of rain a year here. UK average is about 1100mm. Sure enough while we were there it rained, all day, and hail the size of marbles to boot. As we got to the park - well where we could park the car - of course the old approach walk came into play (see last week!), we discovered we had a flat. We then discovered that Uncle Arvid had bought a fancy off-roader but was clearly not mechanically minded and the useless German was no better, so yours truly put his engineering head back on to figure this one out, with Claire contributing significantly from the sidelines. Now I'm a pretty modest bloke and never blow my own trumpet - but if we hadnt been there, they still would be now, sitting 40km from the nearest civilisation, scratching their collective heads.

The next day it was up with a lark that gets up even earlier than the one the day before and off to Chiloe. This is a big island on the side of Chile where it rains a lot (another pattern developing). We had been here before and my memory if it was a cold wet and rainy place, so I wasn’t super enthusiastic about this trip. However, it didn’t rain and we had a great day and saw some wonderful things. Claire got to go out to a penguin colony and saw Humboldt and Magellanic penguins, sea otters and many birds. We had lunch on a lovely secluded beach only reachable by climbing down the cliffside with a rope and saw the huge leaves of the local rhubarb-like plant. On the ferry there and back we saw seals playing around in the water and a group of pelican flying in a v and very close to the water like a squadron of planes in a ww2 movie. And a fantastic rainbow which stretched from one end of the sky to the other, we could see the whole thing, even where it touched ground (in fact water) and I can definitely say there was no pot of gold at the end - sorry folks.

Uncle Arvid seems to revel in taking his guests out on his trips and has clearly done it many times before, indeed as we left the penguin colony one of the locals waved and shouted "goodbye Santa Claus" as we left. Arvid turned around in his red car, with his white beard and red coat to smile and it hit us; he looks exactly like Father Christmas! This explains a lot.

Its actually quite hard to escape the tours and next day we get taken up Volcan Osorno. I had wanted to do this but the weather had been 'changable' to say the least, but this day dawned a beautiful blue and off we went. Not to the top this time, this requires expensive equipment and permits, but halfway up - and with Claire this time. Fabulous views awaited as usual, you never get tired of this sort of thing. Not content with this, we went off to see a fjord and beautiful river valley called the Cochamo through which Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used to escape to Argentina after robbing banks in Chile. ON the way back we got flagged down by the police - not for doing anything wrong but to give one of their officers a lift back to Puerto Varas. We must all have been feeling guilty about something because the conversation was stilted to say the least and eventually all fell silent for most of the trip.

All this touring has been fun but we havent had any time to eat, let alone down our traditional bottle of fine Chilean wine every evening. Santa (as we now know him) seems to survive on chocolate, hard boiled eggs, and fags. He says he only started when he came to Chile two years ago because they were so cheap (great logic Santa!) but now he's up to 30 a day and going well. So when he suggests picnic by the river he means a quick smoke and an egg! But to be fair without him, his sleigh and his enthusiasm for seeing these places again and again we wouldnt have seen half as much of the area.

And now its time to leave the lake district. We have an overnight bus booked to Santiago, and are going first class. This means seats that actually go flat into beds on the bus - fab!

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Photos

Not much view
getting dizzy in the revolving restaurant

Hotel LLao LLao
waiter cant take photos!

Lake...
in the lake district

Volcan Osorno
I want to climb....I want to climb!

Sealion dustbins
in Valdivia fish market

Old english toffee...
...bloke with kilt on front. you go figure

Comments

[Steve Lou]

el martillo magico
...you are not alone.......